Setting the scene for the future

Architectural Review, The, March, 2005 by Peter Davey

The magazine clearly had to become international to a much greater degree than it had ever been. From its inception, the AR always carried articles about overseas architecture, and it had a rather small but faithful international readership. It was clear that the best architecture and the most important ideas could not be produced by one country, or even continent. And I very much doubted that it would be possible to generate enough money to make a magazine of the kind that the AR must be by focusing mainly on Britain, which has the most prolific and competitive architectural press in the world. Both the AR's content and its marketing had to change. One of the most immediately obvious alterations was to focus each issue on a particular theme of world-wide interest. This allowed us to bring some sort of focus to the nebulous mass of ideas and projects that surrounds an international magazine. (3)

It was relatively easy to begin to change the editorial content, though there was much to catch up on. Getting the financial side to work was a different proposition, particularly under the dunderheaded and doomed Maxwell regime of the late '80s, which actually attempted to reduce the overseas circulation British Gas didn't approve apparently. Under Emap, which bought the magazine (and the AJ) from Maxwell's wreckage, we have had publishing directors who have pursued sensible international policies, and made it possible for us to innovate (for instance by setting up the very successful ar d Emerging Architecture Awards). (4)

It may seem odd to spend so much time in my final leader talking about the business side of the operation. But there is no point in making a magazine if it does not generate a sensible profit.

What is the character of the magazine that has had to be defended so carefully? Although one of the oldest architectural magazines in the world (it was founded in 1896), the AR has had only 11 editors. (5) I am honoured to be of their company. Save for D. S. MacColl who was in the chair for a short unhappy time a century ago, and the great historian Nikolaus Pevsner (who stepped in while Richards was away at the War), all of us trained fully or partly as architects. So the magazine is fundamentally about place-making and the art of architecture. All the early editors (again except MacColl) were members of the Arts and Crafts Movement and, from the AR's inception, its editors have promoted (often unconsciously) some of the movement's strongest tenets in a continuing tradition.

All of us have been deeply sceptical of the notion that architecture is an autonomous art. It must serve human purpose and be devoted to enhancing life (in terms of both quantity and quality). It is not about fashion, or what Richards called 'in-language (6) and plug-in gimmicks'. Nor is it a branch of the development industry. The chief inspirers of the Arts and Crafts movement were Ruskin and Morris, both of whom were early environmental campaigners: learning from them, the AR has always believed that the world's resources are limited, and that development should respect the planet. Concern for tectonic integrity and for place are other abiding passions: buildings should be constructed right and feel right, and they should resonate (however quietly) in our subjective patterns of the physical world.