Malcolm Fraser
Features2012 in review: Literary pursuits
Malcolm Fraser on why new libraries are one of the nicest things to emerge this year
Building StudyNational Museum of Scotland refurbishment by Gareth Hoskins Architects
The £47 million revamp of Fowke’s Victorian museum, by a team led by Gareth Hoskins, restores the clarity of the building’s original plan.
OpinionCreed has lit up the Scotsman Steps
An artistic intervention has succeeded in transforming a less than pleasant journey
- Opinion
Give back planning powers to the state
A nice thing about having our wee Scottish parliament is that you occasionally get the feeling - or at least the illusion - that you are close to power.
- Opinion
Start city thinking from the outside
There is a whole profession that has grown up to educate Britain’s politicians, civil servants and local enterprise companies in the economic primacy of the “city region”.
- Opinion
Centralisation is killing our cities
A decade and a half after a resurgent Barcelona used culture and urban vigour to fire-up the Catalan economy, Britain is still struggling to understand the truth it illuminated: that cities, and their regions, are our primary economic powerhouses.
- Opinion
The mistake of the mega-practice
I have developed a form of Tourette’s syndrome whereby the misuse of the words “innovation” and “creativity” results in convulsions and machine-gun obscenities. Life has got harder (and the office noisier) recently.
- Opinion
Pulling down houses is not sustainability
The Pathfinder programme — government investment of £2 billion over the next 15 years to revitalise nine northern English urban areas — ought to be magnificent news.
NewsFinding our feminine side
Without female empathy, architecture is macho and impersonal. We argue that we need a better balance