Architecture matters; it has meaning. A country’s memories are written in stone… they project the zeitgeist; a welcome symbol of “Liberty Enlightening the World”, or a “fuck off” wall separating you from it.

I was born in 1975, the year Britain voted to remain in the EEC it had joined two years earlier. My life is one of seeing the culture of Britain change over that period. At school, Europe was the future. We learnt German, Spanish and French when a trip to the continent was out of most people’s reach. Certainly, for many, flying was out of the question. Then came the Channel Tunnel which physically connected Britain to Europe.

On a recent trip to Paris for an office weekend away, I sat and looked at the flashing diagrammatic light of the moving Eurostar as we passed under the water and remembered the optimism of youth.

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