Community Anchors
Dave Clements | 4 November 2006 In the latest issue of Interchanges, a newsletter produced by the Centre for Creative Communities, the strapline reads ‘Community? What Community?’ It notes the media’s obsession with the ongoing ‘fragmentation of society’, and New Labour’s worries over ‘community cohesion’, that also features strongly in the Local Government White Paper published last week. But it then descends into the...
Does Every Child really Matter?
Dave Clements | 30 October 2006 At his trial, Manning said that Kouao [his partner, the girl’s great aunt] would strike Victoria on a daily basis with a shoe, a coat hanger and a wooden cooking spoon and would strike her on her toes with a hammer. Victoria’s blood was found on Manning’s football boots. Manning admitted that at times he would hit Victoria with a bicycle chain. Chillingly, he said, ‘You could beat her and she wouldn’t...
ESSAY: No carbon, lots of credit
Austin Williams | 12 October 2006 In the not so distant past, charitable giving to the poor and starving in Africa was seen as a legitimate – if reasonably passive way – or trying to change the world, improve the lot of humanity, raise their standards of living, and cock a snook at intransigent political and business leaders in the West. Charity-giving often simply represented a profound cynicism with big government, but it also...
‘Waist Down’ travelling exhibition
‘Waist Down–Miuccia Prada: Art and Creativity’ Exhibition at Prada Los Angeles: July 27 – August 27, 2006 Reviewed by Elisabetta Gasparoni-Abraham | 20 August 2006 One of my favourite places in Los Angeles is the Prada Epicenter – Prada’s retail ‘experience’ on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills which opened in 2004 and is the third of its kind in the world. On my last visit, “Waist Down” was its latest marvel – a touring...
New York’s Beaux-Arts masterpiece
Elisabetta Gasparoni | 12 June 2006 The New York Public Library – majestic columns and arches, grand marble staircases, high, elaborately decorated ceilings – stands magnificent and inviting at the intersection of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. Begun in 1899 and completed in 1911 it is a continuing monument to knowledge and research. The Beaux-Arts style employed by architects John Merven Carrere and Thomas Hastings...
Mobilising Active Citizens
Dave Clements | 4 March 2006 At election time every politician faced with a drubbing claims to have no time for opinion polls. For the rest of us, the general view seems to be that consultation is all very well but there’s a lot of it about and nothing much seems to come of it. The more cynical talk about government by ‘tick box’ or ‘focus group’. And to be fair, there may be something in this. After...
Ken’s planning for London?
Austin Williams | 27 February 2006 The Greater London Authority Act of 1999 that paved the way for Ken Livingstone’s reincarnation as the mayor of London was the longest piece of legislation passed by parliament since the Government of India Act in 1935. At that time, in the guise of enhancing local democratic autonomy, the imperial Governor General retained total authority over administration, legislation and finances of his fiefdom....
ESSAY: New Orleans and the New Urban vision
Austin Williams | 05 February 2006 In a recent article in the Washington Post, architect and professor of architecture, Roger K Lewis bemoans the proposed rebuilding New Orleans. ‘Why, ‘ he asks, ‘do we stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that there are places on the earth’s surface – wetlands and floodplains, seismically active regions, arid deserts, steep hillsides and cliffs – where erecting cities...
Taking a Risk
Austin Williams | 8 September 2005 On the very day that the Architects’ Journal was holding its conference on changes in Health and Safety legislation, focussing on how to manage risk, so the House of Lords was hosting a conference focussing on worries that risk culture had gone too far. So at the same time that I was getting a short shrift from Stephen Wright of the Health and Safety Executive for questioning what I called the...
Sustainability and the moral right
Austin Williams | 12 May 2005 ‘The problem is that people like you think that they can deny the reality of events: like David Irving, you are denying the problem.’ Now I’m used to being insulted, but it still amazes me how many people that I have never met before, feel as if they have the right to insult me simply because they are unable to come to terms with the fact that I have a contrary position to them. However,...
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