How did Coventry beat Paris London on the fast road to the future asks Nicholas Boys Smith writes for Building Design
bdonline.co.uk/opinion/how-co…

In the 1920s, Le Corbusier, funded by a car producer, dreamed of sweeping away the boulevards of Paris & replacing them with 60 storey concrete towers, zoned by class & linked by fast roads in open countryside . It never happened…..

A huge thank you to my very observant younger son for spotting this “B” hidden in the knapped flints at the back of Church House. I must have walked past it a 1,000 times but never spotted it (it’s hard). Does it stand for (Herbert) Baker, the architect?

Deep England on a rainy May morning.

Zone two garages and turning circles.

So, SO, much space in central London is wasted and would be better turned into four to seven storey beautiful mansion blocks.

Hers and his. Rather lovely

Beauty is subjective they say. Westminster Abbey swimming in heavenly light

This brings out my secret Jacobin. All responsible for abandoning apostrophes from street signs should be ejected from public office & banished to Rockall to reflect upon their sins.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

Our founder Nicholas Boys Smith is lucky enough to have read this marvellous and hopeful new book by Carlos Moreno | IAE-Paris Sorbonne #15minutescity Anyone who follows will probably enjoy it....

moreno-web.net/new-book-the-1…

Create Streets for Scarecrows!!

'In the sentiment of beauty we feel the purposiveness and intelligibility of everything that surrounds us, while in the sentiment of the sublime we seem to see beyond the world, to something overwhelming and inexpressible in which it is somehow grounded' Modern Culture

A few people (actually quite a lot) have asked me what I think of recent announcements on “the war on motorists.” Here is my reply which I suspect will annoy people on both sides …

createstreets.com/street-fight-w…

Something I know that most people don’t:

Some time in the next decade it will be cheaper to build buildings out of stone, fabricated by robots, than out of steel and concrete.

I have two teenage boys and pretty much every parent of teenage children I have spoken to want phone-free schools and in many cases have changed their minds. Schools without mobile phones during the day are the future. Thank heavens.

Social housing from 1903: the lovely Latchmere Estate, Battersea. terraces of 315 homes with bathrooms, kitchen ranges and dignity around 3 acres of park. By respecting ancient forms of urban design not upending them, it is so much better than what was to follow.

A little more texture would help but slowly we are winning. New #GentleDensity near me.