Saturday night on Channel 4 boded well: baby off to bed nice and early, settle down with the wife and a nice glass of rioja, Kevin McCloud’s learned tones and a deserved early win for the Stealth House.
And then it all went horribly wrong. The irony of Will Alsop’s, albeit brilliant, Children’s Centre, in the desolate environment of north-west London’s Stonebridge Estate – now thankfully being torn down – could not be avoided. I could not help but have a black-and-white image of backslapping 1960s architects congratulating themselves on their wonderful piece of award-winning social engineering. Proof if ever that architects are born with many talents, but no ears.
Clearly the Stirling Prize panel is now using the same unfathomable methodology as the Eurovision Song Contest judges. The result ensured that there would be for ever more an unremovable black mark on the name of James Stirling. The arguments spawned by Messrs Hemingway and Gough justifying the selection of the Scottish parliament were rotten and insulting to one’s intelligence, particularly Hemingway’s bizarre justification that the £400m+ building would boost the local tourist economy. A more popular and productive boost to local tourism could have been achieved by spreading 40 million £10 notes about the streets of Edinburgh – that would have brought the tourists flocking in. Clearly architecture has entered a new age, which I shall christen blingism. Roll on postblingism.
Postscript
Mark Cowell, Bracknell, Berkshire
