Turncoats: Toss Posh Tosh

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• 2016

This debate is one in a series created by Maria Smith, Phineas Harper and Robert Mull. Each is theatrically provocative presenting combative propositions challenging six aspects of architectural practice.

The Proposition

Meritocracy is a myth. At every level architecture is carefully calibrated to covertly and overly privilege the middle class. Faced with declining authority we scrabble to blame architecture schools' detachment from practice, a rising consultant class and cultural devaluation of design but are unable to face up to the reality that our pampered posh profession is simply too privileged to engage with the real world. The struggle for a broader base of backgrounds is not just about architecture's cosmetic inclusivity - it is about its survival.

The Panel 

Lee Ivett founded participatory architecture firm, Baxendale. His mode of practise is intensely generative, developing low-budget socially-focussed projects from scratch largely for working class communties in around Glasgow where he is based.
 
Julia King is an architectural designer and urban researcher based out of LSE Cities. Her design practice is concerned with housing, sanitation infrastructure, urban planning, and participatory design processes mostly in developing countries. She has won numerous awards including Emerging Woman Architect of the Year. She has taught at the Bartlett, AA and the CASS where she recently completed her PhD-by-practice.
 
Igor Toronyi-Lalic is the arts editor at the Spectator and co-director of the London Contemporary Music Festival. He is a critic and curator, writing extensively on the arts for The Times, The Sunday Telegraph, Economist, London Evening Standard and Building Design. He is the author of a report on public art, What's That Thing? (2012), and a biography, Benjamin Britten (2013), for Penguin.
 
Martyn Evans is a man of many hats. He is principally know as Creative Director and king of design at property developers U+i. He chaired the The Forgiveness Project for a decade, is a board member of the London Festival of Architecture and at one time ran the Body Shop’s media strategy. He advises business, charity and government on development issues and read Business at Leicester Polytechnic.
 

Chair

Claire Fox is Director of the Institute of Ideas, which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. She is a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze and convenes the yearly Battle of Ideas festival at the Barbican.

Turncoats is a project by Phineas Harper, Robert Mull and Maria Smith supported by the Architecture Foundation.