The Power of One (Part 1)
Sun, 27 Jul 2008
“Mr Alexis P Lautenberg, Ambassador of Switzerland and Mr Sunand Prasad, President, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) request the pleasure of your company at the press preview of the exhibition Le Corbusier - The Art of Architecture at the Ambassador’s Residence on Wednesday 16 July 2008 at 10.30 am.”
The Swiss Ambassador’s Residence is a Georgian townhouse in a terraced square in London designed by Joseph Parkinson circa 1813. The marble floored reception is a cool, calm oasis. Design is spare but significant. Corbusier, Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand LC2 sofa and chairs. folding Plia chairs by Giancarlo Piretti. A Corbusier tapestry anchors the far end wall, and an angled glass baluster staircase leads to the private upper floors.
I was invited to the residence for a press preview of the forthcoming RIBA exhibition on Le Corbusier. The Ambassador spoke. The President spoke. We watched a presentation of key images from the exhibition. We mingled over coffee. And that was when I became engaged in a “debate” with the current (but outgoing) President of the Royal Academy of British Architects. He seemed to come out swinging. Maybe something to do with the RIBA leadership contest? Whatever. Buoyed by perfect summer weather, my lovely summer frock and the serene Swiss surroundings, I was ready.
Climate change. Such an emotive subject. It was my use of the “f” word that tipped our discussion from tolerable to tumultuous. The President’s face hardened. “Well I suppose you think I’m facile then!”, he barked. I stretched my left leg as far as possible so it supported my torso like a flying buttress, allowing me to drop closer to his eye level. (Who knew my Charles Jourdan heels would create such height disparity?) Well actually yes, Mr President, I do. It’s both patrician and facile to believe you must witness Antarctic environmental degredation firsthand in order to lobby for UK climate change policy. Why not sit in your London office and get a similar if not superlative understanding of environmental loss by studying the UNEP’s image atlas “One Planet Many People”? Or support the environmental lobbying of The Royal Society? Or here’s a truly radical idea. Instead of a jolly to the Antarctic, why not lobby for change within your own organisation? Censure RIBA architects who work in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Aside from human rights abuses, architecture-led abuses of the delicate ecosystem of the Arabian Peninsula are being built at a rate of noughts in the desert sheikhdoms. But I smiled these last few thoughts. I didn’t share them.
Tactical shift. I criticised carbon credits and complicated personal carbon calculators. (No surprise. He likes them.) I voiced my belief in the power of average individuals to effect mass change. He countered. Climate change demands leadership. (Was this the tone of voice Robert Moses used with Jane Jacobs? Probably.) But I know businesses are attuned to key stakeholders who in turn mirror the attitudes of their customers. If customers are fatigued by climate change, stakeholders follow suit and the business of change doesn’t happen. Worse are the punitive measures employed by central and local government to get the public to pony up to positive behaviour change. Fear and facts don’t work.
But the President was still in pursuit. What did I think of the RSA Arts & Ecology programme? Not much as it happens. I was a delegate at the RSA A&E launch in 2005. Nick Serota, Director of Tate Modern spoke these words in his opening address. “Artists are not environmentalists, scientists, nor doctors. We shouldn’t expect them to be agents of change.” He was right. If we want positive action on climate change, then we the people must be the change. We can’t expect or hope that artists or the President of the Royal Institute of British Architects will do it for us. We have the power. Let’s use it.
Part 2: “The Power of Many” will be published in August.
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