More Opinion – Page 274
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OpinionJerusalem: help us grasp issues
I read Moshe Safdie’s comments (News June 8) with great interest. In recent weeks I have come to sympathise with, as he puts it, “the complexity of the issues” in the Middle East, and so with the help of Simon Kaufman from our office I decided to inform myself better ...
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Opinion
Madness of PFI
PFI is all about politics: it was devised as a way of hiding the costs of building from the public expenditure borrowing requirement balance sheet. Minister Jim Knight (Debate June 15) says local authorities will continue to use PFI, but that is because the government gives them no alternative.
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Opinion
Misleading data
In his defence of PFI Jim Knight comes on strong on accountancy and time arguments. These have been shown to be false in research by the University of Edinburgh into Treasury claims for the “advantages” of PFI, published in April.
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OpinionSeven-year glitch
After last Wednesday’s episode of The Apprentice, can somebody please, please, ask Ken Shuttleworth why on national TV he felt the need to compare architects’ seven gruelling years of training with the apprentices’ three-day “architectural” efforts as equally meretricious?
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OpinionSimple stand
Paul Stein (Letters June 8) perfectly illustrates why the petition against Israel’s architectural and planning practice is to be strongly welcomed.
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Opinion
Vital statistics
Ivor Hall (Letters June 15) wanted to know how the cost of refurbishing the Royal Festival Hall compares with its original cost.
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Opinion
Not the best hat
From Ken Powell’s many achievements, it was misleading to select his former directorship of the Twentieth Century Society when reporting his support for Norman Foster’s scheme at the public inquiry over the School and Inner Court in Chelsea (News June 15).
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OpinionBirthday honours – the built environment
Ian Martin gives a run-down of some of the less-well publicised construction-industry gongs
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OpinionRight-on foodism is theatre of absurd
Global wholefood supermarkets are still about reinforcing shoppers’ sense of superiority
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OpinionShould Cambridge build high-rise towers for housing?
Germaine Greer, who will be putting the case in a debate to be broadcast on Sunday, advocates 75-storey blocks of flats. But Peter Studdart says there are more human ways of building high-density
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OpinionMoney for jam
Rem Koolhaas’s exhibit for the Tate Modern’s Global Cities show raised a few eyebrows at the opening on Tuesday night.
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Opinion
Talk, dont talk
Boots’ favourite architecture minister David Lammy is a hard man to pin down. Despite popping up at the long-awaited launch of Channel 4’s Castleford Project this week, his office said he was unable to talk to journalists because “it was not a media event”!
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Opinion
Piece of cake
Bakers at the wonderful Konditor & Cook have been struggling to find a suitable cake to mark the opening of their new café in the Gherkin, designed by Jamie Fobert.
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Opinion
In the rhythm
It’s every architect’s nightmare: having laboured forever over a project, what entertainment for the launch will do it justice?
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OpinionInverse function
During this week’s debate between Jack Pringle and journalist Simon Jenkins, one wag used a killer argument to prove architects indeed have oversized egos.
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OpinionJust say no to business backhanders
Kickbacks and bribery are stealing, nothing less. So why are they not always illegal?
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OpinionIs PFI the right way for us to build schools in the future?
Jim Knight says the massive rise in capital investment could not have happened under conventional funding, while Malcolm Fraser thinks the whole system stinks
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OpinionShould sustainable housing look to Haussmann rather than Thoreau?
The German tabloid Bild, known for its unstinting support of tough enforcement of law and order, and an obsessive opposition to the country’s former red-green government, has recently made a habit of opening with alarmist headlines about climate change, imminent floods and storms, and the extinction of animal species. ...
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Opinion
Stars’ turns
A star line-up turned out last Monday at Banqueting House to celebrate Richard Rogers’ Pritzker Prize win.