What is protest architecture and why do we need it?

I recently visited the exhibition Raise The Roof: Building for Change at RIBA’s London headquarters – a reinterpretation of the very fabric of 66 Portland Place. Visitors are challenged to look beyond the pleasant proportions of the building and connect with the more problematic parts of its construction. Two prominent elements under scrutiny are the Jarvis Mural and Dominion screen, each of which depicts racist, imperialist scenes. The exhibition goes on to explain that such pieces were not incidental to the fabric of the building; rather the building itself was an advert for empire, celebrating the riches of its extractive global colonies and encouraging others to specify the looted resources in their own projects.

People have long been aware of such connections to a murky past, so why is now the time for such a challenging and self-reflective piece of work? One answer is the shift in public awareness of issues such as systemic racism that came in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd in the USA. If it were not for the subsequent Black Lives Matter and decolonisation movements sweeping the world, many such urgent reflections on our environment may not be taking place at all.

Walking from the exhibition to the bookshop, it was not just the anti-racism agenda that appeared to be having an impact at RIBA. With titles in large type on colourful backgrounds, recent publications such as Collective Action, Inclusion Emergency, and Queer Spaces filled the shelves. Again, it is surely no coincidence that such books have arrived – and found an audience – following a period of intense global protest on issues such as climate change, LGTBQIA+ rights and social justice.

Protest can be thought of as a useful ally to the architectural community, in that it is able to make rapid progress on issues that may be too complex or systemic to address in the ordinary course of events. When societal norms shift following a wave of protest, however, the change can be consolidated through new guidance documents, legislation and publications.   

But if protest is so useful to the architectural community, what can be done by architects to support protest? An emerging discipline known as ‘Protest Architecture’ aims to provides an answer – and gives the title to my new book.

Protest Architecture describes the use of structures and architectural design to facilitate civil resistance. Examples range from bamboo ‘beacons’ that use tensegrity principles to the open-source design of protest towers made from CNC-cut plywood. Likewise, urban design can influence the outcome of protest marches, and protesters can occupy civic buildings to subvert the symbolic power vested in them.

Architects can use their skills to conceive elegant structures that capture the spirit of a protest movement. They can elevate protesters at height, in structures that offer complex challenges for the private security or police removal teams that are tasked with removing them. Sometimes architectural skills might be deployed to overlay satirical temporary ‘retrofits’ that subvert the symbolism of an existing building.

So successful has been the rise of Protest Architecture that the last UK government attempted to outlaw its use, creating a series of new laws that clamped down on its implementation. Lengthy custodial sentences have been imposed under the new legislation, including for civil engineer Morgan Trowland, who was sentenced to three years in prison for occupying London’s QE2 bridge with fellow climber Marcus Decker.  

But governments and legislation are subject to change, and it seems that to new wave of architectural protesters are only strengthening their resolve to push forward with their agendas. These include creating new models of architectural education, such as the Anthropocene Architecture School, the establishment of new unions for architectural workers in UWVSAW, and grassroots professional networks like ACAN, Black Females in Architecture and Future Architects Front.

Protest has always had a distinctly spatial quality; just look at any example, from the barricades of the French revolution to the informal settlements of the Occupy Movement – and the location of anti-immigration rioting and counter-protests in recent weeks. For as long as protesters interact with the built environment, architects will find a useful role among their ranks.

Nick Newman is an architect, co-founder of Studio Bark and author of Protest Architecture.

Protest Architecture: Structures of Civil Resistance (RIBA, £34) is available from the RIBA Bookshop