Common Decency

Architectural Review, The, Nov, 2000 by Peter Davey

The anti-public ethos promoted by Thatcher, Reagan and Bush is exceedingly difficult to escape from. It takes a brave politician to be seen deciding to spend money on unquantifiable assets like architecture -- particularly when such investments can sometimes go spectacularly wrong, as they have done for the British government over the Greenwich Dome. But there is some hope, at least in Britain, where numerous other Millennium projects all over the country (AR April 2000), though often marred by procurement systems, may have begun to make the people of Europe's dirtiest and most litter-strewn nation a bit more aware of the public realm.

There are further signs of hope in Britain. A new official report [*] has a foreword by Tony Blair, in which the Prime Minister points out that 'The government is already substantially increasing capital spending. I am determined that this additional money should be well spent, leaving behind a legacy of high quality buildings that can match the best of what we inherited from the Victorians and other past generations ... all of the users of public services, wherever they are, should be able to benefit from better design'.

Fundamental importance of design leadership

In detail, the report identifies nine key attributes of successful new public buildings including the notions that they should 'respect and enhance the location, the environment and the community', 'be attractive and healthy for users and public', and that they should use space, materials and resources with imagination and efficiency'. All excellent stuff. But the other six key recommendations could have come from some kind of drear functionalist handbook written any time in the last half-century: design should for instance minimize waste, provide efficient and adaptable spaces, reduce whole-life costs and contribute to quick, safe and efficient construction. No-one designs to create waste, reduce efficiency or increase lifetime costs. Yet the worry is that because efficiency and speed of construction are easy to measure, such matters will in practice swamp issues less easy to objectify.

Still, it would be churlish to be too critical of a report that calls for recognition of 'the fundamental importance of design leadership'. It will take much effort and patience to imbue public procurement systems with values other than those which have done such disservice in the last three decades. The Norwegian government produced similar proposals seven years ago, and only now is there any appreciable improvement in the quality of that country's buildings. No-one is asking for Manchester Town Hall or Louis XIV all round, but we have every right to expect the standard achieved by Alvaro Siza's university building at Santiago de Compostela (p46) or Helin & Siitonen's Finnish health ministry (p62). A civilized society should build for itself with common decency.

(*.) Better Public Buildings: a proud legacy for the future, PP340, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, October 2000.