Moving on

Listing page content here

Twenty years ago, Britain was gripped by an architectural battle of styles. The Lloyd’s building in the City opened, representing the hopes for a resurgence of modernism, while Quinlan Terry’s classical Richmond Riverside was beginning to emerge from scaffolding like a vision by Canaletto. Since 1986, a great deal has happened, but readers of Roger Scruton’s article in The Spectator of 8 April (‘Hail Quinlan Terry: our greatest living architect’) would know nothing of it. In a similar vein, articles by Thomas Sutcliffe in the Independent and Simon Jenkins in the Guardian, responding to the Modernism exhibition at the V&A, present a harsh opposition between two irreconcilable positions, both of them repeating the chain of derogatory associations that modern architecture still trails behind it.

This wave motion of ironclad prejudice breaks through a complacent assumption that ‘modern’, whatever it means, is an unmixed good, while another cycle of magazine pieces promotes the Modernism exhibition chiefly as a shopping opportunity. It is a horrifying but nonetheless fascinating spectacle, as each side thrives on misrepresenting the other.

Dr Scruton’s polarisation, in which Lord Rogers plays the demon king to Mr Terry’s archangel, will appeal to all who prefer simplicity to complexity, regardless of their position. Several aspects of this polarisation are simply false. In imagining the future of cities, Lord Rogers, and the rest of the ‘modernist’ establishment in this country, have long renounced the destructive aspects of comprehensive redevelopment of which they are accused. In the same way, no contemporary classicist would wish to implement the dreary classical wartime Royal Academy plan for London, with its boulevards slicing through the historic street plan. Everyone has changed their mind, and the ‘cappuccino in the piazza’ quality of Richmond Riverside is actually pure Rogers.