“Today’s museum culture, reflecting lost glories, lost urban cultures is handed down, or in today’s jargon, “delivered” as if we were nothing more than a nest of hungry chicks awaiting mummy bird to arrive with the next beakful of delicious wormy snacks. The architecture framing such “deliveries” is, in the best or worst sense, patronising, a gift from mandarins or other outsiders aimed at keeping us sweet as we live a life of increasing passivity, as consumers rather than citizens.”
Building Design
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“The new academic building at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art … seems to strike just the right tone for this time in New York’s history. A wholly contemporary work, it has a bold, aggressive profile that says as much about the city we’ve lost as it does about the future we are building. It proves that a brash, rebellious attitude can be a legitimate form of civic pride.”
New York Times
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“All four of these buildings are clearly massively unfashionable. But not just today. More interestingly, the length of time it took to bring each to final completion meant that each of them was unfashionable from the moment it was completed … All four of my problem buildings are by good architects … This is one of the curious things about architectural criticism: the worst offenders routinely escape censure because they are never considered worthy of criticism in the first place. The baddies escape every time. “
Gabion
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“Reworkings of city centres are identical now, the principles universal. Clear the site and create a business plaza, respecting local architectural history in a little museum nearby. Functionally cleanse remaining residents to the suburbs, push up office rents and make sure all the buildings look great from a helicopter. Ideally, they should form a coherent ‘whole’, like a display of kitchen appliances in Comet.”
Architects’ Journal
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“Architects have a message for anyone complaining about the cost of housing: if you don't like it, go small … ‘It's very hard to convince clients to make their building small. They want the right size at the right price. But if they won't reduce the size, it's hard to do.’”
Brisbane Times
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