You’re too churlish about the Farrell Review (Leader March 28).
It’s unrealistic and unfair to fault Ed Vaizey as a junior minister in one of Whitehall’s smallest departments for failing to change the mind of Eric Pickles, secretary of state in one of the biggest.
Nor is it gracious to anticipate little significant thinking from members of Farrell’s advisory team. He himself and all of them are widely respected. They are people who variously have given their time, expertise, passion and money over many years in the cause of improving our public culture of design.
The question to ask, surely, is why this review should be necessary, as it undoubtedly is. The Blair government’s Better Public Buildings initiative sought to establish good design as a hallmark of civilised modern government. A cross-departmental ministerial committee was set up and senior officials acrossWhitehall were enjoined to ensure building commissioned by their departments was of a standard to be proud of. Yet our political and official culture didn’t really change. There were great debates between party leaders in the mid-19th century as to whether the gothic or the classical better epitomised the spirit of the nation. Unthinkable now.
The British prime minister lives in a terrace house in Downing Street; the president of France resides in the Elysée. Funding for design and the arts in Britain is
exiguous; in France the regime gilds itself with the glories of la civilisation française. What is it about us?
Alan Howarth
Former architecture minister
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