architecture, profession, need to strengthen

it’s been 50 years Architects Act (1972) It was passed to help build the modern profession of architecture. The architects have made steady progress since then, establishing the value of contemporary design and expanding their professional base. There are now about 1,26,000 registered architects, with about 10,000 new registrations every year. However, instead of eroding confidence and success, architects are faced with the same dilemma they faced 50 years ago: the profession is not yet recognized in its own right, a bitter rivalry with its engineering cousin. low professional fee structures, protection from poor market forces and confusion about the way forward. Equally puzzling solutions have been proposed and seem to be going a way. There are many people who want to find a legal way, amend the Act and demand that the state further protect this profession.

the legal way sucks

If history has any lesson, it is the opposite. Acts do not guarantee excellence. Choking rules are reversed; Market forces are powerful and can counteract the barriers of competition. In this context, taking the legal route to meet the majority of challenges would be unproductive and futile. Instead, architects could do better if they abandoned archaic notions of a ‘profession’ built on narrow jurisdictional boundaries and focused on broad-based practice, investing in internal cohesion, and improving professional ethics and quality of services. Do it. The road to achieving a professional ACT in architecture was not an easy one. Architecture emerged as a distinct profession and formed an influential association in the United Kingdom in the 19th century, but not in India. There were not enough architects or institutions to ensure parallel development. The first national level association of architects was formed in 1929 with 158 members, many of whom were in Bombay. When commercialization gained momentum after independence, and professional laws such as the Dentists Act in 1948 and the Indian Medical Council Act in 1956 were passed, it encouraged architects to revive their demands and struggle; He finally got his act in 1972.

The architects saw this act as necessary to differentiate them from those offering professional services and engineers. However, the government was unwilling to accede to their demands and refused to provide architectural services only to architects as it found many building services overlapping with those of engineers. The government only accepted to protect the title of ‘architect’, which can only be used by qualified and registered professionals. Since then there have been complaints from architects.

Commercialization is the monopolization of services provided to those seeking specialized knowledge. Eliot Friedson’s definitive work on professionalism justifies it as an organized theory of the division of labor and argues that such a monopoly is needed because professionals acquire, govern and develop a specialized knowledge that society need to Architects who enthusiastically subscribe to this idealized view overlook three key facts. First, a profession has no intrinsic privileges, but is only secured through state-backed legislation. Second, in the Indian context, the profession was not free from competition, and the debate has not stopped. Third, more importantly, the ground conditions have changed over the past three decades, and as a wider consumer of professional services, the market has established itself as the leading custodian. It now has the power to remove any barrier to competitive procurement of services.

state view

State support for businesses, which is crucial to legitimizing claims of monopoly of services, has been neither unconditional nor stagnant. Its view of the public good has changed and is currently linked with that of the market economy. Big corporates and the building industry want competition and low fees. As patrons and powerful clients, they can ignore the provisions of the Architects Act and the protocols that come from here. In addition, they prefer to hand over projects to consultancy firms that provide complete services, including design and construction.

More than any profession, dependence on the market and the state has divided architects into disparate groups. Using the categories described by Michael Reid, a scholar of organizational analysis, one can identify a dominant group of independent architects with the influential elite and their minority group of large firms on the one hand and medium and small firms on the other. The elite sees the market economy to their advantage and supports competing demands. They thrive when steep entry barriers, such as high business requirements imposed by the state and private firms, keep many small and medium firms out. This inequality cannot be addressed through legislation, but can only be imposed through professional collectives.

Read also | It’s Time for an Architectural Revival

a blueprint

The profession can strengthen itself in three ways. To begin with, it should immediately abandon 19th- and 20th-century definitions of profession that depended on carving out particular jurisdictions. Architects must reimagine their profession as part of a system of practices that draws strength from related building services such as building science and project management. It will do a better job of building a coalition to build professionals, enhance their collective relevance and increase bargaining power. The second aspect is to help small and medium firms by lobbying to remove the serious entry barriers that deprive them of projects. The third method is equally important. Strengthen what Friedson calls the ‘soul of the profession’ by focusing on ‘practice and institutional ethics’, which enhance the quality of services. If any amendment is made to the Act, it should acknowledge the changed circumstances of practice and enable nexus between businesses.

A. Srivatsani Professor at CEPT University, Ahmedabad. Views expressed are personal