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An excellent analysis of an utter scandal. But what is the cause and who is to blame?

I’m willing to predict that we’re going to hear only the familiar diatribes about ‘greedy developers’, a ‘philistinic public’, and a call for architectural education to be introduced into school curricula.

But many (maybe most) of our delightful pre-1960s London buildings and streets were created by Victorian developers who were at least as greedy as those of today, and the public then was no better educated than today’s.

The blame rests squarely on architects, who have ruthlessly abandoned the building styles which worked so well in the past; who have eliminated from their writings even the word “beauty”; and who in their student years design only visionary, mould-breaking creations which have virtually no bearing on practical everyday design.

With predictable results.

Maritz Vandenberg