THE CASE AGAINST THE ARCHITECT SIR.— T o prejudice the livelihood
of another Profes- sion for any reason is deplorable enough. To do so With so little understanding of what that profession IS and means can only be meriting disgust. If the ' article 'The Case Against the Architect' by Kenneth Mellanby in your issue of February 13 indicates the general perception of people who are often heralded as the future hope of Britain, the human people of this island have laboratories enough for their well-
being. Already machines are dangerously in control
431. !flea, instead of men in control of machines.
Would Mr. Mellanby like to step down from his Pedestal and end this unmannered play on the archi- tect's 'mistakes'? Are scientists any more guiltless of mistakes equally as gross? The architect is there to find out the most economical and satisfactory method of erecting the laboratory bench in question. And so, in the long run, he should, and often does, save the client from paying unnecessarily greater sums, even when his own fee is considered. If the scientist is so di advised as to announce that the architect does not know his job, but that he himself does, he is in danger- not only of derision but doubt of his own intelligence. The suggestion that architecture is •a Pastiche which stops with the shell of a building is•
gross misunderstanding of its nature. But fdr me to try to explain its essence. in a few sentences would be both presumptuous and facile. Of course, architects make mistakes, but that is surely due in part to the necessity for them to be not "IY designers, but managers and businessmen, as well as being intimately versed in bricklaying, steel- work, concrete, joinery, structural mechanics, plumb- ing and sanitation, heating, electrical installation, geology, meteorology, sociology, and to a greater or lesser extent—philosophy. There arc many architects who have not the integration necessary to combine the artistic, scientific and managerial demands of their profession, and so rather than architects they should be specialists in one of its expressions. However, lead- ing architects in the public eye and leading archi- tects as known in the profession often are completely different groups of people. Perhaps the public rela- tions departments of architectural powers-that-be are partly in default.—Yours faithfully, *
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