Professionalism and architects in the 21st century

The astounding success of UK professionals in the three decades after the Second World War inevitably led to a backlash and political recrimination in the economic turmoil of the mid-1970s. The subsequent rise of free-market economics and the deskilling of the demand side in construction weakened building professionals and left them vulnerable to undermining their responsibility, and assimilation into the supply side. Yet the concept of public good embodied in professional principles of trust and mediation between demand and supply not only endures and remains socially valuable, but also is now urgently required to address the challenges of sustainability. It is argued that construction professionals need to place more emphasis on the public good by creating and sharing an open-ended, disinterested, interdisciplinary body of knowledge about buildings and their use. If the broader challenge for society is to reconnect markets and morals, for young building professionals it is to convert their intellectual capital into economic capital within a relentlessly neo-classical economic environment. Different approaches are suggested that are realistic yet that avoid suggesting a return to the mythical golden age of 1945-1970.