Architects: Bish Bang Bosh Where's the Dosh?

Architects are just glorified dodgy builders who should be made to live in the buildings they design. They can throw up their steel and glass towers, get the prizes and the dosh and then they waltz off to their thatched cottages in the countryside. If they like living in thatched cottages why don't they design thatched cottages for us? Instead of consigning us to award winning buildings which leak, are too hot or cold and have exploding glass panels.

"Whoooooo you had in here darling? What? He said he'd won the Stirling Prize for Architecture, ooooooooo, it's going to cost yer......"

Here are a couple of letters from Monday,


Your report (The truth about those iconic buildings, October 14) took me back some 40 years to my time as an engineering science undergraduate at the University of Leicester. At that time the newest, tallest and most distinctive structure on the campus was the engineering department building, designed by James Stirling. Its use of brick and glass won it and Stirling acclaim. However, when it rained the building used to leak - the heavier the rain, the greater the leaks. It was even rumoured that some of the aluminium glazing bars had to be replaced by steel bars painted with aluminium paint.

Ray PerhamIlford, Essex

The history faculty building at Cambridge was built by Stirling himself - and has roofs that leak, is too hot and intermittently dingy. Moreover, nearly 30 years after it opened its essential design faults are still being rectified at considerable expense to the university.

Professor Christine CarpenterCambridge