Richard Francis-Jones: The People's Architect?

Triumph of Richard Francis-Jones

I am proud to say that my dear old friend Mr Richard Francis-Jones (old Hyphen Jones, as we knew him) has been elected President of the New South Wales (NSW) chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA).

Let's be clear. I know that Hyphen Jones is a fine architect, a brilliant professional, and a dazzling glitter-ball in his occupation. The only thing I question is that he is a ‘man of the people’. (I speculate on architecture's dislike of humanity here.)

Richard Francis-Jones: President of the NSW Chapter of the RAIA

Dick and I were great mates back in the early 1980's. We attended architecture school together, at the University of Sydney. Dicky was several years behind me in school, and certainly a much better designer. There is no doubt that he is one of Australia's greatest architects, a brilliant administrative mind, and an inspiring and charismatic organiser. I have no doubt that he brought incisive leadership to an organisation not usually noted for its direction or purpose.

After I moved into academia at the same school, I remember lecturing him in the very subjects that he has made his own as a prophet of sustainable design: thermal studies, acoustics and lighting. At the time he did not appreciate their worth. I recall that, in the callowness of his youth, he derided these very same subjects: ‘useless’, he called them. You cannot imagine the pleasure I have in seeing Hyphen Jones embrace with ardour the very disciplines he held in contempt only a few short years ago.

I went on to a strange career in sociology and computing. Hyphen Jones followed an arrow-like path to the very top of his profession. Today he is a partner in one of the most high-profile firms in the nation, Mitchell Giurgola & Thorp Architects (MGT), a veritable Versace of Australian architecture.

Hyphen Jones is the winner of numerous awards, and without a doubt an ornament to his profession, a nova in the dark firmament that is otherwise Australia's architectural occupation. I am hopeful that in a few short years he shall be the recipient of the Nobel prize of architecture, the Pritzker Prize. However, I do take issue with one or two things that have been reported about Hyphen Jones. Shall we continue?

The people's architect

Panegyrics about Hyphen Jones are not hard to find. Just a quick tour of the Net revealed this typical praise:

I comment on the self-indulgent attitudes of the frappucino set to energy conservation here. It would seem that Dick is a man of the people, the gift of the Australian architectural profession to the average Aussie. The Dickmeister's latest crusade on behalf of the architecturally handicapped involves bringing the gifts of his profession to the average Aussie in Sydney's sprawling western suburbs. In this vast area—almost 8,000 out of Sydney's 11,000 square kilometres—incomes are not often above the average and homes are marketed as ‘affordable’. He believes that this expanse of weatherboard bungalows and three-storey walk-ups has:

I worked in one of these very suburbs over the summer of 2001-2002, ploughing away on yet another daft IT project. The area was a mixture of light industrial and residential. I'd say that incomes were in the lower quartile. If there was an architect inspired home here, let alone an architect designed one, I never saw it. The same went for the factories, the shops and the other commercial buildings. Hyphen Jones is right: there is no great architecture to be found here.

But I'm not at all sure that people here (known both pejoratively and affectionately as ‘Westies’) are unhappy because of that. This is no hell-hole ghetto. This is perfectly average lower-middle class suburbia.

Different tastes

I didn't think the homes in this area were very attractive, but that's just my taste. I wouldn't want to live there: I'm an inner-city kind of guy. But then none of the people in that suburb would like to live in mine. The houses I saw when I arrived from the train station were well-kept, neat and trim. The streets were much wider, the graffiti less obvious, the gardens bigger and more lush, and the footpaths (pavements) a lot cleaner than in my own suburb; in which a tiny terrace is twice the price of a large cottage here. Two suburbs away you could find a significant drug problem, but then the same applies to my own inner-city 'burb.

People's architect or prophet of the rich?

I worked in an industrial environment, and many of the people in the room in which I slaved away lived in the area. I'm sure that the tastes and likes of the people there weren't the same as mine. I watched one or two of the TV shows they chatted about, but most of the ones they discussed I wouldn't be caught dead watching. No doubt they would feel the same about my entertainment preferences. I'd be surprised if they read the same books as I do, or even if books were a big part of their lifestyle, come to think of it. I never buy magazines, so I wouldn't be able to talk about the latest issues I saw popping out of their bags. I don't think many Westies would like my lifestyle, nor me theirs.

I'm quite certain that my temporary colleagues and I did not have the same needs, and that we did not share each others aspirations. I only have the dimmest idea of what these needs and aspirations might be (about them, let alone myself!). So when someone in so powerful position as our Dick implies that they do, I wonder if they know what they are talking about.

The rich never learn

Most architects in Sydney were brought up in Sydney's wealthiest suburbs, children of wealthy families (you want some evidence for that? Check out my book The Favored Circle). Hyphen Jones was bred in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the nation, and spent his whole life in the bosom of the upper-classes. He attended the most exclusive university in the country, and had the resources to sustain a lengthy period in the United States on a scholarship. I would guess that his partnership in his firm nets him an income four times the size of any of the people to whom he wants to bestow the gift of great design.

When Hyphen Jones awakens each morn—I understand—he gazes upon a street in which homes sell for up to seven times the price of those of the people he purports to champion. When he motors his Porsche from his expensive home to his downtown office, the trip passes through a belt of affluence. No westies on that short journey. His circle of friends, I believe, is untainted by the lower classes. I should be surprised if he has ever exchanged more than a hundred social words with westies in his whole life. He has spent less time in the lower-class suburbs than the Queen of England has in the Bronx.

Buildings for the people?

Let's take a look at some of the buildings for which the ‘people's architect’ is most acclaimed:

The Scientia Building, University of New South Wales

Without doubt, a wonderful building, and winner of Australia's highest accolade for architecture, the Sulman prize in 2000, and many other awards (that Pritzker can't be too far away, Dicky!). But is this for the people? The universities reproduce the upper classes. About 15% of the Australian population has ever set foot inside a university, and these are overwhelmingly from the wealthiest segments of society. If this is a building for the people, it is for rich people.

Museum of Contemporary Art competition, Sydney

At left is Hyphen Jones's entry for a redesign of Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, on George St in Sydney's historic Rocks precinct, the heart of old colonial Sydney. Alas, he didn't win, but his was certainly a popular design. See any people in this image? Not a one, is there? No depictions of casual pedestrians, no cars, no buses. Only a sculpted monument floating in an abstract landscape. Not that this is unusual for architects: check out the supreme exemplar of this attitude, the Phaidon Atlas of World Architecture.

The area is in fact one of Australia's major tourist precincts. Rather than the bloodless area you see pictured here, the Rocks is teeming with life. You can check it out at the Rocks tourist site.

And one statistic. From American data, we find that about half of all people who have a college education attend such museums. But less than 20% of lesser educated people do. In short: Richard's ‘people’ are the least likely to ever drop in on this sort of building.

What do architects really think about the people?

Nothing brings more tears of laughter, frustration, anger and sadness to my eyes more than when well-off and cultivated people from privileged backgrounds declare their intimate empathy with the poor, euphemised as ‘the people’.

Hyphen Jones's assertion to be the people's friend is not uncommon amongst the patrician architects. I think the claim is made genuinely: we need to attribute no hypocrisy to Dick and his friends. Yet when many of these same people cop some less-than-flattering comments about their work, they respond as did Australia's greatest architect to criticism of one of his buildings:

I think that Mr Seidler reveals here the real opinion that the patrician architects have of the people. Much as they may genuinely believe themselves to be as one with the masses, the patrician architects have no intention of listening to ‘insensitive and uneducated opinions’.