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"However, it was less flatteringly compared by one critic to a “cross between a Stalinist palace and a Victorian lunatic asylum”."
By whom? In what sense? What a stupid statement!
Can we have a bit of journalism please, BD - what is the real story!
Everything that someone like Robert Adam does will be taken up as a cudgel in a style war, but that is absolutely not the issue here - it's not what objectors are complaining about.
It's about appropriate massing and the risk of a devt. of this scale to the surrounding historical substance.

The interesting thing is that care and respect for historical context is a badge of honour for Mr. Adam, but if he's offered enough money, he will ditch his principles and do a Terry Farrell (as a respected peer once put it to me "his (Farrell's) only philosophy of architecture is 'build to the edges and build up as far as you can'!"). The scheme is then given a neo-classical veneer and pronounced "particularly appropriate to its setting". Notably, the image of the development doesn't show it in it's setting. Am I the only one to notice the irony.

A propos of context, why no mention of the Chipperfield scheme on Hampstead Lane? Come on BD, you can do better than this.

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