Construction industry gossip: Tall storeys

Sunset clause

Mark Anderson, who appears elsewhere in these pages, was remembering one of the first jobs he was involved in with the consultant he had set up, MGAC, in Washington back in the mid 1990s. He was in Great Falls, Montana, and apparently there’s not much there. He was a bit peckish, asked the hotel where he could eat and was told to take the road out of town. Which road? “There’s only one,” came the reply. He took it, saw a white light in the distance, assumed it was the restaurant he was told about and, relieved, pulled in. Alas, it was just after 7pm so the venue was shut. Not like being back east, I suppose. 

Slimline tonic

There was a good turnout, I hear, at T&T Alinea’s bash at 8 Bishopgate recently. It was rescheduled from last year because of a pesky tube strike – which then got cancelled. I couldn’t make it. Shame. I’d have liked a good nose around. Wilkinson Eyre’s tower is a lot slimmer than its rather bloated neighbour at 22 Bishopsgate – and in comparison with Rafael Viñoly’s supersized Walkie Talkie, at 20 Fenchurch Street, is positively svelte. Are we about to see a rash of slender, tall buildings popping up in the City, I wonder? 

Architects get films made about them that win gongs at glitzy awards ceremonies. Builders get Auf Wiedersehen, Pet

Waffling on

Maybe some have read all 13,000 words Zaha Hadid principal Patrik Schumacher penned about the death of architecture, but I must confess I’m not one of them. Here’s why. Architecture, he wrote, “has self-dissolved, eroding its intellectual and professional autonomy under the pressures of anti-capitalist politicisation and woke virtue-signalling”. He won’t win any awards for writing in plain English, I feel. Which is perhaps why he chose to publish his thoughts in the Khōrein journal, published by the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade.   

Starchitects on screen

I wonder who would play Schumacher if his 13,000 words ever made it to celluloid? Which leads me to reveal the not so hot news that Adrien Brody won a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of an architect in The Brutalist, reviewed in these pages last month. It’s funny: architects get films made about them that win gongs at glitzy awards ceremonies. Builders get Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. It was great, mind. 

Eye off the ball

Reds10’s chief executive Matt Bennion might be a Chelsea fan but rugby is more his game, he says. He had a season ticket for England games at Twickenham but got a bit fed up with what he was seeing – “the biggest load of pap” is how he put it to my scribe – so he wrote to them, telling them that he wouldn’t be renewing it. Of course, England has started winning again. Typical. Still, the Rugby Football Union wrote him a very nice letter after he told them the bad news. “Basically, they said ‘we’ve sold your ticket on’.” How thoughtful. 

Capping it all

Sticking with the egg chasers, one former Scotland rugby captain, Kelly Brown, has been appointed director of Places for People Scotland. He won 64 caps before retiring in 2017. Anyway, the news has allowed me to write that I’m sure he’ll try and tackle Scotland’s housing need as best he can. He did, after all, score a try at his debut back in 2005 so the signs are good.