In the supplement Property, Construction & Architecture, Prof. Richard England decries the lack of aesthetic sensitivity in local architecture. He says the situation is now out of hand due to greed and avarice (TMIS, 2 April).

I cannot but agree. Developers and speculators alike, taking advantage of the market forces and indeed riding and harnessing them, seek to build every inch available to them. And when they are denied a permit, they build anyway and the devil take the hindmost.

What is amazing however is that they always manage to find architects to trot out one hideous piece of nothingness after another. Surely the university that trains these architects is contributing to their obvious lack of imagination and good taste. Prof. England, who I believe was once described as the Poet Laureate of architecture, has a wealth of culture to fall back on, and even his taste and designs are not always accepted. Perhaps that is why he sounds such a lonely voice in his article – as a profession architects are accepting the mediocrity demanded by an uncouth market, so long as the market pays.

Truly, radix malorum est cupiditas!

A. Ciappara

SIGGIEWI