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Jonathan illustrates the perfect example of the 'heads I win, tails you lose" argument. We commissioned a survey to make an unfettered comparison between two architectural styles. In any comparable survey, you reduce the variables to a minimum: office or public buildings (one was an arts building, the types can be very similar), all with vertical facades rising off the back of pavement, all about the same height. This way you get accurate results. If we'd put Somerset House with the Lloyds Building we'd have been howled down for a biased choice. Of course we couldn't get everyone to visit and of course such surveys only show you what people think when they look at four photos. The idea that if you show them round and tell them how wonderful it is they'll think differently is the classic architects' "I know I'm right and if you don't agree I'll browbeat you" and in this context just silly. Whether you like or don't like the buildings is irrelevant and as to the idea that they're not classical because they don't have a piano nobile just illustrates such a lamentable ignorance of classical architecture as to make all the other comments on the type valueless. When we published this we were pretty sure that we'd get: I don't care I know modernism is best, surveys can prove anything, there should be more surveys until the public get it right (like Ireland's referendums) and so on. It is a miracle of journalism that Jonathan has managed to get all the non-arguments into one short piece. Let's be clear, this survey indicates that about three quarters of the public, everywhere in the country and in all income groups, when faced with four office or public building facades of roughly similar proportions prefer the ones in a traditional style - that's all. It it valuable information but it is limited information. It starts to gain more meaning when you put it together with a number of other surveys that come up with identical figures - several housing surveys including one (suppressed) by CABE and the recent poll on a classical and modernist facade option for a planning application for an hotel in Hampton Court. These were all pretty much 80% traditional to 20% modernist. Clearly this is important information and should be taken seriously.