THE SIXTY YEAR GAP

A group of distinguished architects write down a version of the education that they experienced thirty years ago (because it did them well). This is called the RIBA/ARB criteria. It inscribes fixed values for students to reproduce in thirty years time when they are leaders of the profession. That is a sixty year gap.

The criteria demand knowledge, and this knowledge needs to be displayed through the production of objects that resemble buildings. Although these objects may look different from school to school (hence the oft cited idea of plurality in education) they follow the same pattern of students following tutors down orthodox paths.

Most worryingly the criteria describe a fixed view of what architecture may be – and in so doing describe something that is not architecture. Because the future of the profession is a moving target.