Hands off Architecture! (follow up)

29th November 2004

Today students rallied to defend Architecture at Cambridge. More than 500 gathered at the Senate House. Their protest was directed at the University management's recommendation to close the school of Architecture. This controversial decision cites the Department's downgrading in the recent RAE1 as reason enough to lock the students out.

Speakers addressed the crowd who were lively and high-spirited despite the bright crisp chill. These included:

Celebrity actor and TV presenter Griff Rhys Jones, an Emmanuel College alumnus (1972), who asked why, in the light of our concern for buildings of the past, we can be so cavalier about the buildings of the future as to close the most highly rated design school in the country. "We're in the shadow of Kings College chapel. On a day like today it is appropriate (for the University's senior ranks to reflect on the fact that) this building is an architectural symbol for the University."

Next was Sunand Prasad who leads London practice Penoyre and Prasad, and also has a hand in key decisions and policies through pivotal positions at CABE2 and the RIBA3. Prasad argued that: "You shouldn't have to make cost arguments in relation to key tools of civilisation."

Cambridge MP Anne Campbell is well placed to understand the vital role that the Department of Architecture's research plays in the life of the town. Campbell is at pains to stress the contribution that students make to the city4. She pointed to the popularity of the subject at Cambridge:
"You (the students) are a testament to this fact (that architecture attracts twice as many applicants per place than most other subjects). Students recognise (architecture's) value, and so should the University."

Rowan Moore, Head of the Architecture Foundation, well-known writer and architecture correspondent for the Evening Standard, reflected on how architecture and design have become so central - especially in recent years - to how Britons today see their cities and see themselves. Moore drew on the particular values and qualities that a Cambridge School education implies - a quality he described as its 'cultural breadth'.

Jeremy Till is known as something of a maverick in architectural education, and he and his colleague Sarah Wigglesworth have played a key role in rethinking the dynamics between practice and research. At the same time they have been working to maintain the '5' rating achieved in the 2001 RAE at Sheffield, the school where they are both professors. He placed the Cambridge situation in the wider context of architectural education, arguing that the implications for other Schools are equally serious. In a speech that thrilled the crowd, Till confessed that while he now represents a 'rival' school, the current situation "… is much more important".5

Support for the Department that had emerged from every quarter over the past weeks, spilled out onto the streets today. Cambridge's alumni network delivered many protesters. Some London offices allowed their staff time off in order to join the protest. A fund-raising drive has also sprung up.6

Alumni initiatives including high-level lobbying and letters of protest from far and wide, matched by grassroots student efforts. A CUSU and ArcSoc7 petition to be delivered to the General Board in advance of their key meeting on December 8th has gathered thousands of signatures8 as well as many other academics of high standing from all over the country.9 Design celebrities, leading industry figures and senior academics have expressed their contempt for the University management's decision.10

This controversy comes at a time when architecture and design has never been more popular. At the same time concern for the city and its impact on the environment is acute. As Prasad implies in his speech, no other institution advances the same kind of research as the Cambridge school of architecture into what it takes to make a good city - balancing questions of ethics, sustainability, politics and urbanism.11 Cambridge's commitment to every quarter of this challenge acknowledges that, preparing for the urban future is a key research obligation today.

1 Research Assessment Exercise - a periodic government check-up that attempts to numerically rate research activity in University Departments around the country, in a formula designed to allow for decisions on funding to be made.

2 Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. Prasad is a commissioner.

3 RIBA - Royal Institute of British Architects.

4 For example the curatorial and design role played by a trio of 3rd year architecture students in the current student art show and festival spread across several venues in Cambridge, bringing work from both Anglia Polytechnic and Cambridge Universities together. See reviews in Varsity, November 12, 2004, p25, etc.

5 Further quotes from the speeches available on request from  mjwbarac@onetel.com

6 See www.scroope.co.uk

7 Cambridge University student Architecture Society; see www.arcsoc.org

8 Including architectural legends Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi. Venturi and Scott Brown authored the Bible of postmodern architecture, Complexity and Contradiction, and they are the architects of London's National Gallery Sainsbury Wing.

9 A single page of the petition is crammed with eminent names, including Venturi, Scott Brown, Charles Jenks, Professor Emeritus Michael Podro, Professor Jules Lubbock, Professor Dana Arnold, industry leader Dickon Robinson and others - if you are interested this page can form the focus of a photograph in which students show off the petition.

10 See separate document with quotes and comments from many, including Kevin McCloud, Dickon Robinson, James Soane and Deborah Saunt.

11 A key example of this broad research concern is the department's 'Good City' conference of 2002 at Churchill College, which broad different aspects of this debate into dialogue. One practical application of this stream of thinking can be seen the 'Cambridge Futures' project operating from the school's technical research wing at the Martin Centre.