More Comment – Page 372
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Opinion
Uphold the title
BD might have a new format, and very good it is. But the old ideas continue: if Guy Pound said he was an architect, and the Serious Fraud Office agreed, then he must be one, even though he was not listed with Arb. If the professional press can’t be discriminating ...
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Opinion
Bold statement
I wonder how far a statutory requirement to submit design statements with planning applications will get us? Even assuming they don’t just become a series of standard clauses, it is difficult to imagine how the statements that might have been put forward by the winners of the Young Architect of ...
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Opinion
Unwelcome export
Rest assured, Tony Aspinall (Letters April 23), you are not the only architect dismayed with the incongruously designed College of Art & Design in Toronto. However, there are some benefits, namely it was built in Canada and not Britain, and, fortunately, we do not live in the locality of ...
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Opinion
Smoked pickle
In a moment that was more Manhattan than London, Swiss Re security men pounced on our venerable correspondent Christopher Woodward, when, after three hours in the tower, he lit up a well-deserved cigarette on the building’s forecourt. The signs may not be up yet, they explained, but smoking was strictly ...
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Opinion
Spin the Gherkin
He’s versatile, that Norman Foster, as he was at pains to stress at the opening of the Swiss Re building this week. Chatting to Swiss radio, the Lord of the Gherkin asked the reporter which spin he would like on the building: “I can explain it emotionally; I can explain ...
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Opinion
A rising trend
Jean Nouvel was in London this week to hook up with Foster on their collaboration in the capital and learnt the nickname for the Swiss Re, which translates as “le cornichon erotique”. “I’ve got one of those,” he exclaimed excitedly, referring, of course, to his own torpedo-shaped tower in Barcelona.
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Opinion
Body building
Remember how Future Systems’ Jan Kaplicky harped on about how thongs and breasts helped to inspire his architecture in Confessions? Now the firm’s other partner, Amanda Levete, is at it, too. The double-page spread in the Guardian arts supplement she guest-edited last week juxtaposed a large picture of a woman’s ...
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Opinion
Glass worship
OK, from venal to divine inspiration. An architect has inspired a West Country vicar to imitate David Blaine’s glass-box stunt to raise money for a new scheme. This Saturday the Rev Nigel Done will suspend himself in a glass box for 12 hours to raise the £125,000 needed to realise ...
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Opinion
Ego reduction
So Zaha Hadid really is mellowing. Even the national press is having to ditch its preconceptions. “Where’s the vibrant monster I had been promised from previous interviews?” asked a Guardian interviewer. “Where’s the ball-breaking harridan barking abuse into her mobile as she wafts into her north London studio in vertiginous ...
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Opinion
Woolly jargon will not plug skills gap
Learning from John Egan is rarely fun. His grandiose visions of a unified construction industry are more about committee work, strangely-titled industry bodies and woolly concepts than actually making great architecture. His latest contribution: a plan to solve the skills crisis so the government's Sustainable Communities Plan investment isn't wasted ...
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Opinion
Pizza to the rescue
“There should be enough hydrogen to float ‘analogue cities’ a mile above the originals”
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OpinionRichard Hutchinson
Running 26 miles in the London Marathon wasn't enough for the Livesey O'Malley partner. He also agreed to critique a building for each mile for BD.
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Opinion
Golden community opportunity
John Prescott has a golden opportunity to create a national centre dedicated to building sustainable communities that includes not only planners, engineers, developers and councillors, but also housing and social administrators as well as social scientists. Much is commonly assumed about the mistakes of the past 50 years, but ...
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Opinion
Terror warning
After the Madrid bombings and a year since the invasion of Iraq, it is a good time to reflect on how terrorism is working. We should consider what a national response should be, and, as a profession responsible for the environment, we should start a more open and balanced debate.We ...
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Opinion
Spurning the table
Maybe I am the only architect who looked at your front cover picture “Table for Toronto” (News April 16) and thought, “Thank God I don’t live in Canada”.That poor defenceless Victorian building being trodden on by an invader from another world of class unpleasantness. What a streetscape. Graffiti walls, hideous ...
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Opinion
On deaf ears
An extraordinary state of affairs has recently arisen in respect of Arb. Last July, the professional organisations were consulted on possible amendments to the composition of Arb's professional conduct committee. The Association of Consultant Architects suggested a Parliamentary Committee should investigate Arb and the Architects Act 1997.However, on March 11, ...
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Opinion
Arb propaganda
Susan Ware invites your readers to take a look at a fuller version of her letter (April 2) on Arb's website. There, in an attempt to defend the indefensible from the well-directed criticism of Jack Pringle, she claims that a less secretive organisation is difficult to imagine.It speaks loudly of ...
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Opinion
Essex lies
I was horrified to learn from Concrete Boots (April 2) that I was quoted as using the term “Basildonisation”. I have never used this word, nor have I compared Basildon unfavourably in any way; I do not know Basildon well enough to comment on its merits or demerits. Clearly, the ...
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Opinion
Dairy delight
In response to Richard Weston’s piece, “The divine bovine (Backspace April 8), we thought that, a copy of the “Three Cows” short-listed entry for the Burrell Gallery competition might help to illustrate the point of his article. The illustration depicts one seated cow, containing the main entrance and ancillary accommodation, ...