The article in the url below raises an interesting moral question for architects, but one that I think can be applied (in different contexts) to any profession:
"Like many organizations in the wake of George Floyd's killing, the board of the American Institute of Architects issued a statement the other day expressing solidarity with protesters — and offering a mea culpa. 'We were wrong not to address and work to correct the built world's role in perpetuating systemic racial injustice,' the statement said. But 'we support and are committed to efforts to ensure that our profession is part of the solution.' To that end, the statement added, 'we will review our own programs' and 'ask our community to join us and hold us accountable.'"
That all sounds fine, on the surface. As the author of the article notes, however, there are ways the (AIA) can easily demonstrate its commitment to meaningful change:
"That's good to hear. So, for starters, how about stop repeating that it's OK by you for architects to design death chambers and solitary confinement cells in racially biased prisons that incarcerate and execute an overwhelmingly disproportionate percentage of African-Americans?"
As you can see, the author's issue is as much with the professional oversight body, the AIA, as it is with architects more broadly. I wrote about this issue in response to a 2015 column by the same author (see Strategic CSR – Architects) and it seems that nothing has changed, as of yet:
"Several years ago, I wrote about a petition filed with the A.I.A. by an organization called Architects/Planners/Designers for Social Responsibility. A Bay Area architect, Raphael Sperry, leads the group. The petition asked the A.I.A. to censure architects who designed death chambers and solitary confinement facilities, which, as constituted and employed in countless American prisons, often function as instruments of psychological and physical torture. As Mr. Sperry pointed out, while the death penalty is legal in the United States, the United Nations and other human rights organizations have determined that it violates human rights. The A.I.A.'s code of ethics instructs its members to 'uphold human rights in all their professional endeavors.' Last year, Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, became the latest among dozens of drug companies to ban the use of its products in executions; and the American Medical Association instructs doctors not to participate in execution and torture. So why not architects, too? The A.I.A. rejected the petition."
The AIA's position is that architects build and it is the owners/occupiers of the building who are responsible for how that building is subsequently used. The author of the article has got that retort extremely well covered:
"Do we need to run the numbers again? Between 1976 and the end of last year, there were 21 white defendants executed in this country for the deaths of African-American victims — 295 African-American defendants executed for the deaths of white victims. African-Americans constitute some 13 percent of the United States population but more than 40 percent of the death row population."
The AIA's intransigence against what is an exceedingly compelling argument may be the result of the current composition of architects, which is decidedly non-diverse:
"Fewer than 3 percent of licensed architects in the United States are African-American."
I don't quite see how the AIA can rebut the core argument:
"… death chambers and many solitary confinement cells … are extreme cases. Architects should not contribute their expertise to the most egregious aspects of a system that commits exceptional violence against African-Americans and other minorities."
As the author concludes:
"The least the American Institute of Architects can do now is agree."
Take care
David
David Chandler
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It's Time for Architects to Stand Up for Justice
By Michael Kimmelman
June 13, 2020
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
C1, C6
