Letter: Blast in the new millennium
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Three cheers for Nicholas Roe's suggestion of a millennium blasting of architectural eyesores (article, 10 January). Two and a half cheers for Jonathan Glancey's nominations.
Yes, away with all the Kentucky Fried Georgian boxes which are such unworthy successors to the fine suburban housing projects of inter-war and post- war years. Away with Quinlan Terry's dreary and unimaginative heritage theme-park pastiches, so beloved of the Prince of Wales.
But spare the Victorian terraces, for while individual buildings among them may lack much, collectively they often demonstrate the skill and imagination of 19th-century city planners, who envisaged the urban scene as a whole - in terms of streets and vistas and eye-catching features.
Most notable are corner sites, often marked with a tower, a cupola or a portico terminating a view and lending grandeur to the most ordinary of streets. We still (just) have some fine examples in Liverpool.
An alternative candidate for the millennium chop? I'm a champion of many modern buildings because the mid-20th century has produced some real gems - Basil Spence's work at Newcastle University for example. And I would much prefer the dramatic and sculptured 1960s Paternoster Square near St Paul's to the mindless "classical" nonsense proposed to replace it.
But the Canary Wharf tower has to represent the nadir of architecture. The mindless scale and banality of this nauseous building sums up the worst excesses of the "get-rich-quick" Thatcher Eighties.
D G BEARDSLEY
Liverpool
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