Farrell's attack is far too brutal

It is good that the government is taking an active interest in architecture and has even appointed an architecture adviser. What is not good is that the appointee has launched a vigorous attack on post-war architecture, describing much of it as “rubbish”.

He also added that stylistically, much post-war architecture was “irrelevant” and unfairly described brutalism as a “freak of historical interest”.

This is negative stuff and not balanced criticism of a difficult era when materials and money were in short supply. Brutalism evolved because concrete was the most plentiful and economic material available and needed a new aesthetic. It primarily failed from inadequate weathering characteristics.

The fact is it also yielded, in the right hands, significant architecture, emanating from the social needs and construction and financial constraints of its time. These are the factors that have always moulded the history of architecture.

If there was a style during the post-war period which was a freak of historic interest and irrelevant, it was postmodernism. It had no cultural antecedent, structural or social contribution. Now even its most ardent protagonists have moved on.

About the present-day scene, the government adviser is fortunately more constructive.

Michael Manser
London W6

Brutalism was built in a rush

Terry Farrell is right that much that was built in the 1950s has not worn well, either environmentally or socially. That is what happens when there is an urgent need to which government and the construction industry endeavours to respond quickly.

Though the intentions were impeccable, and space standards under Parker Morris higher than the average UK volume housebuilder’s product, the rush to deliver brought some ill-thought-through results.

But we should celebrate the achievements, which were many. It is churlish to use an occasion designed to do just that to sound off with blanket condemnations. Does he really believe the National Theatre, the Economist, Brunswick Square, Alexandra Road, Lambeth Towers and Park Hill are “irrelevant”?

More to the point is Neave Brown’s contribution that, to achieve quality, “political will is a necessary pre-condition”.

Farrell mentions Ronan Point as an example of the technical failures of that era. I hope he will remind his political masters that it was under a Conservative government that the push for big-panel system-building started.

Kate Macintosh
Winchester, Hampshire

The good, the bad or the ugly?

Are the following illustrations in September 27’s BD examples of Terry Farrell’s current “good architecture”?: page 2, post-1950s totalitarian; page 3, neo-brutalist monotonous; page 4, over-inflated Casa del Popolo; page 10, mock 1960s airport terminal.

Louis Hellman
London W3

It takes a freak to know a freak

Who can honestly contest Terry Farrell’s view? Reviewing the metamorphosis of his own architectural style through his partnership with Nick Grimshaw down to where he has got to today, one can but conclude that on the matter of architectural freakishness he is clearly a maestro.

Kim Mathen
Uxbridge, Middlesex