THE ART DECO headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) in London’s Portland Place reeks of the Establishment, with the names of all of its past presidents carved on stone panels in the entrance hall, including Aston Webb, Giles Gilbert Scott, Basil Spence, Maxwell Hutchinson and George Ferguson.
Its gigantic bronze doors, officially opened for the first time in 1934 by King George V and Queen Mary, feature a swirl of images depicting London, the River Thames and some of the city’s most famous buildings, as well as people, animals and various modes of transport. It’s so intimidating, you’d almost be afraid to go in.
But a "cool revolution" is under way, according to Building Designmagazine, and it's being led by Dublin-born Angela Brady, who has just taken office as Riba's 74th president, the first Irish person and second woman to be elected to this exalted position.
Brady, who has long shed her “Holy Child halo” from the convent school in Killiney, has already had one of the walls in her office repainted in magenta (“the colour of diversity”), which she also used to paint her cottage near Ballydehob, Co Cork. It’s also a good match for one of her fashion statements – shocking pink lipstick.
The over-used term “mover and shaker” seems to have been invented for Brady. Her first encounter with Riba was 12 years ago when she braved the bronze doors to “complain that it was too male, too white, too middle class for women architects to get a look-in and that nothing was being done to address this”. They made her chair of the Women in Architecture group.
This was broadened to include ethnic minorities and became a “global snowball”, she says. “We put together a modest exhibition with a really positive message that ended up going to 34 cities around the world, including Beijing, Sydney and Los Angeles. It was the most travelled Riba exhibition ever, and generated a lot of dialogue,” she says.
She enjoys getting people to do things they wouldn't normally try, such as drawing and painting. When we visited her holiday home in west Cork, she set up an easel and canvas in the garden, gave us paintbrushes and acrylics in lots of colours, and invited us all to collaborate in painting the scene of a memorable al frescolunch.
With her optimistic nature and infectious enthusiasm, Brady did this on a much larger scale during Kinsale Arts Week last July, when she led the architecture programme with three workshops for kids and adults. “Some of the kids’ drawings of buildings in the town were absolutely superb. It showed that people can engage with the built environment, which affects us all 24/7.”
She’ll be reaching out in London too. “The Riba building is not very welcoming, and we need to change the perception of it being a stuffy old institute, like a church. So we will be making changes to show that we’re the friendly face of architecture, not something to be bowed to. Every Tuesday night, we’ll be opening it up to things that don’t usually happen there.”
Brady recognises that Riba is a world brand that has huge respect; just think of the hoopla around its annual Stirling Prize for architecture. With a dearth of work in Britain, however, she sees Riba members selling their expertise in China, the Middle East, Brazil and other developing countries. She is acutely conscious that her priority for the next two years is to look after Riba’s 40,000-plus members, particularly those in small and medium-sized practices who are increasingly being frozen out of competitions for commissions to design schools, hospitals and other social facilities by the box-ticking mentality of central government and local authorities.
Large established practices tend to get state commissions because they can tick all the boxes required by EU procurement rules. So the state misses out on opportunities for innovation, she says, while younger practices risk being “wiped out” in the process.
“We’ve set up a task force on it, a cross-professional group that includes the best brains in the industry,” Brady says. It will come up with proposals to show the government how it can get better buildings that are cheaper. Then it will lobby hard to ensure the message gets through.
Brady is passionate about the importance of design. “We need good schools to provide the right environment for education, not flat-pack solutions for kids. We need hospitals built for patients, not compromised by politicians’ short-term plans. And the same thing applies to our homes, with the right mix of social housing and truly mixed communities.”
She wants to bring architecture to the people. “If they can love architecture the way I do, then they will demand better design as a basic human need. Good design doesn’t cost more. Politicians and everyone need to remember that if we don’t get the built environment right, it can lead to devastating effects for generations.”
Brady wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that bad architecture was to blame for the recent riots in London. But she says, “One of the reasons for the riots we’ve had is the lack of education and opportunity for all those young people. What we’ve seen here is the wedge between rich and poor being driven down harder by the coalition government.”
Brady Mallalieu, the London practice she runs from home in partnership with her English husband, Robin Mallalieu, has a great reputation for projects with a social edge, notably the landmark mixed housing scheme on Mastmaker Road, near Canary Wharf, where the client was developer Seán Mulryan. It even has a five-a-side football pitch on top of the community centre.
One of Brady Mallalieu’s Irish projects was St Catherine’s Foyer on Marrowbone Lane, Dublin. This 50-bed unit provides a stepping stone to independent living for vulnerable teenagers. Sadly, plans to build one in Limerick, also designed by Brady Mallalieu, fell foul of funding problems.
Other projects in the pipeline include a 31-unit supported housing scheme in Croydon for a mental health charity, and an office building on busy Holloway Road in Islington, for the Murphy Group. It was designed to the highest environmental specifications, with vertical and horizontal “fins” to reduce solar gain, photovoltaic panels and ground-source heat pumps.
Brady is also involved in a campaign to save the Irish Post, which closed recently. "I have lived in London for 27 years and know the Irish community well. The Irish Postholds an awful lot of people together, with its reporting of Irish news and community events to maintain that crucial link with Ireland in the great diaspora."
She does not expect to get any Irish commissions in the near future. “We’re not even looking for work there now, because there are just so many colleagues who have nothing,” Brady says.
She keeps in touch with what’s going on here, however. “What’s good to read is that Ireland seems to be coming out of recession. We need to raise our heads above the water. Positive talk can help and make a huge difference.”
She even finds time to tweet. Follow her packed life on twitter.com/angelabradyRIBA
