Fear and loathing in Scottish architecture

摘要

After a 'world famous' Japanese architect won the V&A Dundee contest (AJ 04.11.10) a writer friend from the US told me the people commissioning public buildings in Scotland must 'loathe' Scots architects. It feels like that here to me too. Kumar's sanitised, clinical scheme is unbuildable for the budget - and did he even visit Dundee as his proposal seemed so disconnected with the city and the waterfront? The press contacted me for my reaction following the V&A announcement but I resisted criticism due to my experience after commenting on Steven Holl's Glasgow School of Art, which was disregarded as sour grapes, or parochialism.