Architects look down

Published: 25 February 2010

• I NOTE with wry amusement your glowing interview (Standing up for ‘grand piano’, February 18) with the architect responsible for the Alfred Court/Sager development on Fortune Green Road.
I’m sure residents of Fortune Green will be insulted by his description of the area  as “down-at-heel”, and crying out for his “exciting and lively” buildings.
As someone who opposed another similar-sized development in a different part of Fortune Green ward, I think it does the architectural profession little good when architects look down from their gleaming ivory towers to tell the rest of us that we live in a run-down slum that only their buildings can improve.
Surely it would be far better if architects took into account the views of local residents before they embark on such huge developments, and work with them to ensure new buildings fit into their surrounding area. This is a profession that claimed to have all the answers to urban planning and development in the 1960s. Fifty years on, their towering achievements of that era are now fit for little more than the wrecking ball.
JAMES EARL
Fordwych Road, NW2