Professor Robert Gordon Whittaker AM FRSN FAIB

Chair, National Building Professionals Register
Ceremony: 3 May 2018, 5:30pm - Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building

Speech

May I too begin by paying my respects to the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, their Elders: Past and Present, upon on who’s land we are gathered.

“Pro-Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and President, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President, Director,

Dean of the Faculty, Chair of the Academic Board, staff, family, friends and graduates – I thank you for this great honour – exactly 30 years after my own graduation from this same School and Faculty at UTS.

But Ladies and Gentlemen we are here to talk about YOU, the graduates – YOUR achievements, YOUR success – and may I also say the success of YOUR nearest and dearest whom I am sure you would all agree are instrumental in you being here today.

The themes of tonight’s talk might surprise you: HOPE, PRIDE, and PRIVILEGE.

I trust though that it is HOPE is recognised as the re-occurring theme this evening because every generation is the hope of the one that went before.

But don’t confine that hope to your families.

The Staff and Academics of the UTS School of the Built Environment delivered you here today as well. They have been passionate, but more importantly RESOLUTE, in ensuring that they produce the VERY best future Quantity Surveyors; Planners, Developers; Property Economists; Valuers; Contractors; Property and Facilities Managers; and Construction and Project Managers – I say ‘future’ because this is the realm of the profession, where your post graduate experience comes to the fore in order to acquire formal professional accreditation.

In fact this School represents every discipline of the broader building PROFESSION, and this is indeed it is just not the profession’s CRADLE but that of the entire BUILT ENVIRONMENT as well – you represent the hopes of this School, the Faculty and our broader building professions which brought about the very courses you are now graduating from.

And the broader building profession is a profession to take PRIDE in.

Now you might not know much about the Australian Institute of Building, incorporated by a statutory instrument known as a Royal Charter, but the AIB , the AIQS, the PIA, the API and even the AIBS know a lot about this School.

So let me tell you of our profession – there has been a lot of professional, if not cultural, appropriation of our profession’s achievements – so let’s put things in into a historical context.

James of St George, the man who had a 50 pound contract to build 8 castles for Edward I you will find described as Architect and Engineer – he was nothing of the sort, he was a builder.

The great Westminster Hall was built by chief mason Henry Yevele and the carpenter (sub-contractor) Hugh Herland was responsible for the magnificent Hammer Beam roof. Yevele had been involved in nearly all the great building projects of the late 14th century, such as the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral. He also built the Jewel Tower in 1365-66. These days, you will find various texts stating that Westminster Hall was designed by an ‘unknown architect’ – there was no such thing.

But we now live an era, where someone with a civil engineering degree (because there are no bachelor degrees in structural engineering in this country) makes a quid out of inspecting pitched roofs for housing, when she or he had no training in that subject matter, we have long lived in an era when things are not what you might have thought

Because be assured that today in 2018 in NSW and throughout Australia when a building collapses despite being designed inspected by countless engineers and architects, the first person the authorities are coming to see are those Contractors and Project Managers among us today, because you are the ONLY ones that carry a statutory (as well as often the only contractual) liability for the design, let alone the works themselves.

Even Shakespeare, yes Shakespeare, in all his plays when it came to our industry, only talked about our (broader) building profession, in Henry IV, Part 2, Lord Bordolph says:

When we mean to build, we first survey the plot, then draw the model,
and when we see the figure of the house, then must we rate the cost of the erection,
which if we find outweighs ability,
what do we then but draw anew the model in fewer offices, or at last desist to build at all?
Much more in this great work, which is almost to pluck a kingdom down and set another up,
should we survey the plot of situation and the model,
consent upon a sure foundation,
question surveyors, know our own estate, how able such a work to undergo,
to weigh against his opposite.
Or else we fortify in paper and in figures, using the names of men instead of men,
like one that draws the model of a house beyond his power to build it,
who, half through,
gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost a naked subject
to the weeping clouds and waste for churlish winter’s tyranny

He is talking about all of YOU – not Architects not Engineers, because they simply didn’t exist (they are largely 19th century constructs) because it is YOU who are (and will be) really responsible for our society’s built surroundings.

So way back in the 1500s Shakespeare gives a rather eloquent warning not to end up like an owner builder who went broke with an unplanned and unfinished project, his metaphor is quite telling.

But then this is from an era when the position King’s Plumber-Sergeant carried with it a knighthood and when King’s Sergeants (and not Queen’s or Senior) Counsels ruled the legal roost.

Sir Christopher Wren, was NEVER employed as an Architect on whether on his marvellous creation that is St Paul’s Cathedral in London or his other great works - neither was his successor Nicholas Hawksmor - instead both were instead employed as the Surveyor of the Kings Works (which in Wren’s case was a bit of a sideline after being a Fellow and then Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford [having had the same role at Gresham College London] ) – in today’s language Wren’s role was a combination of 40% Quantity Surveyor; 40% Project Manager; 20% Designer.

The term ‘Architect’ only entered the English lexicon towards the end of Wren’s life, when Paladio’s wonderful self-promoting Four Books (of ‘Architecture’) were published in our language for the first time.

So continuing on that theme - Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose work (such as St Peter’s in Rome) was admired by Wren, was originally a sculptor who served an apprenticeship with his father. Whilst Brunelleschi, who in 1446 was the chap who solved problem of building Florence Cathedral’s octagonal dome without scaffold (by use of herringbone brick work laid in soldier course) is described variously as an engineer or an architect but was in fact a goldsmith who went on discover linear perspectives and had a keen interest in the physical mechanics of theatre productions of his time – no one mention’s the earlier designer upon who’s plans the rest of the cathedral had been earlier built, specifying an octagonal dome of a vast span, but without figuring out that a whole forest would have needed to be felled just to supply the scaffold for its construction.

Thomas Telford, ironically the founder of the Society of Civil Engineers, was a bricklayer and businessman who was a Fellow of both the Royal Society of London (founded by Wren) for the advancement of science, and that of Edinburgh – it is pleasing and fitting to note that the Head of the UTS School of the Built Environment has joined the Vice Chancellor of UTS in being elected a Fellow of the now near 200year old NSW successor to these Societies.

It is a straight line from those earlier times to Harry Hoare OAM FAIB, a Chapter President of the Australian Institute of Building and Construction Manager of the Opera House, a building graduate of ‘that other place’ (in this State where Building, Architecture and Civil Engineering all became Bachelor degrees in the same year) he received his honour not for that great work but for building public conveniences in the Southern Highlands during his ‘retirement’. Jorn Utzon is rightfully recognised, but what was the Government to do when the original set budget was exceeded over 100 fold? It is controversial to say so now, but the then Minister for Public Works, Sir Davis Hughes deserved his knighthood, vision and creativity are marvellous things to have - but give praise to the creativity of those who came up with the method of that project’s funding (the Opera House Lottery, despite its initial tragic outcome) which meant the project could survive such a massive blow-out. Similarly it was a building graduate, (now) Professor David Chandler OAM FAIB who was Project Director for Parliament House Canberra.

Real creativity comes to the fore in the wake of fiscal discipline and finite resources – so in the case of the Opera House out went the elliptical and parabolic curves in came the sphere segments which were never part of Utzon’s design.

So the masters of construction, of developments – indeed the master of their budgets - are not architects or engineers – it is YOU. Murray Coleman FAIB, who has spoken here, is former Global CEO of Bovis Lend Lease, and a building graduate from the University of Melbourne where he is also a Professorial Fellow; similarly the former CEO of John Holland Group, Glenn Palin FAIB is a building graduate from QUT and is a conjoint Professor at Newcastle as is Peter Hansen OAM FAIB – owner of Hansen Yuncken, a building graduate from RMIT. ALL KNOW that you can have anything you want, so long as you have the ability to pay for it.

But that is not to say you can’t have fun in our line of work, because I have found it a joy – true Architects and Engineers don’t actually build anything too often at all, they don’t take on the financial and statutory risk, but instead (if they are lucky) they have things built – these days they are often employed or engaged by Contractors and Developers, not the other way around.

So whether you are developing a necessary construction detail which wasn’t foreseen, deciding where the pour breaks will be in the slab, whether putting together the design brief of a major development, developing a master plan, or sourcing the capital required – rejoice, because you will actually get to see the physical outcome – because YOU made it happen – that is creativity.

So what of now? What of UTS?

Well from this very School, I can think of some outstanding leaders – Matt Bourne FAIB, Associate Director of AW Edwards; Chris Bulmer also Fellow of the AIB and former COO of Hansen Yuncken (now Managing Partner and Group CEO Greenwich Associates); Peter Maneas and Chris Ahern founders of Ganellan; Tony Avsec OAM FAIB, now an adjunct Professor at QUT but the lead Cost Planner for Lend Lease (who has been successful with more than just the occasional $billion plus tender); David Alessi FAIB Head of Procurement with Icon Constructions, Michael Wynn-Jones FAIB former Deputy President of the NSW Building Professionals Board, George Bardas FAIB CEO of Richard Crookes Constructions and many more – all take a keen interest in this and other Schools of the Built Environment – with Matt and Chris serving as Visiting Fellows of this School, Michael and David (like David Beslich, chairman of Hansen Yuncken) serving as Honorary Associates of this Faculty, whilst George is an adjunct professor at WSU – but they all came from HERE, UTS. As did the driving forces behind the construction of such nearby projects as One Central Park and its magnificent cantilever, and both UTS’s Dr Chau Chak Wing Building and Building 2 just next door.

You ARE the HOPE of my generation, the hope of our profession, you WILL do us proud – the profession as you might have gathered, know you a lot about you already – so get to know it, join the AIB ,the AIQS, the PIA get accredited – so in keeping with the recommendations of the Shergold-Wier Report into our industry (released just last week) get ahead of the curve and get yourselves registered on the NBPR regardless of which outfit (if any) you join to secure your careers.

What then of PRIVILEGE?

YOU are privileged because you had the good sense to choose OUR industry, thank your family for bestowing you with such nous.

The opportunities it provides are second to none.

But the responsibilities that YOU have are now far greater than those of graduates of this University’s other Faculties and Schools. Many of you have studied part time or are post graduates, and are already running multi-million dollar sites, have put together similar sized developments which you are now seeing to fruition – indeed it is arguable that only Medical Schools produce graduates with greater responsibilities.

It isn’t just that your skills are going to command remuneration packages that some of your school chums may be envious of – it is that most of you now, with the appropriate post graduate experience will attain the licenses in every jurisdiction of our nation that architects and engineers dream about – their qualifications don’t prepare them for managing large budgets, their qualifications don’t even get them to the starting line for a Builders Licence or registration as a Principal Building Certifier (Certifying Authority in the case of NSW).

Of course with these licenses comes a statutory and not just moral responsibility - but something money can’t buy – INDEPENDENCE. The ability to start your own firm and practice, the ability not just ‘to hang out your own shingle’, but rather the ability to work independently of a client on your own developments – no Medical Practitioner, Lawyer (whether Barrister or Solicitor) or even engineer or architect can say that, our licenses matter.

Now right now you should be feeling rather proud of yourselves, it is only natural that you do, you have paid for your qualification in sweat, sleepless nights, and unlike me out of your pay packet – but did you think of the debt you owe UTS and its School of the Built Environment?

Because they didn’t have to take you, those who came after me set a high bar for entry which continues still. So don’t wait 30 years to think about how you can put back – think of it over your celebratory drinks this evening – because I can assure you every bit of my own good fortune started HERE - every bit.

Naturally I have had cause to ponder this of late, so let me publicly thank the Dean at my time, Professor Vernon Ireland, his colleagues Hamish MacLennan, Dennis Lenard, the late Lance Spencer and Peter Browne, and all the others which age has robbed me the memory of, but also a man who became a dear friend years after my graduation the late and great, Bruce Longfoot.

Because EVERY bit of the good fortune that I have had, started HERE.

Give thanks to Goran, Grace, Heather, Hera, Julie, Michael, Perry, Peter and the others – because it is because of them your own good fortune has already commenced – take pride and be thankful for the privilege of being a UTS graduate, because its School of the Built Environment is an industry powerhouse like no other. As graduates you have all the time in the world, BUT NOT A SECOND TO WASTE so get out there and do some GOOD.

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you.

About the Speaker

Professor Whittaker is the Chair of National Building Professionals Register and Director of Holdom Whittaker and Associates, a consulting firm for builders, building surveyors and engineers. He is a highly experienced construction professional with specialist expertise and experience in development, design, delivery and life cycle management of major special purpose, residential and commercial projects.

For over two decades he has led the building profession and continues to occupy some of the most senior positions of trust in the Australian Building and Construction Industry. 

Professor Whittaker holds a number of adjunct professorial and advisory board appointments at Western Sydney University, University of Canberra, Sydney and Newcastle. He is also a former lecturer in professional ethics at the University of NSW.

Professor Whittaker is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Building and the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors. He is also a companion of the Institution of Engineers Australia and a member of the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors.

In 2014 he was admitted as a Member of the Order of Australia for his significant contribution to the building and construction industry as a leader and educator. He has also been admitted as a Fellow of Australia Institute of Building and the Royal Society of New South Wales.

Professor Whittaker is an alumnus of UTS and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Construction Management, and a Graduate Diploma of Education.