‘When budgets are squeezed, the architect’s fee is the first to drop’

This week, Malcolm Fraser, who has designed great buildings in the past and has championed good design, said that his company had been forced out of business because of heavy competition from bigger firms offering commercial solutions rather than fine buildings.

Most of them, Mr Fraser said, were producing bland designs — “validated trash” was the phrase he used — because good architects and designers were being squeezed out of business. Was that right? I asked Mr Baxter.

“I fully understand why Malcolm says that,” he replied, “but it’s not as black and white as that. Some people are prepared to pay for good architecture, but too many see professional fees as an area where they can make cost savings. You have to pay sufficient for any service, and for that service to be delivered effectively the individual you are commissioning must be properly remunerated.”

Most of the best buildings are privately commissioned, small in scale, and often rural. On the commercial side, good design comes low down on the list of priorities. Across Scotland, towns and cities have laid off their architects, relying instead on contractors to produce buildings which meet planning regulations, but have little architectural merit.

Just one city in Scotland — Dundee — still employs its own architect.

“Yes, Dundee still has a city architect,” Mr Baxter said, “and isn’t it intriguing that the one Scottish city that is currently doing the most interesting and dynamic development, and is changing most radically, performing pro rata miles ahead of the others — is Dundee. Rob Pedersen [Dundee’s city architect] is the last one standing.”

As a Glaswegian, Mr Baxter looks back with nostalgia to a period when Glasgow was named City of Architecture, seeing off competition from its snooty rival, Edinburgh, and when the Gorbals area of the city was imaginatively redesigned in one of the great examples of postwar urban development.

He likes to pay tribute to one of Edinburgh’s unsung heroes, Ebenezer MacRae, city architect for 20 years who created social housing, schools and other public buildings — “none of them pastiche, all of their time, but all of them appropriate, contextual, and in good materials. They still stand, robust and beautifully designed. He was a genius.”

Today, by contrast, the criterion seems to be whether the buildings are commercially viable, built at the lowest possible cost, and irrespective of whether they fit in with their environment. Mr Baxter refuses to be drawn on the current controversy surrounding Edinburgh’s controversial “walnut whip” hotel close to the city centre, but he does have strong views about buildings that take account of their surroundings.

“Not all buildings can be signal buildings, or powerful statements, but all buildings should deliver the quality of environment that their users require,” he said. “They should sit within their context in a way that at the very least is polite to their neighbours. Most buildings are the equivalent of urban wall- paper, but they should be good wall- paper, with an appropriate pattern.”

The problem, as he sees it, is that when budgets are being squeezed, the first thing to suffer is the fee paid to an architect. The lower the fee, the less time or opportunity an architect has to come up with an innovative or challenging design.

“There are any number of architects, even in the present circumstances, still producing good buildings,” he said. “Even if squeezed, everyone is doing their damnedest to get the best out of the building. Some rise above their budgets, but it’s a difficult trick to pull off.”

A good building, he says, needs first and foremost a good client — someone who understands what is wanted, and works with the architect to ensure that it is achieved. These days, however, projects are mainly contracted out under the so-called design-and-build model, with an outside company commissioning the design, overseeing the building process and completing the finished product. Answerable more to their shareholders than the public, they often come up with a building that offends as few people as possible, but has neither great distinction, nor sympathy with its surroundings.

“Big contractors will say, ‘Oh no, design and build is much better because that puts us in charge’. But if their motivation is about shareholders and achieving the greatest financial benefit, is that in the greatest interest of society?”

Politicians, he says, are extremely important in raising expectations, He derides Michael Gove, who, as minister of housing, famously said that architecture was an unnecessary add-on, simply a luxury. But he applauds Fiona Hyslop, the culture secretary, for insisting that the word architecture should be used next year, which has been pronounced the year of innovation in design. “Actually having a minister who is an advocate for architecture, and who gets it, is great — bless her for that.”

Despite the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over Scottish building and design, however, Mr Baxter says there is no lack of young talent in architecture coming through. “Our members [in the RIAS] are increasingly youthful,” he said. “We’ve just appointed our youngest ever Fellow, who is just 31.”

So finally, having given Mr Baxter a decent interval to think of a few modern Scottish buildings he would recommend, he reached a decision: “I’m not supposed to have favourites,” he said, “but the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness by Reiach and Hall Architects is my personal ‘best of the best — a very contemporary take on traditional island harbours. The sublime art inside also helps.”

Neil Baxter: Q&A

What’s the book on your bedside table? Flanagan’s Run by Tom McNab (real Boy’s Own story stuff to psyche me up for my Edinburgh Marathon training) Which disc would you take to your desert island? The Very Best of Roberta Flack (includes The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, the “introit” for my civil ceremony) Who would you take on a one-way trip to Mars? No question, my partner Josh (can we sneak Lily the dog in too please?) What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and who was it from? My guru was Sir Robert “call me Bob” Grieve, who had lots of aphorisms. The best of them, and the one I try to live by, was his advocacy of the necessity to “exchange the unexceptionable sentiment for the terror of action” Location, Location, Location or Strictly Come Dancing? Always Location, too many spangles on Strictly Day off: touring a historic house, orin front of the telly? Historic house visit — got to keep moving! Paul Smith or Marks & Spencer? TK Maxx (Paul Smith at M&S prices!) Tell us a secret This is not my original nose!