More Opinion – Page 312
-
Opinion
Drama, not crisis
I guess crises come in all shapes and sizes. Only getting half the Arts Council funding we expected was a certainly bit of a shock at the time, but I would like to reassure visitors that it will not affect the biennale programme or their enjoyment of it at all.
-
Opinion
Venues merely first impression
Your piece "Olympic design squeeze" (News April 28) suggests that the venue designs prepared during London's Bid for the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games may never be built. You would be right. But this is not a scoop.
-
OpinionRepeat business
Anyone interested in high-quality ordinary housing has traditionally had little choice but to lament what's on offer from the volume housebuilders. However, there's a serious reason to start to hope and celebrate, to judge by Feilden Clegg Bradley's scheme for Countryside Properties in Cambridge (Works May 5).
-
Opinion
Frozen music
The proposed Le Corbusier exhibition, destined for Liverpool in 2008, is clearly going to need some creative support and innovative thinking to achieve the 100,000 visits to balance the RIBA's books for the event (News and Comment May 5). From your leader's realistic comments on Corb's lack of direct contact ...
-
Opinion
Woolly liberals
Sheffield is not the only local authority where the Lib Dems have threatened wholesale demolition of sound housing stock to curry votes from the "get us out this hell" brigade (News April 28).
-
Opinion
High-rise hell
As Ian Simpson prepares to move into his lavish penthouse atop Manchester's Beetham Tower (This Week April 28), he might find J G Ballard's 1975 novel High Rise an entertaining read.
-
Opinion
Corrections
A historical error appeared in our story on the restoration of Nelson's column (News May 5). Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 not the Battle of Waterloo, which was of course won by Wellington in 1815.
-
OpinionIan Martin
Listen to two very intense architects for three hours as they explore the "elemental character of brick"
-
Opinion
RIBA's Le Corbusier show is nothing new
Architecture exhibitions are devilishly difficult to get right. The London Architecture Biennale, which looks set to quadruple its audience in its second year, is one way of communicating a difficult subject - so more's the pity that the Arts Council has cut its application for funding and made its future ...
-
Opinion
Death and life of an anarchist urbanist
Reading the laudatory obituaries of Jane Jacobs in the newspapers last week, it was easy to forget what a hostile reception she received, particularly from architects, when The Death and Life of Great American Cities was first published in 1961.
-
OpinionOne step ahead of the residents
Can we imagine the residents of Fat's New Islington development (Works April 28) applying charming working-class vernacular trinkets to their brand new homes? Well, no, we can't, because the architects have beaten them to it. Would you Adam and Eve it, but haven't they gone and ruined the very thing ...
-
Opinion
No Poundbury OK!
The coincidence of Fat's housing, and Alain de Botton's book and lecture, are certainly worthy of an editorial (Leader April 28), but the idea that national housebuilders are attempting "Miesian pastiche" would probably turn Mies in his grave and render most housebuilders incredulous (unless they thought Mies was a new ...
-
Opinion
Rather too cosy?
To help architecture students, could BD provide a scale/north point for all its plans? Otherwise the only measure for Fat's New Islington scheme seems to be a car, suggesting that bedroom 3 is smaller than a car, the living room is 1.5 cars, and the storage space is 0.0 cars. ...
-
Opinion
Urgent upgrades
Michael Squire (Soapbox April 28) is quite right that higher energy conservation standards for new buildings will have little effect in the short term. An annual 1% replacement/growth of stock is far too slow to tackle the looming energy and environmental crisis. What is needed is the urgent upgrading of ...
-
Opinion
Modern enough?
The V&A exhibition Modernism 1914-1939 has been acclaimed, and it was instructive to see the part played by the performing arts, designer clothing, and the pursuit of healthy living.
-
Opinion
Soaring salaries
For a "small organisation" the salary of £100,000 for a chief executive seems rather large, working out at something like the annual registration fees for about 1,300 architects.
-
Opinion
Royal scapegoat
I have a certain amount of sympathy for Greg McErlean of the Royal Parks Agency, (Letters April 13) which took most of the blame for the DCMS's own failures.
-
Opinion
Correction
The photographs of Fat's New Islington project in last week's Works were taken by Edmund Sumner (not Edwin).
-
OpinionFat's wake up call to the housing debate
It's pure coincidence, of course, that the completion of Fat's housing in East Manchester has coincided with Alain de Botton's attempt to rehabilitate the word "beauty" in architecture.