All Opinion articles – Page 351
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Opinion
Cowboy dreams
The fundraising for David Adjaye’s Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver is in full swing. An event last week, which raised $250,000 for the museum, included a game of chance where people purchased a can for $100 that contained a mystery prize. One of the prizes was a trip to ...
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Opinion
Counting support
This week’s Arb board meeting took an amusing turn when chairman Humphrey Lloyd pointed to statistically dubious feedback on Arb’s annual report.He proudly pointed out that an impressive 11.8% of respondents found his foreword the most interesting section, with only a lowly 11.2% opting for the report of the ...
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Opinion
Classic clanger
Ian Martin may have been away last week, but one of his conceits seems to have found digital form, appearing in full colour on your front page (November 12).Some have suggested that the classicist tendency is no more than a cover for an absence of individual architectural vision, and the ...
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Opinion
The fine line between influence and rip-off
As an undergraduate I was accused by some generous-minded peers of “ripping off” a building that had just appeared in the Architectural Review. My scheme undeniably bore a striking resemblance to its alleged model, and protestations that I had never set eyes on it before fell on deaf ears.
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Opinion
Witness appeal
I read your article, “Waiting for disaster” (News analysis November 5), with interest, but some puzzlement. In answer to the question “Who are these expert witnesses?”, Bickerdike Allen’s history goes back to founding partner Bill Allen’s days as chief architect and head of physics at the Building Research Establishment (which ...
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Opinion
Disappearing act
Zaha Hadid may have been frustrated in the past when her competition winning designs didn’t see the light. But it was she who failed to materialise last Wednesday night when at the last minute she let the RIBA know she couldn’t personally deliver her long-scheduled Lutbetkin lecture at Portland Place. ...
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OpinionFred Trousers
Ian Martin is away. Our guest columnist this week is Fred Trousers, president of the Royal Institute for the Protection of British Architects.
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Opinion
Tribal gathering is a formidable force
If you join a group called Tribal, you probably want the war drums to beat.
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OpinionConcrete Boots
Pearls of wisdomWelcome to the world of Japanese philosophy according to Tadao Ando. Under the philosophy, pearls are inward-looking and introverted while diamonds are extrovert, outward-looking and full of energy. Talking to BD, Ando likened his tempered and considered architecture to a pearl. “There are small, brilliant things and large, ...
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Opinion
Community begins on your doorstep
I am a passionate believer that architects should be actively engaged with their communities.
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Opinion
Memorial of mud
I wonder if Tony Fretton had visited the Diana memorial lately he would still consider it “a serene and beautiful piece of work” (Letters October 22).I visited it last Wednesday at about 12.30pm. There were some 20 visitors wandering aimlessly within the confines of a temporary fence. Fretton would now ...
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Opinion
Lost for words
The architectural profession is sexist enough without headlines such as “Backing for man-hour fee scales” (News October 29). This is just lazy ladguage.Peter Morris, London
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Opinion
Put in the hours
Flipping marvellous. No sooner than I stop charging hourly rates for domestic projects because most people don’t want to pay as much per hour as I pay my car mechanic, than I’m told that all architecture fees may soon have to be based on time.
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Opinion
System that haemorrhages millions
Pointing out problems with the Private Finance Initiative is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, but that doesn’t mean we don’t bother.
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Opinion
Queens royal seal a green turning point
It has been a good autumn so far for establishment endorsement of the environmental agenda.
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Opinion
A united front on tropical timber
Your report (News October 22) gave the unfortunate impression that the RIBA and English Heritage were at odds over the use of certified timbers. This is untrue. We are as one on the issue of the use of tropical hardwoods. We start with the premise that we strongly support limiting ...
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OpinionConcrete boots
On shaky ground Tony Blair has tried manfully to stay mates with the environmental lobby, but he’s really gone and blown it now, judging by the reaction to his naming a road for the Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award last week. Environmentalists are fuming, especially as its construction led ...
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Opinion
The big squeeze
Cabe has launched its trenchant critique of housing design, but on closer inspection all it does is to reveal the superficiality of architectural ideas about this subject.
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Opinion
Place your bets
Regarding your article, “A fight to the death?” (News Analysis October 15), the image of two fighting dogs is very evocative, so is there anywhere I can put a tenner on the RIBA to win?