Goodwin’s appointment reveals little has been learnt from the crash
January 24th, 2010
The news that the disgraced former chief executive of RBS, Fred Goodwin, has been given a berth at architecture firm RMJM is strangely delicious, like hearing the school bully, who is still treated with respect by too many, has turned-up wearing a BNP badge.
RMJM are, to me, already the epitome of what the ruling business establishment wants from “architecture”. They represent architecture as pure business model, with its crafts base and ethical sense subservient to the business interests of its corporate clients and its production line outputs glammed-up by high-art marketing -– RMJM have already provided a home for architectural “terrible enfant” Will Alsop’s celebrity shape-making bling.
There was a wonderful symmetry to this RMJM/Alsop dream-teaming, and I thought it lacked nothing until I heard this. Of course! What was missing was the application of some neo-liberal financial speculation, leading to proposals for an excitingly-whacky Dubai Formula One business center in every town …
What a fine exemplar of our failure to learn from the 2008 crash, and our monumentally daft hubris over our relationship to our built environment and the world as a whole -– oh, how I tire of those who tell me that “we just need the confidence back”!
So while my heart goes out to my friends who work down the mine at RMJM, and I fear for the application of the RBS business model and the final trashing of a once-great company, I do so enjoy the brazen effrontery of it -– it’s helpful to get these things out in the open.
I’ll try not to think what might happen in the second great crash -– will I have to pay vast RIBA subscriptions to bail out Alsop’s pension?
Instead, I’ll enjoy the sight of turbo-capitalism (on stilts!) eating itself.
Malcolm Fraser is founder of the Edinburgh-based Malcolm Fraser Architects
February 7th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Fred Goodwin should be banned from being a director of any company worldwide. He and his other RBS dirctors should be doing community service for ruining the lives of thousands of pensioners. Does Sir Fraser Morrison come from another planet? Or are both he and Fred cloned humanoids? Hello, Gordon and Alistair. What has Fred got on you? Our morals are in freefall in the UK. Goodwin should be in jail. Nick Leeson did far less and served time four years for an £208m loss (miniscule compared to the value destroyed by Goodwin). if Goodwin had lived in Singapore he would have got 10 years for criminal negligence and served 10 years .. with out doubt.