1 Why Do Architects Wear Black? Thinking Beyond the Ethos Trap Professional ethics and the logic of the market - discussing the preparation of students of architecture & urban planning for the challenges of the modern world. I have spent most of the last year away from architects, talking about architecture, urban design and regeneration to politicians, housing officials, planners and developers. I was recently asked a key question. “Why”, she asked, “do architects wear black?” “Well”, I replied, “blame it on their ethos”. We architects see ourselves as creative, innovative, socially responsible and ethically motivated but in conflict with the forces of “bureaucracy” and the “market”. From the outside however, we look like an introverted group, resistant to change and too individualistic to be trusted with management. We seem overly obsessed with the visual appearance of things and, in particular, with trying to please our own peer group. This is a crude description of the architect’s ethos as it appears from inside and outside. It is the dynamics and limits of our ethos that I want to discuss. Ethics and Ethos – some definitions Ethics, “the rules of conduct recognised in certain limited departments of human life”, can in part be written as a code like our Code of Professional Conduct. But parts remain unwritten, they are tacit rather than explicit – they are an unspoken manner of behaviour – the character of the person or group, their ethos. Ethos, “the prevalent tone or sentiment of a community - the genius of an institution or system”, therefore concerns the motivation, character, values and aspirations that bind us together and give us group identity. So our ethos provides us with a code of conduct, a self-image, a sense of what is authentic in our discipline – that which makes a “real architect”. In addition, our ethos supplies us with ways of operating – our mode of thought, for we think like architects and without this we could not do our job. Design thinking grows from active involvement in the physical production of the environment. This engenders a mode of thought that is clearly different in kind to that of a citizen, the non-professional user. This difference of experience lies at the heart of the ethos trap. For us, determining form is a more direct and powerful experience than the recollection of particular places and the way that they were inhabited. In Kant’s terms, our “interest” understandably lies with the insider’s view of the process of making a project, compared with the outsider’s interest in belonging. For Kant, aesthetic experience requires a “disinterested” observer, because aesthetic contemplation cannot be clouded by any secondary consideration. However, the daily experience of architecture is never disinterested. It is perceived by people wanting to know where they stand, where they belong, and where they are going. Karsten Harries uses the ugly word “appropriation” to describe how the environment is interpreted and used. Architects are contracted to design buildings and are expected to have knowledge of how their buildings might be appropriated. But this knowledge remains anecdotal and is rarely seen as a subject for our professional