LETTERS
Ignorant architects
Sir: Your Diary and Gavin Stamp's review of the Vision of Britain exhibition (16 September) oppose the shrill views of Mr Hutchinson to the more moderate ones of the Prince. I leave it to others to decide if Mr Hutchinson's pronouncements are im- maturely juvenile or worldly wise.
Although the Royal Institute of British Architects would deny that their President Speaks for them, it is so because during the two year term of the Presidency the one is inevitably identified with the other. However, in one respect President and RIBA share views in common: neither Speak out about the lack of education in the history of architecture as a root cause of low standards in our national architecture.
Architects receive their qualifications lamentably ill-educated in architectural history. It is clear from the abuse of history In his book that Mr Hutchinson is of this sort, for whom there is nothing to be learned by standing in front of a great building of the past and sketching it, or attempting to understand its role in socie- ty, or capturing the wisdom that it can offer. To the RIBA and its President all this is irrelevant.
This is not surprising. The RIBA lacks a voice even to protest at the loss of some of our greatest buildings (Euston Arch, Coal Exchange, the Firestone Building), and has constantly refused to promote architectural history. It prefers to forget the embarrassing statistic that a large percentage of its membership earn their living, not by building new, but by the adaptation and conservation of the old. Many architects graduate ignorant that conservation could offer a worthwhile career.
We are born in a building, spend our lives in one, and die in one unknowing of its history. Our state and private educa- tional system has no place in the curricu- lum for the compulsory teaching of the subject, and successive Secretaries of State for Education have not considered it at all.
If the RIBA and Mr Hutchinson will not speak up for a subject that cannot be less crucial than say geography, art history or practical art, perhaps the Prince will take up the challenge to propose that from the cradle to the grave we be educated in what covers, protects and surrounds us all our days.
John Harris
16 Limerston Street, London SW10
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