Bad planners and architects 'should be publicly shamed'
Tower Thistle Hotel
Hold planners accountable for architecture that blights our lives, argues Matthew Parris
Architects and planners responsible for bad schemes should be publicly shamed, according to the writer and broadcaster Matthew Parris.
Poor architecture and urban design blights lives and those responsible should be held to account, he argues in his column in the Times today.
His outburst was prompted by TV coverage of the Queen’s diamond jubilee river pageant in which the former Tower Thistle Hotel beside Tower Bridge featured prominently.
Parris said the 1970s brutalist building “disfigured the record” and that the man who granted planning should be outed for the “concrete crime”.
His column is illustrated with a mocked-up Blue Plaque bearing the words: “John Hume, 1922-1987, granted planning permission for the Guoman Hotel (formerly the Tower Thistle) in 1970”.
Hume was borough architect and planning officer in Tower Hamlets in the 1960s and 1970s, so was also in post when Robin Hood Gardens was approved.
Parris, a former Tory MP who presents the Great Lives series on Radio 4, wrote: “Stigma ought to attach to bad planning decisions and personal shame ought to attach to heartless architecture.
“Particular human beings make decisions that shape a townscape that will affect millions.
“Their deliberations should be inhabited by a keen sense that they will not be anonymous, and that their own names and reputations are at stake.”
The Times’s daily print circulation is 350,000.
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Readers' comments (15)
Ouch. Who would be a planner?
I am exasperrated as much as the next person with some of the decisions that are made in planning committees, and by executive powers - but often, I have found, that some of the worse decisions have considerable political pressure behind them. It's not always the planners fault.
The people to blame for bad development are usually, in this order:
- the developer
- the architect
- politicians
- the planning department
Sounds like an idea for a steroid enhanced version of the Carbuncle Cup...
Bring back the gallows to the public square.
- The Politicians (when they get involved)
- The Planning Department
- The Contractor (Schools)
- The Architect
sadly the architect is the face for the building and as such the scapegoat
Ultimately, the buck stops with the Secretary of State, I blame them for not calling in the Thistle hotel project.
I wonder if he wishes to criticise the person who allow Bankside Power Station to be built?
Pointless argument for Parris to make, as who is going to judge whether decisions are good or bad? Usual subjective fluff from an MP struggling to feel important.
I'm with John mortis. The architect is the bottom of the food chain these days and design is by committee.
Why stop there? I say we tar-and-feather those architects! Put them in stocks to whip and stone them! Disfigure them themselves by cutting off their noses!
I've done work that I'm not proud of, not at all... I could have done brilliant work in these instances, were it not for the developers, and the planners, and the developers fearing the planners and therefore seriously dumbing things down to match the surroundings to reduce their upfront costs due to the uncertainties of the planning system.
John Mortis is so right but I would add a few more
- The Politicians (they always get involved)
- Developers
- The Planning Department
- The Contractor (Schools)
- Cost consultant
- Perceived public opinion
- The Architect
John King
It is always the politicians. It was the Tower Hamlets politicians who allowed Murdoch to bulldoze some of the finest Dock building to build his print works to "create jobs". These buildings now to be replaced by luxury housing.
The Docklands were taken away from the politicians and given to the LDDC.