Universal Studios W1 : On the Pedestrianisation of Oxford Street

Time and time again, the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street is mooted for public debate despite such proposals being abandoned by the Westminster City Council in 2018 further to vociferous objections from local residents.

Unfortunately, this issue refuses to be laid to rest. What seems at first glance a plausible idea is actually a very short-sighted approach. If Oxford Street were fully pedestrianised, all the buses and taxis will be pushed onto the residential streets of Marylebone, Fitzrovia and even Soho. These neighbourhoods are full of residents and communities whose daily lives will be afflicted by such a strategy: Imagine a 24-hour bus route outside your bedroom window. In other words, to make shopping on Oxford Street a more pleasurable experience to those who may frequent it once a week if not once a month or at all, misery will be meted out to those who call the surrounding areas home, those communities who have held out over the past 20 years in the face of ferocious pricing out and unfettered gentrification by real estate speculation.

In fact, the debate over the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street sits at the heart of one of the biggest problems London has been facing since at least the early 2000s. To many people who champion such grandiose schemes, central London to them is an ‘other’ space, some sort of a film set at Universal Studios in Hollywood, a tourist destination with names off the Monopoly board, a Disneyland for tourists and the occasional punters on a night out, a gargantuan property portfolio for some hedge fund or overseas capital. The West End in particular to them is a place where no ‘real’ people live. Such has been the unbridled real estate speculation that has priced out generations of Londoners, forcing them out further afield. Not only this, this economic trend has been accompanied by a somewhat moralising PR mantra that Central London is not an opportune place to establish families and raise children, as if parenting is exclusive to semi-detached dwellings with private backyards, so those who have not been priced out have been guilted to move out lest they end up abusing their children by raising them in an urban environment.

But this is a myth. There is no value judgement in where one chooses to live and raise children. This should be an individual prerogative not class peer pressure and certainly not unfettered gentrification writ large. Many people have dug their heels in and led equally fulfilling lives by cementing their bonds with neighbourhoods like Fitzrovia or Bloomsbury. In fact, I met a lawyer once who has lived with her family in Bloomsbury since the 1990s - she bought her flat when she was starting out and when property prices were more affordable - and she told me that the facilities for children are second to none, from good schools to playgrounds and public space to endless activities to all what the city has to offer in terms of culture and entertainment. The abandonment of Central London is what has created this schism between the majority of Londoners and their city. The city does not belong to them and they can never afford it. This has been an unfortunate civic dissonance that has curtailed the spaces that people from different walks of life share: their city. This is not indictment of gentrification per se because gentrification has been at times a positive force that has breathed new life into abandoned and decrepit neighbourhoods like Clerkenwell in London or Soho and Chelsea in New York City. It’s actually that gentrification, like other market processes, needs to be regulated.

But to whose benefit really? This insatiable, avaricious form of capitalism - real estate speculation - has started to feast on itself. One wonders why the retail sector has been suffering since 2018. “Online shopping” is quite frankly a lazy explanation because I argue that online shopping has challenged bricks-and-mortar shops particularly because of this trend of pricing people out and away from the centres of their cities: If most children raised in semi-detached houses in suburbia have their links to their city weakened if not severed altogether, evidently they are not going to go out of their way to “pop to” the shops in what they perceive as Disneyland to buy; however, if people populated the city more equitably, visiting the shops a stone’s throw away may not be such a daunting task after all; furthermore, when businesses are forced to shut down because they cannot afford rent increases, they will leave empty premises behind them in an affront to landlords who squabbled over pennies in extra rent only for these landlords to lose out on thousands of pounds in unlet properties. Charlotte Street even pre-pandemic is a case in point.

I talk of the West End and Fitzrovia in particular which I have called home for the last 12 years but the West End took a chapter from the book of the City. In fact, the City has witnessed this seismic transformation since the 1980s where the old Londinium has lost its multitude of trades to become a theme park for finance and the auxiliary consumption that goes with it. The butchers have finally relented and are in the process of following the bakers and candlestick makers to the periphery, leaving behind them Smithfield Market that may fare relatively better than Billingsgate Market in hosting the new Museum of London, a civic institution but lest we forget, urban space is a living organism not a collection of curated relics where the modes of production are clandestine. In tumultuous times where governments and economic orders change, one thing will hopefully persevere and it is this collective affinity that people have towards their city.

So for the love of God, do not pedestrianise Oxford Street.

(This disclaimer informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organisation, committee or other group or individual.)

The Power of Stories

Everyone loves a good story.

The power of stories lies in storytelling’s basic premise: a lucid medium, as integral as language itself, that conveys meaning. Stories elevate meaning to an experience that is understandable, relatable and reachable to a wide audience. A story is predicated on a plot that is, in its most basic form, an arc of events that starts with an exposition, escalates into a climax and eventually reaches a denouement.

Architecture, as a discipline and as a realised space, is a treasure trove of stories past and stories yet to come. What buildings mean, how they came about and how they will influence future events is something of great interest to so many people. The characters in architecture are diverse: The architect, the client, the user, the consultant, the planner and the historical characters associated with it are to name but a few. Most projects find resonance in the structure of a story plot: The site or context is presented, challenges are faced along the way in the gruelling design process and a denouement manifests itself in a proposal that may or may not be built. An architect is the narrator of the story as well as having the choice of being a character in it. The architect as narrator is both someone whose imagination contributed to the conjuring up of the story but also someone who taps into a staggering collective legacy of accumulated knowledge of language, culture, style and shared experience. What is interesting is that the architect, perhaps inevitably, ends up as an unreliable narrator since not only are architects potentially influenced by their subconscious stylistic biases stemming from personal experience, but also spaces take a life of their own once a building reaches practical completion, far beyond - or even in antithesis to - the meaning that their creators intended. In his article The Death of the Author, Roland Barthes argues that the author of the text is anyone reading and interpreting it rather than the originator since the personal meaning that the reader imbues the text with keeps recreating it.

So how is this relevant to the architectural profession?

We have been taught a trade that intimately permeates everyone’s lives. We are the guardians of an experience that everyone relates to in varying degrees and yet are we aware of it? What we learn at university first and foremost is the ability to narrate stories and convey meaning. Harnessing the power of stories is key to unlocking the potential of the profession. Selling people the experiences or rather the potential of experiences is the cornerstone of what we do and this is quantifiable and potentially very lucrative; yet, the architectural profession, by and large, turns its back on this to focus on production. Architects have been conditioned by their profession to feel ashamed of their discipline. Many architects felt that it was a rite of passage to relinquish design as a service - and this comprises narrative - in favour of concentrating on the construction aspects of their trade, the same aspects that have been outsourced to contractors specifically to allow architects to focus on what they do best. Instead, most architects hang on to production and strip their profession of particularly what makes it unique: The stories it tells and those it lays the grounds for. The theory we are taught at university is meant to be the strongest weapon in our arsenal, to decode and manipulate language and culture, to master communication at both the conscious and subconscious levels and ultimately to anchor what we do as an indispensable facet of people’s lives. This is either abandoned professionally or relegated to elitist, academic ivory towers rather than being employed as business acumen. Obsessing about waterproofing details or lintel schedules is not what wins us work or elevates our fees. Tapping into and having the power to influence people’s desires, aspirations, social mobility, coveted lifestyles and keeping up with the Joneses does. Such is the consumerist culture that governs our lives.

What is actually worse than abandoning storytelling is reducing it to a caricature, as formulaic as consultant trackers. Although genuine and well-intentioned efforts have been made to flesh out narrative out of architecture in the form of a Design and Access Statement where the proposed intervention needs to have an urban story about it and how it meets practical matters as well; however, most design and access statements feel like they only pay lip service to narrative, as another box to tick and make way for the important aspects like K10 packages. In fact, most design and access statements feel like the text version of the home improvement shows of the 1990s: the existing building is a disaster. We are tearing it down and replacing it with something more contextual. Find any tenuous Georgian reference. Hang on. This is a bit bland. Let’s add a dash of colour to make a statement and a masterpiece is born.

Not quite.

(This disclaimer informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organisation, committee or other group or individual.)

Scarcity Principle : Architects Are Not in Shortage

The RIBA has recently expressed concern over the fact that architects may not be featured on the government’s occupation shortage list: Those on this shortage list can have their salary threshold lowered from £35,000 to £28,000 to qualify for a visa (amongst other requirements). It seems that the RIBA fears that without the subsidy of the occupation shortage list, many architects simply do not make enough money.

This position sums up why the architectural profession is in such peril. The RIBA is a representation of those leading the profession so it should come as no surprise for the RIBA to express such a short-sighted position. Architects in general think tactically not strategically, and this is unfortunately why the profession will never thrive under such parameters.

Is architecture genuinely a ‘shortage occupation’?

The biggest complaint that most people in the profession regurgitate is how low architects are paid. This is indisputable but it seems that architects have developed an addiction to whinging about this fact rather than the will to vanquish it. It is reprehensible how our wages stagnated over the last 12 years whilst the cost of living has increased significantly and I want this to be remedied, not for it to remain a mantra I repeat ad infinitum.

The crux of the problem is rudimentary economics: supply and demand. There is an oversupply of architects in the market that outstrips any demand for them and their services, leaving developers and clients with an inexhaustible pick of architects to choose from. This is one of the main drivers for such low fees that translate to even lower salaries. A strategic governing and regulatory body of the architectural profession should recognise this and act accordingly. If the scarcity principle is applied to the profession, developers and clients’ demand would outstrip the supply of architects, leading automatically to higher fees which translate to better remuneration.

Instead, the architectural market is saturated, replete with people who don’t want to even be there in the first place - if they are honest with themselves to admit it. Having worked in so many practices, I have lost track of many colleagues who were just not interested in architectural design and craft. They have no passion nor any curiosity about the discipline. They simply couldn’t care less. Instead these people focus on workplace politics, and career progression becomes the goal in itself not the means to for their design input to hold gravitas. For people with a passion for the discipline, being promoted is an avenue for them to contribute more significantly to create inspiring spaces and places. For others, it is the title on the business card and the power trip, very much like American Psycho albeit with shabbier wardrobes.

The RIBA also starts wailing when fewer students apply to architectural programmes. Why are architecture schools churning out so many architecture graduates to begin with? The schools have their own agendas relating to revenue from tuition fees but are the interests of architecture school and those of the architectural profession in concord? From personal experience having taught, many students were simply either not enamoured of the discipline but were there because of the erroneous impression that being an architect came with money and prestige. Even so, many architecture graduates can find more satisfying platforms for them by working for contractors, developers, project management consultancies, insurance firms and myriad other disciplines so intimately connected with property and the built environment.

The fact is the profession oversupplies the market and resorts to fee cutting and underbidding to chase limited opportunities. Instead of redressing the problem, the profession masquerades it by tapping into a global pool of resource to recruit and keep overhead costs down. This is not at all an indictment of architecture companies vying for the best talent on a global scale but it is rather a critique of companies reducing this into a source of cheap labour. The profession does not question the fee spectrum but rather finds ingenious ways of keeping costs at bay. This practice of oversupply and addiction to cheap labour fuels this mess we find ourselves in with stagnating salaries and dwindling standards of living and yet we keep complaining about being unappreciated and underpaid. This is akin to the economic bubble created by cheap credit. The day of reckoning will come, and it will inflict immeasurable misery on us when it does. In fact, it already has. Several times. Our governing bodies like the RIBA refuse to do anything about it so what is their strategy? Are we as a profession waiting to be saved by someone like a benevolent client or a sympathetic developer or a local council with a heart of gold or the public having an epiphany about how great we are?

Any governing body of the architectural profession has to radically overhaul its remit. Architects need a two-pronged attack to benefit the profession: one that lobbies for legislation to protect the profession and another to navigate rather basic free market economics. Lobbying for architecture to be put on the occupation shortage list is acceding to an unfair status quo and wasting so much time and resource to maintain it, nay, exacerbate it even by not allowing the market to adjust salaries, artificially keeping them down.

(This disclaimer informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organisation, committee or other group or individual.)

On Branding

Do architects ever think of their companies as brands?

A brand is a recognisable attribute under which services and/or products are defined vis-a-vis competitors. Architecture is both a service and a product yet the concept of branding sounds like a foreign, arcane language to many in the profession. In a property market that is fiercely competitive, saturated with architects, how do architectural practices stand out?

I would argue that successful architecture studios are not only those that have built a reputation but also those who have become recognisable outside architectural circles: A true metric of success is attracting clients over and over again who want to avail themselves of the service you provide regardless of what your fees are. Therein lies the forte of a strong brand: clients are willing pay for it even when your competitors are underbidding you. This is different to track record or what is affectionately referred to as a ‘safe pair of hands’. Developers also operate in a fiercely competitive property market and they also are vying for tenants and buyers who can afford to be picky.

So what are the possible tenets of a brand in architecture?

1. Design. It’s rudimentary: Architects don’t win new commissions based on Grade-3 waterproofing and K-10 packages. Kitchen extracts surprisingly don’t catch the eye of a developer. Architecture is a service where design adds value to property. Architecture is also a product but production has been outsourced to contractors with the prevalence of ‘design-and-build’ contracts leaving architects the opportunity to focus on design and innovation, even manufacture taste. Design is what sets companies apart and by design I don’t particularly mean style which some companies become hostages to, but rather a sense of freshness, even sexiness which is associated with the brand that taps into what people want or never realised they wanted in the first place. Design is a mode of thinking.

2. Recognition. An architectural brand needs to be recognisable and this means it needs to be communicated properly to the right audience. Unfortunately, for many architects, the epitome of their ambition is to give lectures in industry-related conferences that only people in architecture and sometimes property attend: Instead of thinking bigger or giving their PR consultants more creative rein, architects limit their PR consultant’s brief to gaining a speaking opportunity in an NLA or a BCO conference or at best, MIPIM. Why don’t architects advertise? Why don’t they pay their PR consultants to gain a platform in lifestyle magazines or even TV shows ranging from drama to documentaries to comedy panel shows. This can either be an outright advert or subtle product placement and name-dropping. This is not a quick process but it is worth strategising even if takes a few years to build up one’s profile to get there. Architecture permeates almost every facet of modern life yet architects are introverts who only deal with their own.

3. Presentation. An architectural brand needs people who can represent it well, whether in the way they dress or the way they express themselves. Architects need to look and talk the business. Almost every other profession is conscious of the image of its ranks but not not architecture. Attending client meetings looking dishevelled is alas a common occurrence. It is a poor reflection of the brand these unkempt architects represent if not the profession as a whole. How can clients trust architects with designing projects worth millions of pounds if these architects cannot dress themselves? How can clients have confidence that architects will coordinate a finishes palette when these architects fail to coordinate the colour of their own outfits?

4. Flexibility. Many architects are fixated with production and building sites that they are oblivious to how flexible their remit is. I wrote some months ago on abstraction and this has never rung so true than now with lockdown when construction is almost grinding to a halt. Why have architects not expanded their business model to the gaming industry or to film post-production (special effects and CGIs)? The opportunities for architectural design in these somewhat non-orthodox sectors are legion.

Brands are fundamental in creative, service-led industries and whilst some architects have successfully concocted them, many in the profession do not have a sense of purpose or identity. It is erroneously thought that brands are the preserve of only starchitects but starchitects are only the apotheosis of architectural branding, architecture’s counterpart to luxury commodities. Just like fashion, the spectrum for architectural brands is vast, catering to disparate tastes and purchasing powers. Some architects can be Dior, others Zara and all that in between.

Lunchtime CPDs

Nothing spells out how disconnected the architectural profession has become more than the lunchtime CPD.

CPDs (Continuous Professional Development) are required by the RIBA ( Royal Institute for British Architects) , and in principle, they are a commendable endeavour to ensure that the profession keeps ahead of the times and that architects do not rest on their laurels. The RIBA outlines a relatively balanced array of themes for these CPDs that attempts to be exhaustive but doesn’t really hit the mark. This is exacerbated by how the profession implements them and this is why CPDs have become the bane of the architectural discipline:

On one hand, These CPDs have been used by the architectural profession today to disproportionately focus architects’ attention on matters that can be done far better by subcontractors and trade specialists like basement waterproofing or concrete mixes: Why are CPDs on finishes, materials and trends so few and far between? How come we have no CPDs on psychology where we are taught to read people and tap into their desires so we can provide them with the spaces that even they did not know they wanted? Why do we not have CPDs on communication where we learn the vernacular of our clients, whether it is developers, families, communities or pension funds? Why do we not have CPDs on branding and how our work can have a recognisable brand to it? Why do we not have CPDs on business development and networking? Financial models of architecture? Leadership and management? The list goes on.

On the other hand, these CPDs end up purloining more of our free time. In fact, there is an unhealthy obsession in the profession with colonising the time of employees. There is an undeniable pressure on architects to relinquish their time to their profession. People are expected to burn the midnight oil and spend most of their waking and not-so waking hours working. The only reprieve may be the lunch break which is sacrosanct for me. It is where I get to recharge and leave the office to go places for food, coffee and perhaps a walk. This is where the lunchtime CPD kicks in. Not satisfied with monopolising most of our waking hours, the profession, like a possessive partner, goes out of its way to try to claw even more of our time.

But what is the point really? Are we making more money or have we managed to increase our fees as a result? There is a blatant dissonance between working hours and productivity. Do all these hours spent trawling basement details and MEP service penetrations through blockwork walls translate to monetary gain? Have people in the profession stopped and questioned their working methodology or why they do what they do? No.

I am militant about my work-life balance not because I have children or obligations but because I believe it makes me a far better designer. We are an incredibly social discipline that permeates everyone’s life in some shape or form. We also belong to a larger class of creative industry. The design industry is one of the pillars of the British economy since deindustrialisation in the 1980s and yet architects insist on missing out and stunting their own role within this design industry. How can we be better architects if we do not go out to the theatre or the cinema or to restaurants, bars or cafes? I learn far more on space, narrative, lighting and technology from watching a production by Frantic Assembly than I would in a CPD on the acoustic properties of drylining. How can we keep a finger on the pulse if we are not abreast with trends around us in real estate, economy, music, fashion? How are we expected to be able communicators if we do not socialise and rub shoulders with friends and their friends and their friends who may push a project our way? People pay a premium for the services that we provide yet we refuse to embrace that and cling on to production. Knowing how to detail basement waterproofing will not win us work, yet in a profession hellbent on monopolising our time with joyless tasks which can be better done by trade specialists and sub-contractors and increasingly by AI, we are at risk of breeding a generation of socially-awkward, insular and uninspired individuals.

But hey ho, at least lunch is provided (sometimes) and a Pret sandwich is worth squandering our free time for.

(This disclaimer informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organisation, committee or other group or individual.)

Disconnected by Discourse : On Communication

This article in BD came out coincidentally the morning after I published a piece on how modernist architecture in Britain was misrepresented and came to be unfairly loathed by the public.

https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/scruton-blames-international-style-for-uks-opposition-to-new-homes/5101655.article

Scruton’s aesthetical bias alas finds so much resonance with the British public. Postmodernists like him argue their case with fervour. They engage the public at large and address these people's sense of self and aspirations: It's about 'place'. It's about 'individuality' within a 'community'. It's about an aspirational lifestyle. Modernists, on the other hand, plead their case by castigating postmodernists, whilst ignoring the public. Wouldn't it be time far better spent for architects to make a case for what they believe in, namely modernism in this case, rather than silence those who don't concur? What have we done as modernists, nay as architects, to talk to people, to address their sense of self, to address belonging, to address aspiration, to address insecurities, to address happiness?

What have we done as a profession to communicate with developers? Architectural design is a service that adds palpable monetary value to property. Design significantly increases the profits generated by real estate; yet, most architects don’t know how, or even feel ashamed by, trying sell design qua design to the movers and shakers. A designer space is akin to a designer pair of shoes: They make people feel so exuberant about themselves that they are willing part with their money, nay even pay a premium, for them.

So why is it that there is such a disconnect between the architectural profession and society?

It is simply because most architects do not know how to talk to people. They either ignore them or they talk at them: Architects sanctimoniously shame people for not being ‘ethical’ or ‘empathic’ (as architects think themselves to be with whatever cause du jour), they ridicule people’s tastes, they dismiss people’s aspirations as naive and most important of all, they think of people as children who won’t understand concepts like ‘spatial syntax’ or whatever pretentious term making the round in architects’ circles these days. Architecture is a profession mired in sanctimony and arrogance; however, architecture is an incredibly social discipline that, in principle, affects people in their everyday life. Architecture is everywhere in the places people live, work, train and socialise yet the profession goes to great lengths not to engage people. Isn’t it time better spent to have CPDs on communication, presentation, projection, oratorship and psychology rather than U-values and render waterproofing?

In fact, it all begins at university where students are encouraged to turn their backs to their friends and spend all their waking hours in the studio bubble. Worse still, architecture students are taught not to respect time and not to have a life out of studio. Spending an all-nighter is seen as a badge of honour rather than an egregious offence that should be damned rather than feted. As a result, young architects miss out on so much in these formative years by not engaging with their peers outside the discipline, by not keeping their finger on the pulse in terms of trends and by losing the communication skills as gregarious individuals to talk about matters besides ‘praxis’ and ‘spatial experience’.

We have a chance to manufacture taste in architecture and interiors yet we shunned it to focus on production. We could be opinion makers and influencers, not contractor’s lackeys and bureaucrats. We really need to communicate our ideas in a language that is germane to the people we are engaging. We make people’s lives more exciting and we make developers money with design, yet we can not articulate that simple truth.

Less Prince, More Pauper : Modernism in Britain

Modernist architecture commands such a stigma in Britain.

Never has a style been as maligned as modernism. Even postmodernism enjoys some popularity amongst considerable segments of society. Worse still, the worst excesses of postmodernism of the 1980s and 1990s are rearing their ugly head of late in new projects around London: Foliage, floral motifs, fluted pilasters and gilded laser-cut ornament are rife in nascent architecture.

Not modernism. It is a style largely abhorred by the public and misunderstood by many architects.

I’m not talking about seminal iconic projects like Barbican Estate or the National Theatre (there’s a special place in my heart for the works of Denys Lasdun, from Keeling House to 26 St James’s Place). These building stand out and are met with due deference from critics, in the public and from within the design profession. It’s rather these buildings that permeate the urban fabric of British cities, especially Fitzrovia. All these fine examples are not deemed worthy to save and celebrate. They are just background clutter to people.

Modernist architecture, unfortunately, has been mis-sold to the British public by the snobbery of architects: In the post-war period, haughty architects decided they knew what was best for the occupier and went on an iconoclastic rampage of designing housing that was sternly minimalist and austere. They perceived modernist architecture to be architecture devoid of ornament, bare. These projects only succeeded in the promotional footage that was produced and they sat at odds with the people inhibiting them and the public at large. These schemes came in 3 shades only: Brutalist, white or awkwardly clad in brickwork. There was a certain intentional cruelty in disfiguring town centres; vernacular and historic architecture was destroyed needlessly and methodically only to be replaced by insensitive spartan developments with no consciousness of context or scale.

As a result, modernist architecture came to mean architecture of deprivation, architecture of squalor and penury, even architecture of oppression (Clockwork Orange anyone?). An aspiring British public would view modernist architecture as the architecture to move away from, as the sepia background that is destroyed by social mobility. This is without even factoring the crime and anti-social behaviour that these modernist projects served as a setting for and as a symbol of. In other parts of the world, where I grew up for example, the public’s view of modernist architecture could not be more different. This is not to say that modernism was posited exclusively as the architecture of opulence but it was such a flexible and versatile style that was customised to both prince and pauper. This is chiefly due to that fact that modernist architecture was perceived by many of its masters as well as many of disciples, bar the iconoclastic British modernists, as the abstraction of the ornament, not the abolition of the ornament.

The pinnacle of modernism may well be Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona pavilion. This is a piece laden with ornament and sensitivity to the surrounding. This a space that fetes the relation between old and new, inside and outside, minimalism and decadence. The marbles and material finishes are employed in their primordial states as ornaments. The pavilion is a panoply of textures and colours.

Yet it is the whitewashed private residences that served as templates for British modernists. The strict iconoclasm enforced by the profession led to ornaments sneaking through the backdoor of British architecture. It would be known as British High-Tech: British High-Tech seems now to have been the only outlet for ornaments in British architecture although it was never been promoted nor has it been received as such. The machine and structure has been used for its aesthetics. In a postmodern semiotic discourse, High Tech appears to me to be a case of floating signifier, where the machine parts have do not signify what they did initially but are used for their own shapes and colours, an ornament by any other name. It is the playfulness and variegation of these ostensibly structural elements that have injected so much fun in an otherwise mirthless spectrum of British Modernism.

But High Tech was never a style to be mass-produced or rolled out. It is a distinct style that is the stuff of legends and icons. Scores of background buildings comprising a very stylish albeit underrated palette of Portland stone, Alpi Verde marble, stainless steel and mosaics deserve to receive some attention and deserve to be viewed more favourably as placemakers instead of new developments in abeyance. There is much to be learned from the rich spectrum of colours and materials, as well as from the levity of form and the subtlety of detail that many modernist buildings embraced. Taking Modernism way too seriously led to perennial postmodernism: Humans crave adornment in their life so when a style was missold to them to be devoid of it, the only outlet turned out to be Neoclassicism and kitsch.

(Below is an abandoned villa that was built in Mount-Lebanon in the 1960s.)

London is not Paris: On Planners

Over the last few decades, architects lost the authorship of buildings to agents and planners when architects refused to accept that production was outsourced to contractors as it has been to China and India in other sectors. Architects sank with the ‘production’ ship and abandoned the ‘services’ lifeboats that were eventually commandeered by letting agents.

Agents command so much clout over building design, yet one mustn’t forget that planners have also waded in to influence, nay dictate design with their strong style bias: Over the last decade, planners have become increasingly conservative in their taste and have attempted to lay down the law for architects to follow: Agents follow trends by emulating trailblazer schemes by visionary developers; planners also follow a select trend or two, and these trends are 300 years old. Planners are rewriting the annals of history by forcing architects to reshape London into a construct of an idealised past. Many planners have not trained as architects; they lose the design nuances of interpreting context and reinventing in subtle yet sensitive ways. Their interpretation of context becomes literal and stale. Building design becomes yet another template or flat-pack furniture catalogue for architects to implement, a Georgian Ikea.

Nowhere is this more evident than in residential projects. Some commercial projects can get away with non-orthodox materials but residential projects don’t: When did almost every new residential project have to be clad in brick to appease the planners and extract their planning permission? Isn’t this stifling to architects? Aren’t most new developments replicas of each other? London has become a rerun of itself, rather a bad remake or re-fresh. Every new Design & Access statement is a rehash. It offers nothing new. It feels like a facsimile. It slyly scans its context and almost always selectively identifies the Georgian vernacular as the predominant context and brick as the principal texture. The trend is ‘context’, and ‘context’ is a euphemism for brick. This is not to be construed as an indictment of brick as a material; rather, it is a critique of using brick gratuitously to resonate with an idealised past. Brick is a stunning and versatile material, but it should be the prerogative of the architect to use it, not a planning dictum.

Further to that, there is a disturbing trend where a tenuous historical reference is ‘unearthed’ and used an intellectual succour to feed a resurgence of postmodernism. Somehow, all new schemes have discovered lace artisans, foliage and Georgian ballrooms all over the city. This comes as a post-rationalisation and not as a genuine concept. It also justifies half-baked, gaudy ornamentation like a laser-cut wrought-iron balustrade or a foliage motif in the stone cladding or fluted pilasters for window reveals.

This trend of homogenising London into a cohesive ideal Georgian brick-clad city feels like a belated British version of Haussmann’s transformation of Paris. London is not Paris. Paris is a magnificent city predicated on consistency and monumentality. It represents how the French see themselves and want the world to see them rather than who they really are. Paris is a construct of an idealised image of France, exactly as individuals (falsely) construe themselves to be smarter, better-looking and younger-looking than their peers. London on the other hand is anything but consistent or conspicuously monumental. What makes London such a great city is how chaotic it is. Unlike Paris, London is a palimpsest of great thinking, audacious experiments and avant-garde architecture. The variegated urban fabric is a testament that the city and its creative industries have always set the trends for others to emulate. London has been both the colony and the metropole as far as testing out new styles; furthermore, London is the world’s design mecca with a commensurate urban grain of centuries of both successful and failed experiments. I have always argued that Paris is akin to being in your 50s and 60s, well-settled and content in your ways whilst London is being in your 20s and 30s, experimenting and fumbling as you learn more about yourself and grow to find your niche. You have a great deal of fun.

I use Paris as a comparison because I believe this obsession with ‘context’ and towing the line of a ‘Georgian’ vernacular is an endeavour for consistency and monumentality. It is a re-writing of history and a retrospective construct of an idealised city other than the actual London that people have been bequeathed.

London is not Paris. All the bricks of Britain (and Denmark!) will not sweeten this little chaotic town.