Letters | 24 November 2007

Build on the past

Sir: Simon Thurley (‘Britain is being demolished’, 17 November) calls us to think again before politicians, short-term financiers and architects repeat all the mistakes we made after the war. I well remember as a student in the 1950s being exhorted by duffle-coated and starry-eyed tutors to ‘change the face of Britain’. Sadly, we have. And still we have not learnt the lesson.

Simon Thurley asks ‘will we get anything better than we did in the 1960s and ’70s?’ and, ‘Will old and new be blended successfully to make beautiful places?’ It isn’t really a question of style or of consciously making a beautiful place. A Modernist building from its conception to its demise and beyond is an environmental disaster. Even before it leaves the drawing-board an inordinate amount of fossil fuel is consumed in the manufacture of its materials: steel, concrete, glass slabs and plastic. During its short life of 40 years or so it consumes further excessive quantities of energy in order to function — air-conditioning, lifts etc.,