All articles by Jonathan Meades – Page 2

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    Strength in perversity

    2002-05-03T00:00:00Z

    These days, a building's quality is defined by whether it works as an advertisement for itself – a fact brought home by one wilful masterpiece that doesn't

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    Was Gaudí any good?

    2002-03-08T00:00:00Z

    As one grows up, eccentricity becomes charming in people – but in architecture, it's can get bit too close to kitsch for comfort

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    Getting your kits off

    2002-01-25T00:00:00Z

    How Airfix bombers and glue abuse are connected to plastic surgery, the moveable-type revolution, and the way CAD vandalises a child's mind …

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    Roger that

    2001-11-30T00:00:00Z

    The perfectly natural reflex of rubbishing everything Roger Humber says is complicated by the fact that he was, on one occasion at least, right

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    Conran the Barbarian

    2001-10-19T00:00:00Z

    Nobody could accuse Sir Terence of being crude, but his legacy of anorexic good taste may be a more dangerous enemy of exciting design

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    Spirit of Southampton

    2001-08-31T00:00:00Z

    Southampton might not be everyone's idea of the most exotic city in the world – but try growing up in Salisbury

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    Same difference

    2001-07-13T00:00:00Z

    Globalisation means that so-called 'traditional' building styles are just fake. They will remain a sham even if we enter an age of greater regional autonomy

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    Pevsner at 50

    2001-06-01T00:00:00Z

    The Buildings of England, published 50 years ago, was a triumph. Rather than telling us what to see, Pevsner freed us to see for ourselves

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    The Tony age

    2001-04-12T00:00:00Z

    Jonathan Meades - Politics tends to have less of an influence over design than brute economics – which is a good thing, considering the shallowness of "New" Labour

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    A dull, grey city

    2001-03-02T00:00:00Z

    Jonathan Meades - Dreary old subfusc London is the victim of a conspiracy between church, state, clients and conservationists. Why can't we have some colour in our capital?

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    Long to reign over us

    2001-01-12T00:00:00Z

    In a special feature-length programme on BBC2 last Sunday, Jonathan Meades expounded his theses on High Victorian architecture. John Fidler of English Heritage was watching …

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    Back to the flawed

    2000-12-08T00:00:00Z

    First person - Sir Neville Simms comes across pretty well in Back to the Floor, even if the whole idea of the programme is absurdly contrived.

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    Norm’s the norm

    2000-09-22T00:00:00Z

    First person Love it or loathe it, at least Lord Foster’s work has a distinctive style. It’s just a shame so many architects copy it.

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    Rising above the rest

    2000-08-04T00:00:00Z

    First person Works of genius are instantly recognisable, impossible to define and are, at bottom, the difference between right and wrong.

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    Rank follies

    2000-05-12T00:00:00Z

    First person Transparent, open-plan buildings reflect the nation’s embarrassment about hierarchies – but the fact is, people like their privacy.

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    Sod polite architecture

    2000-02-18T00:00:00Z

    In his first column for Building, critic Jonathan Meades says 1990s buildings are no match for the vigour of the 1960s – or the 1860s.