All articles by Amanda Baillieu – Page 25
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Opinion
Fear of the future is Betjeman’s legacy
Should John Betjeman be remembered for saving St Pancras and the Albert Bridge rather than his poetry?
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Opinion
Prize must look beyond the spectacular
What does the Stirling Prize shortlist say about 21st century British architecture?
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Opinion
Ken needs to deliver on his green pledges
A year on and the Olympics remains a mirage: it’s as if we can imagine the best of every games — Sydney’s weather, Barcelona’s buildings, Athens fireworks — recreated in the gritty urban wastelands of east London. But the mirage is starting to fade.
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Opinion
Real crux is society’s view of architects
If you had your time again would you still want to become an architect? This is one of the questions being asked by the RIBA in the most comprehensive survey it has ever undertaken.
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Opinion
Schools must speak to the wider world
Students know that when they leave university and begin work in practice they must also leave their architectural dreams behind. But is it right to have these dreams in the first place?
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Opinion
Tate’s unappreciative beneficiaries
Tate’s maxim that the quality of its buildings is an essential aspect of the experience offered to its visitors will be tested again next week when it unveils its eagerly awaited plans for the future development of Tate Modern.
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Opinion
Who’s going to get tough on energy?
The government has struggled long and hard over the energy review, published this week. And, frankly, whatever it came up with was never going to make easy reading. As the economy continues to grow so does energy consumption. This, along with our reliance on coal as our main energy source, ...
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Opinion
Blame government, not the planners
Few architects have a kind word to say about planners, but do they really deserve to be blamed for undermining UK competitiveness and sending big business on its way?
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Opinion
Phillips' BNP links are toxic, but no bar
Should political affiliation be a bar to becoming president of the RIBA? This is the only question that is worth asking a week after it emerged that Peter Phillips, one of three candidates for the presidency, is a member of the British National Party.
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NewsReview: Cool Wall debate
Twelve architects set out to prove their cool credentials, but there could only be one winner at Sunday afternoon's Cool Wall contest
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Opinion
Silly season campaign isn't the answer
Cabe's campaign focusing on bad design looks suspiciously like one of those ideas dreamt up to fill the airwaves between the health of Rooney's metatarsal and the Cameron charm offensive.
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Opinion
Relax and take your eye off the ball
Harlow is an unlikely place to kick start a housing revolution. One of London's eight post-war new towns, it boasts Britain's first pedestrian precinct and its first tower block too, but its days for experimentation seem over.
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Opinion
Is the listing system set for demolition?
Whatever your view is about the merits of RMJM’s Commonwealth Institute, the decision by Tessa Jowell to seek its demolition through a special act of parliament should not come as a total surprise.
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Opinion
When bigger is the opposite of better
Is gigantism a virtue? Apparently, yes. Fewer and bigger organisations has been one of the hallmarks of New Labour and, despite allowing the Home Office to swell like a beached whale, it still believes that big is beautiful.
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Opinion
Foreign worker influx raises questions
There is a new army of foreign workers in Britain - and they're not Polish plumbers. They are architects who are finding that life here, particularly in London, has more to offer than it does back home. The numbers are impossible to gauge so BD thought it would do its ...
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Opinion
These greedy lawyers must be stopped
It can only be sheer greed that is behind lawyers' growing interest in the dull world of architects' contracts.
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Opinion
RIBA's Le Corbusier show is nothing new
Architecture exhibitions are devilishly difficult to get right. The London Architecture Biennale, which looks set to quadruple its audience in its second year, is one way of communicating a difficult subject - so more's the pity that the Arts Council has cut its application for funding and made its future ...
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OpinionFat's wake up call to the housing debate
It's pure coincidence, of course, that the completion of Fat's housing in East Manchester has coincided with Alain de Botton's attempt to rehabilitate the word "beauty" in architecture.
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Opinion
Take architecture away from the DCMS
It is an open secret in Whitehall that the Department of Culture Media & Sport is considered one of the weakest departments, and to be made one of its ministers is the diplomatic equivalent of a posting to Turkmenistan. So, should we pity the ambitious David Lammy, whose portfolio includes ...
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Opinion
If I were London's design director ...
Does London need a design director to bang the table for better architecture in the capital? If such a post is to be created it is because there is a certain desperation by London's civic leaders to see some action.