Apres moi, who cares?
Sir : Many people will agree with Stephen Gardiner (10 January) in his plea for new and humanitarian aspects in architecture and plan- ning. I live in a house which is about one hundred years old and unless the planners take the notion of bashing the whole area to bits it should last at least another twenty genera- tions. The roof timbers should be the first to go but one hundred years have had no effect on them so far.
For this reason (there are hundreds of houses like mine in this square mile) 1 do not despair as Mr Gardiner seems to: 'A generation from now London may be a no-man's-land, jammed with faceless flats, empty office blocks, a tangle of wild flyovers and underpasses, Ford and Volvo cars. . .' etc. (My Volvo objects to that last bit.) That's London now.
I know several architects and the most per- ceptive of them keeps referring to the 'uninhabitable island' we are building for our- selves. I try to cheer him up by referring to - the flimsy confections of speculative builders and the majestic impermanence of local authority efforts like Ronan Point, and by men- tion of the fact that in local compulsory pur- chase orders on old property the projected age of the new multis, to replace the charming old buildings, is sixty years.
Our grandchildren will not moan about the oppressive effect of such architecture. They will be trundling it away by the lorryload to the nearest rubbish-tip. It will not be expensive to demolish.
Kenneth H. Ross 5a Westfield Road, Broughty Ferry, Angus
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