I’m not convinced Thomas Heatherwick is the best person to be discussing boring buildings

Architects are often snobby about – and no doubt jealous of – the designer Thomas Heatherwick, who isn’t an actual architect yet still manages to wangle important building commissions. And he knows this. In his documentary for BBC Radio 4, Building Soul, where he examines what he calls the ‘blandemic’ in today’s architecture, he asks to interview fellow Spectator writer Jonathan Meades, who responds: ‘The last person who should be doing a series on urbanism is a designer.’ Heatherwick wears this as a badge of honour.

Indeed, qualifying as an architect is no guarantee of quality – check out the past nominations for the Carbuncle Cup, the now defunct prize for the ugliest building in Britain. Some of the best constructions, moreover, have been built by unqualified architects. Look at the work of Italian maestro Carlo Scarpa, who, in an act of poetic justice, redesigned the Venetian courtroom where he had faced trial for practising architecture without a licence.

But by focusing on this sideshow – reductively blaming everything on a culture of complacent and mis-educated architects – Heatherwick’s documentary misses the point.