Prominent architect Elsie Owusu outlined her views on how diversity had appeared to take several steps back in recent decades when she spoke at EGi’s The Diversity Battle event last night (13 September).
Speaking to delegates at the Not Just Another Property Event panel, held at U+I’s Horwick Place office, SW1P, Owusu said that, in her view, while progress on diversity had appeared to advance in recent years, in retrospective it had gone backwards. Her experiences with the Royal Institute of British Architects were used as an example.
“When we started the Society for Black Architects, we also had Women in Architecture and Women in Environment – all these radical groups. One person at RIBA told me: ‘We are a big tent – come in, we’ll set up an umbrella organisation and we’ll fight for change.’
“And what could have sounded better? But 25 years later, you realise it is a sort-of Orwellian interpretation of change – which is actually no change. All that radicalism and dynamism was captured and submerged in the organisation.”
Two steps back
Owusu pointed to statistics from the Design Council showing that when the Society of Black Architects was founded in 1993 (of which she was a founding member), 2% of registered architects were black women. The figure has now dropped to 0.9%.
“It has [therefore] gone back by 55%, from a very low base. That shows the loss of talent and potential in the profession,” she said.
On the other hand, she noted that while the drop-out rate in architecture for women remained high, it is “not as high as it was”.
She added: “There is a noticeable increase in women into entry-level and mid-career positions, but attrition rates are still high.”
‘Carry On… Up the RIBA’
Owusu outlined what she had learned as the former president-elect of RIBA – which she described as “retrogressive” and “a gentlemen’s club”: “I thought that if I told them nicely that [what they were doing] was not the right thing to do, they would change their policies; but that’s not what happens. You get pushed back.
“To begin with, you think perhaps they don’t understand what you are saying. But then you realise you are in a proper battle, because change is a challenging process.
“Making change is difficult and uncomfortable, [but] it’s sometimes very funny. After the past four years, I now think of it as ‘Carry On… Up the RIBA’.
“English gentlemen of a certain class relate to women as their sisters, girlfriends or even ‘matron’. It is extremely annoying but also very funny when you pull back from the situation.”
She added: “You can adopt strategies to make things happen, but the most creative things are fair exchanges of views. As an architect, you want to practise your trade.”
Try out the Ferrari
In terms of diversity and RIBA’s potential to effect change, Owusu likened the organisation to “having a beautiful, well-honed Ferrari and keeping it in the garage” – in reference to scenes from 1986 comedy film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
She said: “RIBA is potentially such a powerful instrument. Let’s take the Ferrari for a drive and see what happens.”
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