{"id":9950,"date":"2026-06-25T09:45:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T09:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angesfinanciers.org\/?p=9950"},"modified":"2026-06-26T15:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T15:11:13","slug":"theres-no-point-hoping-that-this-riba-presidential-election-can-make-much-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/angesfinanciers.org\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/theres-no-point-hoping-that-this-riba-presidential-election-can-make-much-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"“There’s no point hoping that this RIBA presidential election can make much difference”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Entrance<\/div>\n

History suggests that the upcoming election of a new RIBA<\/a> president will do little to address the issues plaguing UK<\/a> architects, writes Neal Shasore<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It’s time for the biennial non-event of the RIBA presidential election.<\/strong><\/p>\n

By now we’re used to the well-meaning and, in most cases, impressive candidates issuing clarion calls for architects to “take back their institute”, to “bang on the door of government departments”, to “demonstrate the value of design”, to “bring academia closer in touch to practice”, to “embrace lifelong learning”, to “tackle low fees and wage inequality”.<\/p>\n

As if the next president might solve, in a two-year term, questions that have bedevilled the profession for a century or more. The idea invests the office of president with an omnipotence of which other incumbents with that title could only dream.<\/p>\n

\n

Presidential elections by the membership were not typical before 1981<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That old adage, “the definition of madness is doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for a different outcome” sums up this repetitious cycle of anticipation, disappointment and apathy. Often ascribed to Einstein, presumably to lend the inanity some legitimacy, the phrase seems apt here.<\/p>\n

Not necessarily because it’s true, but more because it is an exemplar of what the historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terrance Ranger identified as an “invented tradition”: “rituals or practices which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviours by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.”<\/p>\n

In fact, presidential elections by the membership were not typical before 1981. The oligarchy of the RIBA Council \u2013 invented much earlier in the institute’s history to run it on behalf of the General Meeting of members \u2013 otherwise tended to choose by consensus one among a number of “vice-presidents” to assume the chair.<\/p>\n