I've been jolted out of my cocoon of pleasant discourse here on A&D, to become all too aware of just what the general public thinks of architects.

Mild animosity to visceral hatred. My discomfort was caused by reading 100 comments from readers responding to an article I’d penned for the Sydney Morning Herald.

The SMH and The Age have run some rewritten ToT articles and occasionally commissioned columns. Saturday's piece discussed whether the recently announced competition for design patterns for medium density housing was a good idea and could be successful. Some text, albeit more concentrated for our design audience, was in an earlier ToT.

Unlike A&D, where readers can write to my email, the SMH sometimes encourages comments from the public on the same digital page, called below the line, or BTL. I was ill-prepared for the response for what I thought was a technical, but reasoned argument. It felt more like standing in the public square and having rotten tomatoes thrown at you.

There were a few positive comments, but overall, there was a lack of support or understanding for architecture, with three particular gripes.

Some appeared not to have read the article

Or if they had, they didn't understand the argument (being kind) or willfully disregarded it (most likely). They saw the writer was an architect, talking about architects, and took exception to the very word, and great delight in bellicose discourse.

My argument was: just because pattern books for individual houses and terraces were successful in the past, that idea won’t easily translate to medium density apartment blocks. I spelt out the reasons why. Lots of comments missed the point by saying, usually from personal experience, how successful house patterns had been in the past. They loved their federation bungalow. They simply ignored the issue with bigger buildings.

Not only does it misunderstand my argument, it also betrays a general lack of understanding of design and housing. For as long as our society views housing as property; not as homes and a vital part of the urban fabric of society, we will not appreciate the role design, and architects and planners play in shaping cities.

Strike one against architects.

Some had a hatred of architects

Whom they blame for the failure and ugliness in our cities. Architects are responsible for every bit of urban blight, so their argument goes. Everything they hate about their environment was architects’ fault. The rhetoric was vituperative. I was seen as defending the indefensible; anything that would remove architects entirely from society was a good thing. Hooray for Pattern Books.

There were comments suggesting I wrote the article to preserve the role, and income, of architects. Neither is the case. Architects will create the patterns and adapt them. In NSW apartments have to be designed by registered architects, an approach soon to be adopted in other states. Governments appreciate the qualities that architects bring to design problems. Not so the public.

I blame architects generally, and the RAIA in particular, for not developing better design education for all. At school. In the media. In government. Do we hear about the value that architects bring to the city? Of design solutions to sustainability and livability? Or do we only hear about self-indulgent gongs for glamour? We need way better PR.

Strike two against architects.

Some went all “argumentum ad hominem”

More simply personal abuse. I was the talisman of city uglification. It got very nasty. But my malignment was tiny in comparison to some of the revolting trolling that so many public figures suffer on Twitter, which I wish was X.

Here it gets quite ironic. The SMH tags me as President of the Australian Architecture Association an organisation dedicated to bringing architecture to the public. We highlight the best in all of the buildings that we show on our walking tours, home visits, and bus tours. It's easy to denigrate, much harder to be positive. But this is our aim.

But some SMH readers, with no knowledge, assumed we were a trade or professional organisation. What’s more, they accused the AAA of doing nothing to halt the proliferation of flat roofed concrete boxes across the cities for the last ten years (not sure why ten, but then a lot of it didn’t make sense).

I was attacked for defending the work of architects. Which is in fact why I write. I’m trying to explain the excellence that architects can bring, within all the disastrous politics that bedevils our cities.

Strike three against architects.

On the whole, a very dispiriting experience, not for the personal abuse, but to realise how viral some people’s hatred of architects can be. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got to wash off some tomato sauce.

Title image: The print version of the offending article.

Next week: The towns with the most modern monuments.

This is Tone on Tuesday #220, 16 July 2024. Researched and written by Tone Wheeler, architect / Adjunct Prof UNSW / President AAA. The views expressed are his. Past Tone on Tuesday columns can be found here. You can contact TW at toneontuesday@gmail.com.

Tone Wheeler

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