back up test

Peter Frame's Rock Family Trees  are a delight for music geeks - and appear to be a nice little earner for their author and artist.  Someone should do the same for postwar UK architecture - though I suppose the market might be a bit more limited. An example of an architectural family get-together can be seen at Cannon Street.  The powerful exoskeleton of Foggo Associates' new building over Cannon Street Station (centre of picture) has a clear affinity with its neighbour, Arup Associates' 80 Cannon Street of 1972-6 (the Pevsner guide calls the latter a 'startling tower', though rather more startling towers have appeared in the vicinity since that was written...). Foggo Associates emerged in 1989 from Arup Associates, where Peter Foggo (who died in 1993) and his team had been responsible for many of the latter's most notable projects through the 1970s and 80s. The recent reminiscing prompted by Lady Thatcher's death has reminded us how much there was that was ...

To the RIBA / Observer debate on tall buildings, where we hear from Rowan Moore and Simon Jenkins (two journalists), who think tall buildings are a blight, and from Julia Barfield and Peter Rees (two professionals), who don't. For such a subject that is so emotive - at least in architectural and planning circles -  it was a surprisingly even-tempered and consensual occasion, with everyone, panel and audience, lay and professional, basically agreeing that the answer to the question 'are tall buildings blighting our skyline?' is that the ugly ones are and the beautiful ones aren't; and that it would be nice if there was a bit more planning to counter the opportunism of the promoters of projects. Moore thought that the London Plan sets out the right policies and quality standards, but that many project that have been built or approved fail to meet these policies and standards.  Rees made the slightly odd assertion that you shouldn't build high unless it is necessary to...

The Architecture of Funny Shapes was superseded some time ago by the New Boring.  But just when you thought that the straight line and the right angle had regained their rightful supremacy, it seems that vertical fins have gone all twisty... ...not just here in Farringdon Street, but on several big UK projects currently on the drawing board.   Did it start with the Olympic Stadium, which did something similar with its 'wrap' ribbons - or did they get the idea from somewhere else? If you want to give your building's elevations a little bit more life than would accurately represent the suits that will occupy it, this is probably a better and cheaper way than twisting the whole building. .