Letters.MISSING THE MARK SIR: Your August issue on 'Bigness' should have hit the nail on the head, but unfortunately, the hammer almost completely missed its mark. You were quite right to suggest that bigness is inevitable, and that we cannot go back, and CharlesJencks's Law of Diminishing Architecture, for all its pseudo-scientific graph, certainly has existential validity. You published some pretty big sheds, but the only images of commercial skyscrapers, the most dull and deadening building type of our times, were in the Jencks article. And one of the few examples of a good architect bravely trying to make something decent out of a dull commercial brief (Piano at Potsdamer Platz Potsdamer Platz, sometimes known in English as Potsdam Square,[1] is an important town square and traffic intersection in the centre of Berlin, Germany, lying about one kilometre south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (German Parliament Building), and in Berlin) was attacked by Jencks as a 'collection of uninspired boxes'. Potsdamer Platz is certainly better in human terms than the usual products of the development industry, and it attempts to relate to such surroundings as remain around it with more than usual sympathy. Not only was it a pity that one of the most recent best efforts was attacked, but you could apparently find no other work as good. As Jencks says, good new large buildings are very rare. It's your job to find them. Yours etc JAMES BROUGHTON Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , USA MAN FROM ATLANTIC ATLANTIC Cardiology A clinical trial–Angina Treatments–Lasers And Normal Therapies In Comparison SIR: For all your hopes in the August issue on Bigness that things may be improving, the reality is shown in your correspondent's letter from Atlantic City Atlantic City, city (1990 pop. 37,986), Atlantic co., SE N.J., an Atlantic resort and convention center; settled c.1790, inc. 1854. Situated on Absecon Island, a barrier island 10 mi (16. . That's what buildings are like 95 per cent of the time: placeless, scaleless, vastly energy wasteful and totally ignorant of anything except themselves. Who are the architects that design this stuff? Sometimes it seems that there is no hope. Yours etc ERNESTO MAIS MAIS Major Automated Information System (US DoD) MAIS Mediterranean Association of International Schools (Madrid, Spain) MAIS Movimento per l'Autosviluppo, l'Interscambio e la Solidarietà Buenos Aires Buenos Aires (bwā`nəs ī`rēz, âr`ēz, Span. bwā`nōs ī`rās), city and federal district (1991 pop. , Argentina VENICE IN PERIL SIR: Isn't San Giobbe on the north-western skirts of Venice? (View, AR June, p27). As far as I remember, the Ponte dei Tre Archi is the last bridge crossing the Rio di Canareggio before the lagoon (I know, though, how easy it is to lose one's bearings to become bewildered. See also: Bearing when the ocean is in the wrong direction). Having just read The Anonymous Venetian, I hope the Venice in Peril project fares better than those of the charity providing for 'ordinary Venetians' described in that novel. On my last visit two months ago, the skyline was littered with building cranes, seeming never to move or hoist hoist: see winch. anything. By the way, is the scaffolding still there that, animated by no discernible signs of activity, covers the facade of San Lorenzo San Lorenzo, town, S Honduras, on the Gulf of Fonseca. Its satellite, Henecán is the chief Pacific port of Honduras. Henecán's modern port facilities and deepwater harbor and channel approach were constructed in the late 1970s after the old port at and is contemplated by Commissario Brunetti from his window in the Questura as he ponders the crimes of the Venetians? Yours etc DAG NILSEN Trondheim, Norway BUS BLUNDER SIR: You illustrate lavishly Bradford's new range of bus shelters and I am wondering why? (AR July, p28). Catching a bus is about waiting where you would rather not be and I fail to see how a bright red, higgledy-piggledy roadside structure resembling a crashed Routemaster is going to help, let alone 'enhance and dignify dig·ni·fy tr.v. dig·ni·fied, dig·ni·fy·ing, dig·ni·fies 1. To confer dignity or honor on; give distinction to: dignified him with a title. 2. bus travel'. AR should not give valuable space to such modish tosh, but delve into its archives and dispatch to sad Bradford as many copies as possible of Gordon Cullen's 'Outrage' articles on townscapes and their street furniture, as published by you in the late 1950s. Yours etc DAVID STEWART David Stewart may be:
Canterbury, England ESCAPE FROM THE ICY BOX SIR: Heartiest congratulations on your publishing that management school in the Netherlands in your August issue (p85). At last an escape from the icy high-tech orthogonalism and parallelepipeds of far too much interior design today. And a brilliant use of feisty contemporary Dutch architectural imagination, which when allowed out too much in the cityscape (company) CityScape - A re-seller of Internet connections to the PIPEX backbone. E-Mail: <sales@cityscape.co.uk>. Address: CityScape Internet Services, 59 Wycliffe Rd., Cambridge, CB1 3JE, England. Telephone: +44 (1223) 566 950. , tends to be over self-indulgent and screaming for attention. 24H Architecture seems to have got their priorities right and made an office desert into somewhere you would actually want to be in. But won't all those laths get rather dusty? Yours etc KIM FREDERIC Berlin, Germany CALLING BARTLETT ALUMNI SIR: The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL UCL University College London UCL Université Catholique de Louvain UCL UEFA Champions League UCL Upper Confidence Limit UCL University of Central Lancashire UCL Upper Control Limit UCL Unfair Competition Law UCL Ulnar Collateral Ligament , together with August and Birkhauser, are publishing a new book, Bartlett Works, celebrating the work and achievements of its graduates since leaving the school. We are keen to track down interesting projects and people to feature, and want to include as wide a range as possible, including buildings, design products, major exhibitions and books. We are interested not only in people who have set up their own practices but also those working for larger firms, both nationally and internationally, and in people whose work falls into other design-related fields. Participants who have already agreed to be involved include Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Block Architecture, Foster and Partners, Sheppard Robson and Softroom. Bartlett Works will be published in early 2003. If you are interested in participating, please contact Rachel Stevenson as soon as possible at bnrtlettworks@ucl.ac.uk for more details, or alternatively write to: Rachel Stevenson The Bartlett School of Architecture UCL Wates House 22 Gordon Street London WC1H OQB END TO HOSTILITIES? SIR: Thank goodness you have stopped publishing all those hysterical letters about Israel and Palestine. Yours etc JANE STEVENSON Dr. Jane Stevenson (born 1959) is a UK author who was born in London and brought up in London, Beijing and Bonn. She has lectured in history at Sheffield University, and teaches literature and history at the University of Aberdeen. Manchester, England |
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