• Can we afford the grand designs for parliament? | Letters

    Can we afford the grand designs for parliament? | Letters
    We should demolish the Palace of Westminster rather than spending billions to prop it up, writes Roy Appleyard, while architect Brian Turner calls for a cheaper alternativeThe proposal to renovate parliament is the biggest waste of money I have ever heard about (Parliament renovation could take 76 years and cost £22bn, report says, 23 February). The final amount could be double, bearing in mind the history of overspends in major projects. The Palace of Westminster should be pulled down and
  • ‘A brutalist hanging gardens of Babylon’ – the maddening, miraculous Barbican hits 40

    ‘A brutalist hanging gardens of Babylon’ – the maddening, miraculous Barbican hits 40
    Conceived as a utopian city within a city, the labyrinthian London landmark had a troubled path on its way to being hailed as an architectural icon. But is this world-class arts centre now in danger of being turned into a shopping mall?It looks like something from a wildly imaginative sci-fi comic, an impossible vision of worlds slamming into each other in a fantastical collage. Elevated walkways leap across the sky while a trio of towers rise up like serrated blades, their edges sawing at the c

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