MODERN-DAY ROLE
ROLE OF
OF THE ARCHITECT
President Addresses Hong Kong Society of
The modern-day role and status of the architect were the broad theme of the inaugural address delivered to the Hong Kong Society of Architects last week by its President, Mr. W. Szeto, B.Sc., M.I.C.E., F.A.S.C.E., A.M.I. Mech. E., M.I.P.H.E.
"The life of the architect is, in the main, affected by three forces-himself as a professional, the engineer and the client, said Mr. Szeto.
"In this atomic age, ours is not the only profession that feels concerned about our status. What others have gained through the redistribution of wealth and social position, the profes- sions have lost. The professional man is now living with a sense of lost inde- pendence and diminished importance and individuality, partly because the concentration of power and of employ- ment is nowadays often in the hands of large impersonal units and little account is taken of personal merit.
"Though admirable in the past, this mode of education and training has proved inadequate in the face of the challenge of the present industrialised and machine age. This has led to Walter Gropius' conception of the Bauhaus a university of design aimed at the co-ordinated training of people possessing artistic talents as designers in industry and handicrafts, as sculp- tors, painters and architects with the object of teamwork in building and preaching a common citizenship of all forms of creative work, and this follow- ed logically by inter-dependence on one another in the modern world.
"We have in Hong Kong a fine tech- nical college turning out very useful technicians, some of whom are finding their rightful places as assistants in our architectural offices. The Hong Kong University has its department of archi- tecture and although it is not fully recognised elsewhere in the world, it is producing well-trained architectural
Mr. W. Szeto, President of the Hong Kong Society of Architects.
"However, these are the basic issues which any
one profession cannot do much about, but it may be worthwhile for us to re-examine the main ingre- dients of our professional status.
was
"In the past when the term architect unknown, the master builder, equipped with his knowledge and skill, was allotted the task of ordering the whole building works. Through a pro- cess of articled pupillage, young men with suitable qualities served under the master and through theoretical study and site experience, they themselves became builders.
THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER
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graduates, many of
whom are now contributing usefully to the architecture of the Colony and helping to elevate the status of the architectural profes- sion.
"These graduates must pass through an acceptable period gaining the requi- site practical experience, before attain- ing the status of authorised architects and there cannot be many of us who would question the importance of this practical training. When I say prac- tical training, I do not merely mean training at the drawing board, but also experience on the building site, etc.
VOLUME 14, NUMBER 5
Architects
"The impact of industrialisation on our profession has been so decisive that the younger generation of architects must be trained in close touch with the building industries and their labora- tories. Wisdom comes from individual experience. Therefore, designing and building, i.e. the drawing board and the job, should be closely related at all levels. Strictly, field practice should not be treated as a separate experience
to
be acquired at the conclusion of academic training; it should be an integral part of the school curriculum itself, and I would be happy to see more practising members open up their portals to young undergraduates for this purpose.
"Such training within the framework of the curriculum would, apart from the obvious benefits to the student himself, give the sponsoring architect the advantage of being able to preselect the most suitable young people for his staff, thereby eliminating the wastage that is the natural result of frequent staff turnovers.
"I would furthermore, make a strong appeal to all members of our Society to ensure that the young architects and assistants who eventually join their staffs are given full opportunity to take a fair share in the running of the prac- tice and of the jobs going on, so that in time they will appreciate the increas- ing complexities of construction and all the other factors that go to make up a successful building. The whole of this practical training should predispose the young architect to think in terms of economy, construction and building techniques.
"I firmly believe that a happy syn- thesis should take root in the academic training of an architect. We are living in an age of scientific discoveries in which technology is a real historical movement, and if 'Architecture is a true symbol of our time' as Mies Van Der Rohe puts it, then science and engineer- ing must be accorded their rightful places in the team work of architecture.
''In this regard, no one will deny that with the great advance in struc- tural theories, the consideration of structure is an integral part of design in nearly every aspect. The architect must therefore be broadly familiar with scientific and structural possibilities if he is to fulfil his role as co-ordinator in the team. He must be aware of the trend of progress and development of the mechanical and structural aspects of building; the use of new materials and new methods of construction; he must know the structural possibilities of concrete and its exciting plastic forms of construction the thin shell, the hyperbolic paraboloid and the folded plate, etc. he must keep him-
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self informed of the characteristics and potentialities of pre-stressed concrete
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