Page 641 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

6 May 2022

Last month I wrote about how politicians across the world are starting to subscribe to the

philosophy that new buildings should have “beauty”. Our own government has even enshrined

the word in planning legislation for the first time.
There will always be debate about what constitutes beauty — but I defy anyone to claim it for a

proposed office building known as 72 Upper Ground. Lambeth council has just approved this

huge edifice (although there could still be a planning inquiry). It would dominate the south bank

of the Thames, sitting right opposite historic Somerset House and almost adjacent to the

National Theatre. In other words, plonked on one of London’s most high-profile sites, which
millions walk past every year.

In two words, it’s grotesque. Designed by Make Architects, it seems to mimic the horizontal
lines and blocks of Denys Lasdun’s National Theatre, but at four times the size, more than twice

the height and reworked as bland glass towers that seem to perch on each other like badly

stacked Lego bricks.