The Royal Institute of British Architects. The name alone conjures bespectacled bow-tie wearing old men sitting around in their palatial Portland Place club, congratulating each other on their latest concrete carbuncles. Allegations that it is a racist, sexist old boys’ club – as a thwarted candidate for a council position, Elsie Owusu, claimed last week – came as little surprise. Of course it is. It’s the RIBA. Its headquarters couldn’t look more like a Masonic temple if they tried.
Except that the cliche doesn’t quite match the reality of what lies behind those big bronze doors. The Institute has a woman president, and has had three women in the role almost consecutively – one of whom painted the president’s office in eye-searing cerise. It has an openly gay chief executive. It runs diversity mentoring schemes, equality and inclusion programmes and a Role Models project which, says its initiator Jo Bostock, “intends to challenge stereotypes about who architects are, the background they come from and the work they do.” If you went through the RIBA’s equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives, you would see that, on paper at least, it’s trying hard.
“I think the RIBA is exemplary in a context where 88% of the construction industry is male,” says architect Holly Porter, who founded Chicks with Bricks in 2005, a network for connecting young women in the industry to their female peers and role models. “I wouldn’t say it was sexist at all, or an old boys’ club. Its track record speaks for itself.”
But that track record, if you follow the sometimes salacious pages of the architectural press, is a big part of the perception problem. Who could forget the time when an RIBA council member referred to Stephen Lawrence Trust candidates as “the ethnics” in an email – then accidentally sent it to the Architects’ Journal? When accused of unacceptable professional conduct, he said: “No evidence at all has been offered to prove that any individual was harmed or that the reputation of the profession was in any way compromised.” He still sits on the RIBA council.
Or how about the time the RIBA president was forced to commission an internal investigation into allegations that its London branch was being manipulated by freemasons? Or when, in a bid to sound enlightened, a presidential candidate once declared at a hustings in front of the Society of Black Architects that he had recently been operated on by a black surgeon – “And, do you know, I didn’t mind.”
Such anecdotes only reinforce Owusu’s claim that racism “goes through architecture like a stick of rock”. A 2012 study found that 94% of UK architects are white, and Owusu says that “it starts at the top with the RIBA.” To many members, the place still has the air of an outmoded organisation clinging on to values from another era.
“Despite the efforts of a valiant number of people,” says architect Deborah Saunt, “it can’t shake off the odour of a gentleman’s club. Enlightened presidents and members have been trying to do a lot, but there’s still that feeling of it being an institutionalised civil service, where certain attitudes won’t go away.” She says many of the younger architects in her office think twice about even joining the RIBA – which charges an annual membership fee of £400 – because they feel it is out of touch.
Owusu says she was shocked by the sexist banter at council meetings, where male members were apparently joking about the current president Jane Duncan being an “Essex girl” – although the RIBA insists it was Duncan herself joking about being an “ethics girl”. One former council member says Owusu’s claims ring all too true: “You wouldn’t believe the kind of comments made at these meetings,” she says. “I experienced casual sexism and old boys’ behaviour all the time.” Others say it’s no different to any other board meeting atmosphere, while some dismiss the claims outright, or say that things have improved.
There have certainly been efforts. Architects for Change was established in 2000 as an umbrella group – bringing together the Women in Architecture campaign, the Society of Black Architects and the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust – to challenge and support the RIBA over equal opportunities and diversity. It initiated the mentoring programmes and role models project, and it works hard to alter perceptions of what kind of people architects might be. Presidents Ruth Reed and Angela Brady both championed inclusion during their terms.
“The RIBA has been very supportive of our initiatives,” says the current chair of Architects for Change, Danna Walker, a project manager at the Construction Industry Council. But I wasn’t surprised by Elsie’s allegations. I know a lot of people who have expressed concerns about issues like this in the profession as a whole – there is still a lot more to be done.”
“I can understand why people think the RIBA is a remote thing, not connected to day-to-day practice,” she adds. “The way we all practice has changed, and we need something to reflect that.”
There are signs that things are moving in the right direction. The new president, Jane Duncan, was the RIBA’s equality and diversity champion for two years before being elected, and her whole platform for election was based on these very issues. “We are currently part of an industry that is neither diverse nor fully aware of the extraordinarily sound business reasons for inclusion,” she wrote. “There remains much to do. You have to drive change … I don’t have very much patience and I like to see things happen.” She has launched an independent investigation following Owusu’s allegations and says a report will be compiled and discussed at the next council meeting in March.
But for many RIBA members, they will only believe change when they see it. A good number feel that it is overdue a radical overhaul, needing to catch up with the changing nature of the profession.
“It doesn’t really speak to its membership,” says architect Sarah Wigglesworth. “Probably because it really is a club for establishment architects, which is reflected in the awards system. I don’t think it has fundamentally changed – I think the whole thing keeps reinventing itself in another ghastly way over and over again.”