Architecture faculty wins stay of execution

A celebrity campaign to save one of the country's leading architecture departments scented victory yesterday after Cambridge University leaders hinted that the prestigious faculty could be saved.

A celebrity campaign to save one of the country's leading architecture departments scented victory yesterday after Cambridge University leaders hinted that the prestigious faculty could be saved.

Their 92-year-old architecture department has faced the axe since the university accused it of failing to reach high enough standards of academic research. But after a rescue package, submitted by Cambridge's School of Arts and Humanities, was presented to the university's board at a three-hour meeting yesterday, Alison Richard, the university's vice-chancellor gave the first suggestion that the department might be reprieved.

In a statement last night, Professor Richard said a decision would be delayed until January to give the board more time to consider its options. "There is much to welcome in the school's report, which addresses the board's concerns about achieving excellence in both research and teaching, hallmarks of all academic activities at Cambridge," she said. "The board wish to explore some aspects of these proposals with the department and the school and expect to take forward an agreed plan at the next meeting in January, 2005."

Celebrities, leading artists and architects and students have waged an energetic campaign to save the department. Griff Rhys Jones, a Cambridge graduate, joined 1,000 students trying to stop the closure last month of the department where his 20-year-old son is a student.

Britain's leading architects have also rallied to support the threatened department. Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Terry Farrell signed a petition condemning the closure plan as "an act of extraordinary folly". The artist Antony Gormley also called on the university to reconsider, describing the closure threat as "absolutely devastating".

Cambridge's architecture faculty has consistently been ranked among the best in the country for teaching and research. It has 150 undergraduates and 100 postgraduates.

But in 2001 its research rating was downgraded in the research assessment exercise (RAE) the university funding council uses to determine funding levels. Under the assessment, the standards of research at each university are rated on a scale of 1 to 5*. Most Cambridge departments were rated 5 but architecture's rating dropped from 5 to 4.

This meant the university's income plummeted by £350,000 a year. As research funding is used to subsidise the cost of teaching university courses, the department was earmarked for closure although it has 8.5 applications for every place.

Cambridge's leaders had appeared resolute, saying the problems went beyond its poor RAE rating and that the department's research record had caused concern for more than 20 years.

Universities have complained that the RAE panel of academics assigned to judge them has been dominated by experts in building and construction rather than cutting-edge architects. Also no university without a representative on the panel was rated higher than a 4. The funding council has agreed to review the way the next assessment of architecture research is conducted in 2008.

Cambridge has guaranteed that applicants seeking to join the department as an undergraduate in either 2005 or 2006 will be unaffected.

CAMBRIDGE ALUMNI

SIR RICHARD MACCORMAC graduated 1962

Once president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, his designs include Southwark tube station and the £400m BBC's Broadcasting House extension. He has worked on an extension to the Science Museum and the extension of Cambridge.

SIR COLIN ST JOHN WILSON graduated 1942

Spent 36 years on the British Library, moving it in 1999 from Bloomsbury to a building near Euston.

He studied architecture at Cambridge from 1940-42 and finished his training at University College London after the war.

He lectured at Cambridge 1956-69 and became architecture head in 1975.

LORD SNOWDON left 1950

Went to Cambridge to read natural sciences, but changed to architecture after 10 days.

However, in 1950, he was "asked to leave". He said: "I wasn't really that disappointed with myself."

He started as an apprentice photographer, and became one of Britain's top photographers. In 1957 he was invited to photograph the Queen. In 1960, he married Princess Margaret.