Letters. (View).

AR+D PUZZLE

SIR: Your December ar+d issue was lively and had many good things in it, but I was surprised at some of the decisions of the jury. For instance, giving the Wilkinson Eyre bridge in Gateshead a mere highly commended, and at the same time making a full award to that rather dull bridge in Croatia. The Gateshead model did, after all, win the British Stirling Prize -- of the most prestigious in the world. Why, one wonders, did the honey house in North Carolina come so high in the hierarchy: it is not much more than a clever wall under a car port Was it given an award to try to appease the Americans, or at least your American juror?

On the other hand, several of the commended buildings seem more impressive than some of the award winners. I am thinking particularly of the Jensen & Skodvin church in Norway, which must surely, as you say, be a worthy inheritor of the grand Nordic tradition of church-building; and of Christoph Ingenhoven's car park in Germany, which, as you indicate, really does appear to set new standards for this very unpleasant building type.

On yet another hand, why were the odd little office building in Ljubljana, and the clinic and pharmacy in Kyoto with its very strange alley, thought worthy of commendation-- again an attempt to increase geographical spread?

Of course, in any competition, observers will disagree with some of the decisions of the jury. But the 2002 Awards jury does seem to have made stranger decisions than most.

Yours etc

HERBERT INGOLD

Zurich, Switzerland

EMERGED ARCHITECT?

SIR: This year's Emerging Architecture issue (AR Dec 2002) was as inspiring as ever. What is most remarkable, however, is to learn that the British architects Wilkinson Eyre, twice winners of the Stirling Prize, no less, are under the age of 45. Their's is an astonishing achievement -- and little has been made of their youth as well as their brilliance, in previous reviews I have read on their work.

Yours etc

JENNIFER SMITH 

London W11, UK

We were surprised too. We checked. Eyre is under 45: he was partner in charge of the job. Wilkinson is over the magic age. THE EDITOR

DEAD RIGHT

SIR: I was pleased to see the touchingly moving cemetery near Hiroshima honoured in your last issue (p43). You were quite right to give it a prize, but, being probably one of the few of your readers who has actually been there, I would like to add one thing to your description.

When the wind blows, the rods bend slightly and sing. I was there on almost calm day, but I imagine that in a high wind, they bend more, and the whispers of the dead almost become anthems. It is a wonderful creation at every level.

Yours etc

ANNIE OGILVY

Birmingham, Alabama, USA

OUTRAGEOUS?

SIR: The Architectural Review is for the most part an objective reviewer of the current state of architectural practice worldwide. In instances where projects reviewed barely pass muster, to your credit you have always managed some positive comments.

Your Outrage column earns you my respect for intellectual honesty and promotion of 'good' architecture. Hence, it is with dismay that the October issue reviews two projects that by any measure should fall into the Outrage category.

The library, a collection of mushrooms that has grown adjacent to the Indian Parliament house is a case in point. However, Raj Rewal did one good thing, he sunk half the structure into the ground. Pity that he didn't sink the whole mess below grade and cover the top with lovely green lawn. Imagine a great circle of grass, surrounded by a walkway, a strip of gardens and enclosed in a dense mass of trees. Access to the facilities and services below would e through shafts let into the forest but accessible from the street outside its triangular plot.

And your other 'questionable' is of course the Utrecht Town Hall extension. The 'extension' as reported, is simply a recladding of existing structures, an 'exterior/interior decoration'. Those worthies who sanctioned this abomination should be excised from the body politic and onfined, along with their Indian counterparts ho authorized the mushroom farm, to a special circle of hell -- oblivion. People of taste in both countries, must be sickened by these abominations.

Lest the US consider itself superior to the finger of Outrage, I mention the new simply awful and huge, Chicago Public Library. We are not without fault. Where the mushroom farm appears a simple lack of talent, or imagination, the Utrecht 'decoration' is perhaps an excess of both with a touch of historical reference.

In the case of 'the farm', various Hindu and other historical structures were given as sources for the 'design'. This I doubt! I dare say any high school or college architectural student could do a better job.

As for 'Utrecht', it certainly brings attention to the city! We can establish a historical reference from the sixteenth century. One of the most famous architectural copy books came from the hand of the Dutch/Flemish Mannerist Dietterlin: his book Architectura was published in 1598. One product, is 'The Dutch House, Kew' (ref: p20, English Country Houses, Caroline 1625-1685 by Oliver Hill and John Cornforth, Country Life, London, 1966). However, we might call this post-Mannerism style -- 'junk-yard'.

Yours etc

DONALD R. BAKER New York, USA

FRY VANDALIZED

SIR: Having long admired the magnificent Maxwell Fry house on the Coombe Hill Estate, Kingston in Surrey, I was very saddened to see hat developers have recently acquired the property.

Plastic windows have already gone in and the building looks as though it is being drastically gutted with many of the original features disappearing. To make matters worse the grounds of the original house are being swamped with a number of grotesque new houses. Is there any way you can highlight this vandalism?

Yours etc

MICHAEL BURNS

New Malden, Surrey, UK