26 August 2022 · By The Secret Architect

Following Muyiwa Oki’s victory in the RIBA presidential election, we had drinks to celebrate what we each felt was ‘our win’, says The Secret Architect

Are you ever mid-conversation with someone and suddenly a chasm opens up, and you realise your lives are terrifyingly, inescapably, laughably far away from each other?

Not just a bit out of sync, like they think 90s fashion counts as vintage, or I won’t learn choreography with them ‘for the internet’. I mean they were a babe in arms when I started my undergrad degree, or that he repaid his mortgage when I was six. I’m not queuing up for a hip replacement yet, but this week I found myself plunging into a conversational abyss, limbs flailing like Kim Novak in Vertigo.

We were sketching different façade options, as you do, and the Part 1 drew a concave precast panel, extruded vertically and left uncapped to create a fluting, crown-like silhouette. I suggested we looked at Nottingham Contemporary (circa 2009).

She had no idea what I was on about. Not Mr Caruso, not Mr St John, not the origin story of bronze curtain walling. Nada. The reason? She was nine years old at the time, 14 when they won the Stirling Prize. It’s just not relevant to her. Lucky us: one of the practice directors wanders past as we’re Googling ‘architecture crowns’. He stops dead in his tracks and says ‘Oh, William Van Alen? Love it!’ We pause, smile blankly with just our teeth, then Google again. Oh, the Chrysler Building, right. ‘Omg, I LOVE IT!’ she half-shouts and writes something in her notebook. Shoe, meet the other foot.

Now it’s great that not everyone references the same things, but I kind of thought I was current ... All this Googling around has just highlighted that, thanks to the ever-increasing pace of change, we are all equally far away from each other, as likely to fetishise the perfect business card font as we are to communicate via self-deleting videos.

Then, earlier this month Muyiwa Oki became the youngest person elected to the RIBA presidency. It’s somehow brought together two hoops of a Venn diagram I never thought would touch: social media activists and people who pay for RIBA membership. Oki, at 31 years old and a self-proclaimed ‘architectural worker’, appears to stand in the political sweet spot for this role, the pin holding together conversations about fair conditions, equal pay and the social relevance of the profession.

Now the haters will say it was only a four-point marginal win, in a vote where less than an eighth of the eligible cohort bothered to show up.

I’d argue this is really an indication that the RIBA is less of a relevant, thrusting organisation, more of an endorsement badge which practices wear to make themselves seem friendlier to private house clients. I’m sure we’re also aware that marginal differences in voter turn-out could have left the RIBA in the hands of the continuity candidate from Allies and Morrison. So let’s not pretend the journey is over.

Yet, this is an exciting shift towards reclaiming the middle ground, fostering conversation, distributing power (and earnings) fairly. We all thought it was going to be Employee Owned Trusts, until the pandemic revealed they still prioritise redundancies from the ‘architectural worker’ cohort, never the increasingly bloated ‘Board of Trustees’.

It’s also unlikely to be flexible working – the cornerstone of sustainable, equitable and diverse practice that has been redacted faster than one of those ads for underpaid architecture jobs lately called out in a Twitter storm.

So, yes, we still have generational gaps in culture, politics and earnings. It takes time, empathy, persistence and not a small amount of conceding ground from those of us with more than our fair share of power.

Still, following Oki’s presidential victory, we had drinks round the office ping-pong table to celebrate what we each felt was ‘our win’.

No pressure on him, but now we’re facing roughly the same direction, maybe we can make real change.

Tags Muyiwa Oki RIBA Presidential campaign The Secret Architect

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