Architectural gravitas.

The big beasts have irrevocably shouldered the burden of architectural eminence. But their attitude to sites seems to veer between the non-existent (probably Glenn Murcutt), through the laconic (Gehry Partners at www.foga.com has the function of merely publishing job openings), to the friendly (Renzo Piano Workshop) to the new Richard Rogers Partnership site at www.richardrogers.co.uk. It follows the fashion of the last couple of months for animations. I have an average, two Gig broadband connection so they work fairly smoothly. The difficulty is that you are not sure why you are looking at them--especially when they are panning shots of some unnamed building under construction, or maybe two buildings, plus a general sketch of another. You click on the Theory button and up come a series of running text quotes from such nice people as partner Mike Davis and even my lord himself. Aphorisms, declarations, maybe but not exactly what you might call a theory. Back to the interesting stuff, the images, and you have a choice from a six by three grid. Click on one and up comes a big image. You can log in, but since there seemed no obvious reason to do so, I didn't. It's all a bit sprawling and vague. But if you are such a titan you probably couldn't care less.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Sutherland Lyall energetically strides to the crease, bat in hand to whack the cyber universe for six. Howzat!