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Design review panels are a key function of the offices of state and territory government architects in Australia. Their prominence as an urban governance tool parallels the establishment of government architect positions as advisory roles and reflects significant shifts associated with the neoliberalisation of city-making. This article reflects on the influence of the UK Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) on the development of design governance practices in Australia. CABE (1999−2011) was an executive non-departmental body established by Blair’s New Labour government as part of a wide-ranging reform agenda. It was also part of his ‘third way’ political agenda and encapsulated the ‘soft power’ approach that has come to define governance in many neoliberal democracies. This article maps the exchanges between Australian design professionals and CABE that influenced the adoption of design review panels as an informal mode of governing urban quality in Australia. It also reflects on the role of the architecture profession in contemporary design governance and its political implications as a form of soft power city-making. We draw on the concept of governmentality to articulate how post-welfare state governments recalibrated the tasks of governing, and Foucault’s related concept of pastoral power to think about the role of architects in design review practices. The short-lived success of CABE in the UK, and its longer-term effects in Australia show how individuated actions of improving design outcomes project by project, for community after community, return a kind of generalised authority and power to the state.
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