Personality of the year

Since September 2000, Jon Rouse has been the thinking man’s planner, quasi-autonomous regulator, architectural theoretician and all round good egg. More than any other single player on the British scene, he has defined the criteria by which good civic architecture is judged. He is now moving on to head the Housing Corporation, which must be good news for anyone who suspects that the design of a housing estate might be more important in the long run than the design of an office block.

However, we ought to pause and consider why he has beaten such a distinguished shortlist to the most individual award of the night. It is in fact because he manages to combine the intellectual rigour of a professional academic with the indispensable ability to keep people on side, or even to win them over. In other words, he is ferociously bright and utterly unpretentious. One result of this has been to persuade government that promoting architectural quality is a legitimate policy goal, and CABE has helped change the PFI procurement process to allow some autonomy to the design element of consortiums.

At CABE he has presided over a huge expansion of the organisation’s geographical scope, budget and influence. CABE has opened branch offices throughout the country.

It has forged strategic alliances with the Egan bodies. It has been a key player in the great London skyscraper debate, a key player in the attempt to reinvent the standard British house, and a huge influence on whether particular designs are built in the public and private realms. CABE under Rouse has also been a pioneer in what you might call the philosophy of the built environment, most recently with its Housing Futures papers, published jointly with the RIBA.

If you are a close observer of the scene, you’ll know that Rouse has criticised objects as diverse as Leeds city centre, the Meteorological Office, Westminster council planners and, famously, architect Broadway Malyan. The strange thing is that Rouse has managed to do so without losing the goodwill of those he has attacked. Take Peter Crossley, managing director of Broadway Malyan. He was quoted in a Building article last year on the doubling of CABE’s size saying that “it’s impossible not to be impressed by how CABE has risen to the forefront of design standards in such a short time”. All in all, Rouse is a popular champion.