Belconnen one of the "worst" towns in Australia, UK architects forced to keep quiet and the preservation movement goes overboard.
"All the NCA is now is an undertaker, it builds a few memorials every now and then … I've long held the opinion that in terms of planning and design outcomes the Belconnen Town Centre, a town centre designed, planned, managed and developed by the NCDC is probably one of the worst town centres in Australia."
The Canberra Times
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"Changing the brief the day before deadline is taking the mickey. I want to know why the RIBA aren't involved. But we won't be complaining, if you stand up and shout about it you get a black mark against your name."
The Architects' Journal
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"A scrap of Mozart can be stored in a drawer. Buildings occupy land, and in a densely settled city every acre is contested ground. The point of the historic preservation movement that got off the ground in the 1960s is that architecturally (or sometimes just historically) significant buildings - stress significant - deserve to go on occupying space that newer construction might like to invade. But preservation is part of an eternal balancing act with development. It's not a blank check to preserve every crumb that fell off the Great Architect's desk."
Chicago Tribune
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"Finally, there is the elephant in the room - refurbishment. For architects this is grinding, often unrewarding, work that is neither glamorous nor likely to win design prizes, but is, arguably, greener. Arguably, because all the attention so far has been focused on new buildings delivered through the greasy hand of PFI."
BD Online
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"Indeed, the houses seem better suited to an exhibition of avant-garde architecture than to a neighborhood struggling to recover. A number of designers I talked to, some of whom had visited the neighborhood, lamented the absence of familiar forms that would have comforted returning residents."
New York Times
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