All Opinion articles – Page 340
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Opinion
Local champions need independence
If you went to the Urban Summit in Manchester looking for inspiring architecture, you would have been disappointed.
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OpinionConcrete Boots
Twin towersThe similarity of Barcelona’s Torre Agbar tower to London’s Gherkin has been well remarked upon, but another example of architectural twinning has caught the eye of an eagle-eyed Chinese reader. A Guangzhou resident has contacted the China Daily newspaper to complain that the city’s new TV tower bears an ...
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Opinion
Battle strategy
I welcome the broad support for the RIBA’s Manifesto for Architecture in the pages of BD.
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Opinion
Virtual alternative
As an alternative to her idea of demolishing listed buildings that stand in the way of new development, I wonder if culture secretary Tessa Jowell has considered the use of walk-through technology to capture perfect virtual moving images of innovative new design?
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Opinion
Picking up the tab
How fortunate that the government, if not two of your contributors (“Is it ethically OK…” March 4), recognises the dangers of secondary or passive smoking.
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Opinion
Ian Martin
The cladding is derived from a custard apple. The stuff inside is not important so is mostly rhubarb
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Opinion
Ethics rake it in
RIBA president George Ferguson rightly reflected (Letters March 18) that the “ethics of practice should be taken extremely seriously”.
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OpinionForget the dreams, deal with reality
I think your article “Architects out of step with the public” (News March 18) relating to housing misses a key point.
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Opinion
Cutting-edge error
It’s poignant that within the covers of BD was a news story “Architects out of step with public” and a much larger one, possibly by way of explanation, showing the “cutting edge” exploits of the AA’s Emergence & Design Group. Its work cheered me up by reminding me of EO ...
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Opinion
Chamber musings
A lot of empty blustering from George Ferguson regarding ethics, but he does not say what the RIBA would do if one of its members designed a concentration camp or torture chamber. I suspect that, as when it has happened in the past, nothing. Never mind, George, have another Mipim ...
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OpinionConcrete Boots
The GodfatherIs Graham Morrison turning into the Godfather of architecture? The signs are there: the soft but persuasive voice and the vice-like grip on the biggest and best jobs. So it should have been no surprise to see one half of the stratospherically successful Allies & Morrison thanked by Ed ...
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Opinion
Soapbox: Nurture students, not drive them away
I am on my soapbox to have a go at those unscrupulous, lazy practices that fail to respect the needs of their student staff.
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OpinionSheer arrogance
For too long now, I have read the pages of the architectural press and smiled at the arrogance of the so-called “trophy architects” who fill the pages. While the architecture varies from average to brilliant, the sheer arrogance rankles, to say the least.
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Opinion
Seeking substance
Matthew Barac’s Soapbox column (March 11) echoes comments made by Laura Illoniemi the week before. Both are, in essence, lamenting contemporary architecture’s obsession with image and iconography, at the expense of substance and ideology. I find it a pity that the recent Design Indaba held in Cape Town was found ...
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Opinion
Roll over Rousseau
Hanna Arhendt’s perceptive “banality of evil” is worth reflecting on in all spheres of life. We may be architects, but we are human, well most of us, and therefore not infallible. However, the concept of some form of moral consensus seems to have been left behind in the 20th century.After ...
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Opinion
Opaque process
I was intrigued by two not quite juxtaposed articles in BD March 4. One, by Steve Bee (Comment), advocated the irrefutably good practice of “ensuring that the creation of new places follows a transparent process”. The other, by Will Hurst, on the proposed Station Plaza development in Hastings (News) provides ...
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OpinionI was a Mipim virgin
Sandwiched between a mobile phone convention and the annual porn festival, the timing seemed ideal for the 16th Mipim property fair, set in spectacular Cannes, writes Alistair Brand. The event, calling itself Europe’s largest and most successful property conference and exhibition, attracts investors, local authorities, developers, agents, architects and, ...
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OpinionVisionaries or mad scientists?
These men believe they have the formula to save the planet — a brave new architecture where science takes the lead. Zoë Blackler investigates