THE WORD “ARCHITECT”

by Jowin Foo

Jowin: Hey folks, What do you all think about the word “architect” and the protected word of “architect” by the state? And the function of an “Architect”.

AA: Tbh since I started studying for part 3, I began to realise the amount of liabilities and responsibilities that we have upon our work and I feel that it is extremely valid that the title Architect is protected for the public good. It’s a bit shocking that there are still a lot of people who are not aware that it is illegal to represent yourself as ‘Architect’ if you are not licensed/ registered to the board (misrepresentation). But ofc being a registered architect is not a necessity, many of my senior designers at work are also not licensed so it is completely up to the individual whether they want to pursue it or not depending on their interest and career path. Nevertheless I think the title should remain protected as a legal entity.

SJ: Chartered just means you fancy. pay for RIBA membership... nothing special other than the added word. Part 3 is a higher level of industry knowledge than most EU five year routes. There should be a coherent standard. It’s unfair to study 5 years in the UK only to become a Part 2 in the UK or architectural designer in EU states. Whereas, recent graduate ‘architects’ from EU states can come to the UK to practice, with higher pay. Either protect the title in the UK and everyone needs to sit for Part 3 to call themselves architects in the UK, or give the title after our 5-year route, with it recognised in the rest of the EU.

Icarus and Daedalus by Giovanni David, 1775

HA: I have mixed feelings about it as a term, because I think it’s important from a legal standpoint, but it also makes it slightly difficult for “architectural enthusiasts”. It’s a bit too rigid, perhaps a little archaic and probably needs to evolve with the times. There’s a weird gatekeeping narrative from the industry that makes me think I need to “defend” the profession by saying “oh no I’m not an architect” but I’m getting kinda bored of saying that now so I’ve started to not care. In terms of their function, I think they are still useful and needed as the “conductor” of the orchestra. It’s a complex job, balancing lots of stakeholders and interests, which I really think architects are best suited to do. Of course, not all architecture requires an orchestra, but when they do, architects are essential.

JM: From industry POV, it’s a servicing job. The reality is being an architect could be just a mediator/coordinator to translate your clients’ ideas into construction paper to actualise their vision. But we could also be a teacher or influencer, that being said, we must equip ourselves with enough knowledge, experience and connections first. that’s why i think to be an architect is a slow process

NN: Overrated because, in a global context, the media’s portrayal of the profession and the people, who are the so-called ‘Architects’ and/or ‘Starchitects’ does not give the public the full and truthful picture of the profession. The profession (be it the term we call ‘architect’, protected or unprotected, and the function, locally and globally) has been elevated and put on the spot so highly that it has become an elite society, providing a false illusion to future younger generations that all an architect does is to design skyscrapers, big buildings, makes tons of money or to save the world. It is of course that (or perhaps not), and so much more, but in a humbler position. Architects are not doctors, nor can we say the architectural profession has the same status as the medical profession. Yes, we design and create spaces for the betterment of human lives and more, but most architecture has always (or should) taken a step back, never a forefront; focusing on the subject (human) and never itself. Architecture should be accessible to all, and so should an architect

SS: Compliance Manager.

VN: The word - noun, occupation related to building; the protected word - defined in the Act; the function - depends on context (where, when, who).

R: There is also Meditate architect, software architect and etc. PAM has issued a clarification on this before.As for the term architect, please refer to architect act section 7-10 for details. Architect is a profession governed under LAM & Architect act. There is law, regulation and code of conduct we need to abide by which makes us professionals like doctors.

TL: Many professions have started to ‘misuse’ the word architect. For example, solution architect is totally not architecture related but purely IT

Throughout human history, the new world often comes after society is devastated by either the inhumane war, the unforgiving plague, or barbarism. It became necessary to construct a new image of the world in order to give hope to the people and build the future. It’s a period of time where utopianism is widely practiced and social dreaming is encouraged. The architect was one of the many professions that helped to reimagine new realities. Architects have played a part in various projects of reshaping the collective culture. This has had both positive and negative outcomes. They can be the planner, the executioner, and a political tool at both polar extremes of good and evil. The Third Reich architect, Adolf Eichmann committed murder through the weaponisation of space, Albert Speer created new spatial realities for the Nazi society, Meng Tian planned The Great Wall for Qing Dynasty to defend the kingdom while Walter Gropius strived to spread modernism with the hope to push society to further embrace the ideal future that modernists envisioned... Whether good or evil, these prominent figures are the ideological executioners in a distinct political context with their perceptive vision towards a political future that they believe in.

On top of that, their ability to paint a layer of physical reality onto the operational reality is the tool that a regime needed to re-engineer the social as a whole. These physical realities are the built environments and other physical man-made entities that exist within it. For instance, the founding of the Weimar Republic liberated many aspects of the German’s Social Life and led to a national scale societal renewal giving the post-monarch world a treatment. This has paved the way for the rise of Bauhaus, an art establishment first spearheaded by Walter Gropius followed by a string of notable figures like Hannes Mayer and Mies Van de Rohe. They advocated the making of modern realities through the development of art, design directions, craft standards and production technology. It was not a naive discourse as the movement’s goal was to integrate the establishment principles into every aspect of society that stretched from domestic life to public life- from personal objects to environments.

Howard Roark to the Dean:

“I don’t intend to build in order to have clients; I intend to have clients in order to build.”

Peter Keating and Howard Roark:

It was not necessary to design buildings any longer, only to photograph them; the architect with the best library was the best architect. […] Henry Cameron had nothing to offer against this; nothing but a faith he held merely because it was his own. He had nobody to quote and nothing of importance to say. He said only that the form of a building must follow its function; that the structure of a building is the key to its beauty; that new methods of construction demand new forms; that he wished to build as he wished and for that reason only. […] Men hate passion, any great passion. Henry Cameron made a mistake: he loved his work. That was why he fought. That was why he lost.

These figures not only paint but interpret the ideal new world with their tenets to realise the regime’s narrative. Hence, the livelihood and the destiny of society were determined by the interpreter and we are living in their master plan and painting. Only they know the way out of the cemented principles of life within the “dreamland” of theirs where it can be a form of resistance or submission towards the administration’s narrative. On the contrary, their imaginations of an ideal world can be utilised as a tool for activism instead of a submissive interpretation that provokes an alternate agenda ,which society may or may not favor.

It may not be a tangible project but the intangible ones that emphasised “the architecture of the society” but not necessarily the built environment itself. However, not everyone would view that as an architect’s product because it misrepresents the epistemology. and the related lexicons are used in a different context/branch of knowledge even though it may share similar principles. Some may even argue that this threatens the profession and undermines the word “architect” as well as “architecture’’ with simple definitions. The dictionary tells us that an architect’s job is to design buildings and that an architect is “someone whose job is to design a plan and execute the operation”. The reason behind the obsession to define it with just a singular meaning was due to the declaration to protect the meaning, sole function and the image that is associated with the term. It is a modern action by the elitist to define the status. Leading architects Robert Adam and John Soane in the late 18th century, formed the exclusive Architects’ Club to fight for the statutory registration of architects to define “architect”.

Bauhaus Curriculum by Walter Gropius, 1922

Today, we find ourselves at the crossroads to decide who we are and how we utilise the word architect and define its existential purpose. Some see it as a profession that is more superior than the others, some seek to protect the lexicon while some render such protectionist acts would threaten the development of the school of thoughts. To be fair, such reality wasn’t the direct result of the few European aristocrats but it has been building up from the classical Greek era; where the word “architect” was conceived. The etymology was based on chief (arkhi)+builder(tektōn) and the role was enlightened by Greek philosophers like Plato because of their theoretical knowledge that can supervise the churlish artisans or builders. Some scholars address that the role wasn’t given birth by the traditional route of master builders but the body of knowledge was invented by themselves either by traveling and studying.

The given value of the word was relative to the new-found knowledge and the elites of the era where it embodied a certain level of fluidity before modern institutionalisation. The institutionalisation of the profession was hoped to elevate its status to be comparable to doctors who treat our health or any other science-related career with an agenda that focuses on public good that advocate ethical practice in designing buildings and to protect the function and knowledge of it. Consequently, the protectionist action backfired in certain parts of the world; at least in Malaysia where the act itself has threatened the supposed multidimensional discipline to keep its discourse from developing progressively. The proliferation of the adaptation of architectural lexicon by other disciplines wasn’t a sign of imitation but flattery toward their inability to maintain their prominent ability to provide a substantial contribution to the masses/people. Otherwise, we can hypothesise that the meaning of the architect and its branch of lexicons depends on the generational renaissance, and perhaps the one we are protecting already lost its significance in the 21st century. The world has moved from Bauhaus to California ideology and Post-Colonial Hangover.

Ben Derbyshire: Protection of function for the architecture profession is a pipedream in the current neo-liberal political zeitgeist.

Peggy Deamer: Several high-profile architects in the media recently perpetuate an image of architects as ethically insensitive, competitively destructive, and socially tone-deaf.

Rory Stott: So, with the technical aspects of our profession outsourced to engineers, the managerial aspects outsourced to project managers, and the remaining aspects fractured and broken, what is left to protect? It is no wonder the profession struggles so hard to assert its relevance, and no wonder that attempts to protect the word “Architect” often come across as merely self-serving. Relevance will not be established by institutions building a fence around architecture, but by architects going out into the wider world and demonstrating their value with hard work, delicate skill, and boisterous persuasion.

Rem Koolhaas: Architects are the prisoners of the perimeter of the professions.

Walter Gropius: Only diversities would allow us to find the answers for the new future.

Why are we having this discussion in Malaysia? We wanted to highlight that the personification/ ego of an architect is the product of myth invented by the elite patrons and the knowledgeable few. And the recent debate around the world unveils the inert inferiority of the discipline itself when such discourse often ends up dividing the practitioner into two factions. Cultural elitism is practiced among them to preserve their species and in their epistemological bubble. This worries us as we see it as a hindrance towards the cross-pollination of dichotomies to occur. We think that the idea of professional practice is important here to protect the public from danger but it shouldn’t be the reason why it stifles the progression of discourse and knowledge creation. Besides, the institutionalisation of the discipline and the title Architect in Malaysia was modeled based on western modernity/ colonial statecraft to be part of a verified list of modern states in the past. It was a wet dream for Malaysia to be like the west but it is time to sober up from the hangover and wake up from the post-coloniality. We see the banalisation of the architecture discourse through the institutional values based on the modern period could threaten Malaysia’s intellectual excavation on polarising the dichotomies of architecture into uncharted realms. The rejection of banalisation is important and necessary for us as a nation to find the niche ideals that contribute to Southeast Asian theory. What if the word architect and the myth never existed in the first place?

Not Everyone dies as a hero by Jowin Foo, 2020

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