N.Z. Institute of Architects Annual Meeting held at Napier, 25th February, 1921.

Progress, Volume XVI, Issue 8, 1 April 1921, Page 177

N.Z. Institute of Architects Annual Meeting held at Napier, 25th February, 1921.

C. W. (Secretary) Bay) J. C. Middle (Auckland) (Wellington) (Wanganui) C. Wm. Spiers (Wellington) (Napier) W. J. (Wellington)(Christchurch)

He may not receive payment of any kind from any one who is concerned in the erection of the client's building, except the client himself. Here arises another question, which is often raised by architects: How far is the client to be humoured in wishes which interfere with good design? This question deserves a paper to itself. The answer turns upon the question: What is good design? My own opinion is that, where the client’s wishes have interfered with good design, the defect is to be referred to the designer. the problem set before the designer is the client’s wishes. It is from these that he must make his design, not from his own preconceived notions embodying some architectural conception. We do not look for draughtsmen’s designs from architects. Taste can take precedence of precedent. The true architect takes fire most when confronted by a problem. It is the reconciling of inconsistencies that gives life to his design. Why should we find the irregularities of old work, the freedom of good classic design, the imperfections in logic of the English Gothic so charming, and yet fear to have in our own work irregularities that have a reason and imperfections that make for comfort? It is seldom that faithful effort to combine good work with attention to the client’s wishes will find that the two are really compatible; but if it does, if tne •architect finds at length that he must suffer opposition, he will be able to back it with good reasons. The architect must, however, be on his guard against falling in with the wishes of his client when the latter wishes to do something that is not decent behaviour towards a neighbour or in the way of evading municipal regulations. It must be remembered that at the back of his mind the owner is relying upon his architect to keep him within limits in these matters. He feels out in consultation how far he may go in considering exclusively his own interest, and ‘will not think well of an adviser who lets him go too far. It is the architect’s duty, in the first place, to see if the object the client has in view can be obtained without encroaching on the rights of others by further study of the plan or by original contrivance. If it is manifestly impossible to do otherwise than wrong, it becomes the architect’s duty to point out to his client that in so carrying out his wishes he would be giving him bad service and that he must decline to do so. Even at this pinch it must be seen that quarrelling with the client is not included. The architect must be reasonable or he is wrong. If the architect is reasonable he must be right; and he is most likely to meet with the respect which is his due and the deference to his opinion which the case demands. Where a client and his architect part in mutual anger, there is ,room for the architect to doubt the ethical correctness of his own conduct.

Ihe question of taking part in competitions which exercised so much the minds of a past generation of the profession has been settled for practice by a compromise. No architect really believes that there is any real ground for the idea of the general public that the best possible design for a building is to be got by making selection from a 'number of designs by different architects. One may say with certainty that the designs are not the best that can be made; for any of the same architects would produce better results if they had an opportunity of studying the problem quietly in consultation with the clients. Nor is the selection that is made at all certain to be the best selection. But, because competitions offer such a chance of a short cut to pecuniary success, there are always architects to be found who will support them, the Councils of the profession have, therefore, agreed to accept, as offering some chance to be productive of good work, those competitions in which the competitors are paid for their sketches, so that they can afford to put into them a proper amount of study. In conclusion, it is fitting to notice how important it is, in order to practice architecture with ethical correctness, that architects should be associated, not only to discuss and elucidate questions bearing upon such practice, but to give one another the support of companionship in sustaining a standard that it is hard to uphold alone. The honourable among the dishonourable is apt to suffer loss; and if we agree in approving of the honourable practice of our profession we had better agree in practising it thus together. This is the reason for professional associations, and it is also a reason why they should not be so wide open as to include practitioners who are unfit or unwilling- to give good service to the public. Membership in our associations should be so obviously an advantage, not only from the professional standing it gives, but from the interest and value of the proceedings, that every one who undertakes to practice architecture will find it important for him to seek membership and to devote himself to the kind of professional service that the association exists to uphold.