ETHICS AND THE PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE.

By Barry Wasserman, Patrick Sullivan, and Gregory Palermo. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. 2000. [pound]35.50

Conscience alone does deter everyone is probably the most significant phrase in this highly efficient and comprehensive textbook guide to professional ethics, produced by three American academics with the encouragement of the American Institute of Architects. This is a concise overview of ethics from Aristotle to John Rawls, leading to 30 practical case studies ranging in content from political integrity to relations with junior office staff.

Since this is an American book, the European reader will be constantly aware of political (and legal) differences between the US and Europe; furthermore, there are some oddities, such as a peculiarly positive view of Bentham's Utilitarianism: perhaps American academics are able to look beyond the workhouses and the control mechanisms that the words conjure up in Britain. A generally open-minded tone is compromised by a few of the authors' prejudices: a tendency to see the architects' loyalties as being inordinately subject to fuzzy environmental priorities and to undefined local public pressure groups. Surely the architect cannot always see the full environmental and public picture -- just as the speculative builders of semi-detached houses around London in the 1930s were presumably not aware that their apparently unscrupulous rape of the countryside actually gave birth to many thousands of contented households, subsequently creating Britain's astonishing social stability.

These are however minor objections to an invaluable piece of work, which, with its brisk tables and summaries (Five Framing Lenses; Four Principal Ethical Theories; Significant Questions for Ethical Consideration, and so on) should be compulsory reading for architecture students.