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If you want to train as a traditional architect in Britain, forget it. Architecture schools will fail you in double-quick time. Outsiders can find this shocking as they naively believe that architecture is a liberal art. It isn鈥檛. It鈥檚 about as liberal as Lenin. If you don鈥檛 fall in with the party line, you鈥檙e next for the firing squad. And just in case anyone tries to expose this scandal, it鈥檚 all done in code. For example: 鈥淚t鈥檚 okay to do that stuff but the design isn鈥檛 good enough鈥� (I鈥檒l fail you because I hate it); 鈥淲hy don鈥檛 you go into conservation鈥� (please go quietly).

After seven years of brainwashing, most students don鈥檛 just pass, they join the Sect. They become guardians of the Great Mystery; they recognise their fellow devotees by their strange clothes and special language; and, if an unbeliever (that is, just about everyone else) says the Great Mystery is a lie, that just proves it鈥檚 true.

In the past 75 years the Sect has spread out from Europe and North America to the rest of the world. The results are there for all to see. Now, if you employ an architect, you get the Great Mystery whether you like it or not. And to make sure the Sect never dies, architectural education is set up so that the high priests run the show in one of the biggest intellectual closed shops since the medieval church.

Everyone this side of the pond sees America as the home of bad taste, sprawl (suburban and midriff) and religious nutters

The president of the RIBA was recently challenged on this by my friend Jules Lubbock, a professor of art at Essex university. The president, being a liberal sort of person, didn鈥檛 actually say that the Great Mystery was sacred, but he did say that traditional design wasn鈥檛 taught because there was no market for it. This is a more honest version of the usual 鈥渁nyone can do traditional architecture if they want, but they don鈥檛鈥�, but is still off the mark. As the whole thing is run by the high priests, they鈥檙e hardly likely to open up a market for non-believers. Students don鈥檛 come in as believers and there鈥檚 good evidence that there鈥檚 not much public demand for the Sect. So where can we go to see if there really is a market?

We must go to the Land of the Free. This is still the place where the citizen reigns supreme and, despite recent setbacks, the free market and democracy are still joined at the hip. Everyone this side of the pond sees the US as the home of bad taste, sprawl (suburban and midriff) and religious nutters, and they also think it鈥檚 the place to be modern. But the Great Mystery isn鈥檛 the only way of being modern 鈥� particularly if you鈥檙e in a genuinely free country. Traditional architecture and urbanism have found their safest home in the US.

The Sect is in charge of the show here, too, and the same cries of 鈥渂an the unbelievers鈥� can be heard. But this is the Empire of Liberty and, in the end, what the market wants the market gets. Out of 117 schools in the US, seven have stood up to the high priests and teach traditional urban design and architecture. And to these you can add three or four courses from organisations such as the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America.

Architectural education is set up so that the high priests run the show in one of the biggest intellectual closed shops since the medieval church

These US courses aren鈥檛 some leftover from the good old days in some backwater Hicksville. It started in 1989 when Thomas Gordon-Smith was made head of the University of Notre Dame. He turned over the architecture course to the first full-time classical architecture course since the Sect closed them all down in the fifties and sixties. Since then places such as the University of Miami or Georgia Tech have joined up with specialist courses or teachers. Even students at the mighty Yale, with Bob Stern in charge, can learn traditional and classical architecture alongside the novices of the Great Mystery. Today, students from Notre Dame are in high demand from offices of all colours. They鈥檝e learned some really useful stuff and the free market always sniffs out value.

Seven out of 117 isn鈥檛 exactly a traditionalist takeover, but it is 6% and it鈥檚 growing in the teeth of opposition from the Sect. In the UK, 6% of our 42 schools would give us two or more traditional courses. Instead, we have none except a few related MAs and one or two brave and battered tutors.

Can architectural education in the UK ever liberalise its markets? Not until the Sect admits that the Great Mystery might just be a Great Myth and there鈥檚 no sign of that.