back up test

Loads of Union Jacks in the Mall today, probably something to do with the Royal Wedding. But only a couple of weeks ago, traders in Covent Garden were being told not to display Union Jacks , apparently because they were being shown on 'low quality products'. Low quality products of other kinds seem not to have been forbidden. Rum. One can see why the owners of Covent Garden wouldn't want it to end up looking like the east end of Oxford Street, but can it really be the national flag that is lowering the tone? About 30 years ago, a UK-based American Playboy executive , Victor Lownes , had the tops of the railings to his Mayfair mansion picked out with gold paint - only to be told that this was not acceptable and that they would have to revert to the usual black. Why? Because it was 'vulgar'. He pointed out that the Queen had them around Buckingham Palace. That, he was told, was an entirely different matter. Taste, it seems, is all about context.

To Margate on a hot and sunny bank holiday Monday to see the newly opened Turner Contemporary (no 'The', no 'Gallery'), designed by architect of the moment David Chipperfield ('Chippo' to the Architects' Journal). Chipperfield's project replaced a more ambitious and more obviously 'iconic' proposal by Norwegian architects Snøhetta for a new pebble-shaped gallery building rising out of the water just off the stone pier - a perfect reflection, one might think with hindsight, of pre-credit crunch extravagance (the pebble scheme was abandoned amidst stories of spiralling costs) giving way to the 'new austerity', of which Chippo's architecture is said to be representative. Some reviews have expressed disappointment with the building's reticence, but I found the approach refreshing. Along the coast at Sheerness is a famous example of the 'Functional Tradition' from which so many English architects have drawn inspiration - the ...

An evening attending a local authority planning committee meeting leaves you tired, thirsty and headachey . It almost always involves passages of carpetchewing tedium, interspersed if you are lucky with high drama and/or a few laughs. Often, there is a need to bite one's tongue in the face of lies, incompetence or flagrant idiocy. But nevertheless, it is good for the soul, and reminds those of us who are involved in making planning applications of what 'due process' can include. The goings on at such a meeting recently led me to reflect on whether objectors are better advised to behave reasonably, or to overegg their grievance for dramatic effect. On offer from objectors were, amongst other things (1) an articulate, well-informed account of the pros and cons of a scheme, concluding that on balance it should not be accepted and (2) a shouty rant. If you want to get something stopped - and of course the same spectrum of kinds of objection can be found in what people...

Many have pointed out that the coalition's 'localism' and 'growth' agendas are on a collision course. The doublethink that is involved was identified a while back by the late political philosopher Jerry Cohen who lamented so-called conservatives who 'blather on about warm beer and old maids cycling to church and then they hand Wal-Mart the keys to the kingdom'. The rise of nimbyism has coincided with that of planning policies about 'town centre first', building on brownfield land before green field etc. If high density mixed use walkable neighbourhoods are the goal, then things need to be built close to, if not actually in, people's back yards. Thirty years ago, we were building supermarkets and business parks well away from anywhere that anyone lived, and well away from anywhere nice. The downside of prioritising the preferences of the nimbies could be more hypermarkets on the ring road. An alternative upside model would be to build some...

The Government has signalled a return to the Enterprise Zones of the 1980s. The aim is to encourage development by freeing up planning rules and offering tax incentives. This is just one more approach to 'regeneration', i.e. public sector measures to secure development where no one wants to develop (private sector development that claims to be 'regeneration' is now ubiquitous, but is in fact just 'development' - no shame in that). Last time around, we had Enterprise Zones, which were cheap, passive measures, but also Urban Development Corporations (UDC's), which were costlier, but active in facilitating development, for instance by assembling sites and providing infrastructure; and they, rather than local authorities, had development control powers in their areas. Both (the measures were not mutually exclusive) had mixed results, with more failures than successes. In some places, a great deal of public money was spent, and nothing of consequence was bu...

Neighbourhood planning is likely to make the planning system more complicated, but luckily, it probably won't apply everywhere, and it is likely to be most prevalent in places where there isn't much development anyway. All a bit Alice in Wonderland. My latest quarterly column for the RIBA Journal, here , has more considered views on this.

In a few weeks, old CABE disappears and its successor begins work as part of the Design Council. What are the prospects for the new arrangement, and how will the politics work? When CABE was started in 1999, its support came from the Government's Culture department, DCMS, which had sponsored CABE's predecessor the Royal Fine Art Commission. DCMS has remained CABE's primary sponsor, but as the years have gone by, it has received progressively more funding from what is now the Communities department, DCLG, responsible for planning, housing etc. - the two funding sources reflecting architecture's uneasy siting, as far as tidy minded administrators are concerned, somewhere between fine art and the provision of useful shelter. The Design Council's links are with yet another department, the Business department, headed by Vince Cable. This could make a significant difference in the way new CABE will relate to its political (pay)masters. The DCMS is way down the Whitehal...