Housing secretary Michael Gove has backed a report which calls for the creation of a new architecture school which would ‘wholeheartedly revive traditional architecture’
The report, published by right-wing think-tank Policy Exchange last week, is authored by architect and critic Ike Ijeh and includes a foreword by Gove. The report calls for the creation of a ‘School of Place’ to focus on placemaking and teach students how to ‘deliver thriving, successful and beautiful places’.
It says that ‘traditional design principles and techniques should certainly form a significant part of the school’s syllabus’ and that the school should recover traditional architecture ‘from the annals of obscurity to which contemporary architecture education has unfairly consigned it’.1
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In his foreword to the report, Gove says that new housing developments are ‘let down by poor landscaping or indifferent or insipid urban character’ and that architectural education is key to improving the design standards and ‘levelling up’ communities.
Gove welcomes the proposal for a School of Place, saying that he is ‘pleased to see this paper contribute so productively to the debate on how we improve our homes and communities’. However, he does not directly address the call for more Classicism in architects’ training.2
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- 1. The report adds that ‘none of the institutional or professional bias that can be said to have been waged against classicism or traditionalism [should be] reflected in either its syllabus or curriculum’ but adds that the school should not ‘outwardly favour and focus on traditional design. ‘Diplomacy is necessary because the unfortunate fact remains that any perceived political bias towards traditionalism would provoke an immediate and hostile reaction from many within the architectural community, as seen by the hysterical response in some architectural circles to the government’s inauguration of the Building Beautiful Building Better Commission,’ the report argues. ‘Moreover, British architects practising this tradition have consistently found themselves marginalised by an architectural establishment whose ideology remains structurally wedded to modernity.’
- 2. ‘Much of the opposition to new housing developments is often grounded in a fear that the quality of the new buildings and places created will be deficient and therefore detrimental to existing neighbourhoods and properties,’ he writes. ‘If a general improvement in the standard of design reassures the general public that this will in fact not be the case, then they may be less likely to oppose it.’
Report Source: A School of Place, How a New School of Architecture can Revitalise Britain’s Built Environment
This paper proposes that the UK government encourages, promotes or establishes a new school of architecture and urban design dedicated to placemaking. The School of Place would seek to ensure that architects, planners and built environment professionals have access to the best theories, principles and most importantly practices that will enable them to consistently deliver liveable, successful and sustainable places that embody the very highest standards of architectural and urban design.
Such a step would be part of a wider government strategy to meet a number of critical political objectives. Promoting a wider understanding of placemaking was one of the key recommendations of the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission’s Living With Beauty report, the political evolution of Policy Exchange’s Building Beautiful programme which calls for the reinstatement of beauty in our urban landscapes.
URL: https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/a-school-of-place/