As campaign group FAF calls on RIBA to address the mistreatment of architectural assistants, architects should focus on changing toxic practice culture, says Sylvia Aehle.
Doreen Lawrence condemns government race report
Doreen Lawrence, whose aspiring architect son Stephen was murdered in a racially motivated attack, has condemned a government-commissioned report which has cast doubt on the impacts of institutional racism in the UK
Last week the No.10-backed document produced by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED) stated that the phrase ‘structural racism’ had been ‘too liberally used’ and that there was no longer ‘a system rigged against minorities’, instead it claimed that geography, family influence, socio-economic background, culture and religion were more likely to have a ‘significant impact’ on people’s life chances.
Pioneers: Then and now
35 years ago, four women took to the stage at the RIBA to reflect on their careers in an event titled Pioneers: Women Architects and Their Work. Jane Drew, Pat Tindale, Elaine Denby and Rosemary Stjernstedt had all enjoyed success within architecture, but each had faced obstacles as women making their way in a male-dominated profession. Jane Drew describes being barred entry to the RIBA Council Club until her husband, Maxwell Fry, resigned in protest. Pat Tindale found herself one of only very few women in key positions at the Ministry of Housing. Rosemary Stjernstedt got a job for the Civil Service, only to then be told her pay would be two thirds that of what a man would be paid for the same job. Entering the architecture profession would have been harder still for women who experienced additional forms of prejudice and discrimination, including women from different ethnic and racial backgrounds and those with disabilities, whose voices were absent from the
RIBA appoints first-ever director for inclusion and diversity
1/1 Marsha Ramroop, the RIBA s new director for diversity and inclusion
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The RIBA has appointed a director for inclusion and diversity for the first time in its 187-year history
Marsha Ramroop, a cultural intelligence expert and trustee of the Institute for Equality and Diversity Practitioners, becomes the RIBA’s seventh director, working under chief executive Alan Vallance.
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The RIBA has faced a string of controversies over ethnic and gender diversity in recent times. Its ‘retrograde’ plans for a cookery class for parents for International Women’s Day were dropped after a protest by architects and its clash with RIBA presidential candidate Elsie Owusu over alleged race and sex discrimination culminated in an employment tribunal.
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