Letters.

IRISH STEW 

SIR: As members of the team which created and maintains PADDI (Planning Architecture Design Database Ireland), we wish to express our disappointment at Sutherland Lyall's negative, and somewhat ill-informed, approach to a freely available architectural resource (AR September, p33).

We should like to make the following points: PADDI is a memorable acronym which fits its context -- no ideological baggage here and maybe even a smidgeon of humour.

Given that the database relates to Ireland, it seems perverse (not just 'a tad unfair') to search for information on figures from Greek antiquity. One might as well try to find information on Vermeer on Medline. What was he trying to prove? Why not give the database a fair trial and search for an Irish architect or building?

We are at a loss to understand his apparent tetchiness at discovering, after 'mischievously' searching for the Scottish architect Richard Murphy, that there were four records relating to a house in Ireland designed by him. One might have thought he would have been gratified that such records existed and had been included. Surely he didn't expect to find records for buildings outside Ireland or for buildings that had not been written up? And did he find 75 records on the Troubles too many or too few? Most researchers would be delighted to find such information documented as it is a subject which we, in Irish architecture and planning libraries, are often asked about.

We are sad your reviewer spent the short time he allotted us so unprofitably and mostly in waiting. We replicated his searches and in Search All Fields they took 24, 25 and 30 seconds respectively. In Advanced Search the same searches took 2.5, 2.75 and 4 seconds. Slowness may have a variety of causes including busy highways, clogged servers, modem speed and poor search techniques. Perhaps Mr Lyall needs to hone his information retrieval skills or to buy a new computer?

We are not averse to constructive criticism and have now added a note to our Journals page to link users to our catalogues where they will get detailed information about the titles we scan. PADDI is a bibliographic database with some illustrations, not an image resource. We are amending the home page to make this clearer. However, if Sutherland Lyall had passed his mouse over the images he would have discovered further information such as geographical location. And perhaps we have concentrated on firmitas and commoditas at the expense of venustas. I suppose we could charge our users and use some of the money to hire a new graphic designer but rather than going 'all out for paytime' we prefer to uphold the Internet's prime original virtue of free universal access. We will continue, without charge, to add daily to the 17000 references we have already recorded for the benefit of architectural and planning researchers.

Yours etc

KAREN LATIMER, CAROL BARD ON, MICHELLE MCCOMB

Belfast, Northern Ireland 

Sutherland Lyall replies Poor old dears at PADDI. They, of course, have thc usual problem of seeing their own site entirely from their own inside point of view. I always use Ictinus and Callicrates to test the historical depth of architecture history sites all over the world. Seems reasonable to imagine Irish Classicists would know them.

Searching for Murphy (who once told me he actually comes from Cheshire) was a test of the librarian's grasp of the architectural world, nothing wrong with a bit of mischief As to passing mice over whatsits and getting whatever, sites with unannounced tricks like this suck/get denounced by all right thinking users.

Every manager of an inherently slow site blames everybody else including 'busy highways, clogged servers' etc. I'm using a very fast ADSL modem. So, although I may well need to hone my information retrieval skills (hey this is a site for non-elibrarians surely?) I don't need to buy a new computer (repeat earlier parenthesis). Finally there's no excuse ever for dingy design on an architectural resource site.

EL GRECO ERROR

SIR: In 'Archival Restraint' by Vera Tepedy, October 2002, there is a significant historical mistake. The article is presenting a cultural centre in Toledo, Spain, designed by Ignacio Mendaro Corsini Arquitecto, around the historical conventual church of San Marcos. The author in her brief historical reference to the church mentions there was in 1628 an addition to it (the church of Santisima Trinidad) begun by Jorge Manuel Theotocopuli. She wrongly presumes that this person is a refugee to the city of Toledo from Venice, like El Greco. This particular person though is non other than El Greco's own son. 'El Greco' was the nickname attributed to Domenicos Theotocopoulos after he arrived in the Spanish city from Venice simply because he was Greek and it means 'The Greek'. The real name of El Greco was Domenicos Theotocopoulos as I just mentioned, however, he was signing his paintings as Domenico Theotocopuli in the ancient Greek language and not in the Greek of his era. He married a Spanish woman and they had a son named Jorge Manuel Theotocopoulos gorge is the Spanish version of the Greek Georgios and Manuel is the Spanish version of the Greek Emanouel, who happens to be the most celebrated saint in the area of Crete where Theotocopoulos was from).

His son as we can safely claim nowadays, had an involvement with his father's art. After Theotocopoulos Snr died, he left a considerable debt, as well as some unfinished paintings. In order for his son to pay the debt, he took the freedom to 'supply' the finishing touches to his father's paintings and sell them as finished pieces. We can understand this because the attention to detail is not the same in them and the brushstrokes are rather crude in places.

So it is not a surprise to me that he was consequently involved in the arts (probably he was briefly taught by his father as a child) by becoming an architect and starting an important commission like this for the city of Toledo.

Yours etc

EFSTRATIOS KANTZELIS

Glasgow, Scotland

CLINICAL PERRAULT

SIR: Browsing through your July issue, I came across the review of Dominique Perrault's mediatheque in Venissieux. I wonder whether a child would feel at ease playing in a space such as the one portrayed on p59: ubiquitous grey colour, rubber flooring, metal everywhere, no sense of privacy or friendliness. The same for the adults reading area (same page, lower left image): should one feel inspired in studying in military-like arrangements of desks, with natural light coming from ... behind? How far is Scharoun's Staatsbibliothek in Berlin.

Oh yes, and of course we speak about sustainability and 'environmental imperatives', but still we have to look at this kind of all-glass shoeboxes, designed with no regard for orientation, energy consumption and so on, built on strictly aesthetical considerations (needless to say, not a single user in the photographs -- perhaps they would have been higher than 2.25m, disturbing Monsieur Perrault's rigorous rules of alignment?). Maybe you should be more consistent with your January 'green issues' and choose more responsible architecture for your reviews?

Yours etc

GABRIELE MASERA

Milan, Italy