The man who lost a legacy

Max Thompson talks to Rowan Moore and other key players after the Architecture Foundation HQ is axed.

Architecture Foundation (AF) director, Rowan Moore tells me that a mystery benefactor has just given the foundation £250,000. In the same sentence, and using the same measured tone, he calmly reveals that the Zaha Hadid-designed AF headquarters project has been scrapped.

Despite Moore's outward serenity and his assertion that he is merely 'disappointed', the AF board's decision to axe the search for a permanent home is a body blow – it was, after all, to be his legacy.

Moore says: 'Obviously we wanted to do the building, and in an ideal situation we would have liked to have done it, but because of the current economic climate it would not have been responsible. The [AF's] programme is the more important thing for us at the moment.

'We've haven't had a permanent public space for six years, and we have managed to achieve a great deal in that time. We will continue on that basis.'

Will Alsop, who was chairman of the Architecture Foundation from 2000 until 2006, and who sat on the jury that picked the winning Hadid entry, says he feels 'very sorry' for Moore.

Alsop says: 'Rowan worked very hard to make it happen and I feel very sorry for him – it certainly doesn't help him and I hope the press doesn't try to vilify him. It is not his fault.'

It may not be his fault, but Moore, who told the AJ that he has no intention of resigning, was the driving force behind the 2004 competition and instrumental in persuading the AF board that Hadid's over-budget entry was viable.

Ricky Burdett, who set up the AF in 1991, also defended Moore, but asked if he was right to push for a permanent home for the AF. 'Institutions can survive regardless of having a building,' says Burdett.

'I never pursued the idea of having the large-scale permanent building,' he adds. 'My view is that the best and most successful architecture exhibitions are always done in big public buildings that don't only do architecture exhibitions.'

A former Architecture Foundation trustee, who wishes to remain anonymous, is more damning, and describes the competition as being 'flawed from the start' and weighted heavily in favour of Hadid.

He says: 'The AF appeared quite wilfully to have ignored the budget in the brief which the other entrants had met. This was unfair to the other competitors. [The AF] always wanted Zaha from the start.

'This is another sorry tale of the competition system being abused in a desperate desire to determine in advance,' he says.

But Alsop, who describes himself as 'partly responsible for choosing Zaha', brushes aside the allegations and lays the blame firmly at the door of Bovis – developer Land Securities' preferred contractor – saying 'Zaha worked very hard to bring the building within budget'.

Alsop adds: 'We did go into the costs and I think we thought we could get that building for about £4 million. What we didn't know was that Bovis had our benefactors over the barrel on costs.'

Burdett, who is advising the government on the design for the 2012 Olympic Games, says that 'as someone working on the Olympics' he thought it was inevitable that costs would rise. He says: 'I know what happens – briefs become larger and costs go up. It would be very wrong to say that it is the Zaha project that has made this thing not fly'.

Moore defended all the parties involved, saying: 'A lot of people put a lot into this project. Nobody did it to get rich, they did it because they thought it was an exciting project. Everybody has acted professionally.'

Although Burdett says that he 'completely disagrees' that the saga could spell the end of the AF, Alsop is not so sure, and claims there is a 'real fear' that unless the AF can find a new home it will be 'swallowed up by the Tate or the Design Museum.'While AF chairman Brian Clarke played down Alsop's comments, he did not dismiss them out of hand, claiming that the 'AF always seeks to build relationships with like-minded organisations, including Tate and the London Festival of Architecture,' before adding that he 'would be pleased to work in a similar way with the Design Museum, with which we have a strong intellectual liaison'.

When the fallout from the collapse of the scheme settles, Moore and the AF board are hoping that they will be lauded for taking a shocking, but 'responsible' decision made for the greater good, a decision that according to Clarke 'demonstrates sound management'.

In the meantime, and despite the overwhelmingly loyal support of his colleagues, the failure of what should have been Moore's legacy has thrown not only his future into question, but also the future of the AF.

As Alsop says: 'The AF has come to a point where it needs to ask: "what is our aim in life, where are we going and who are we for?"'

Read Rowan Moore's comment piece here.