Architects need proper guidance or disaster ensues

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/oct/04/letters-zaha-hadid-architects

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I read Rowan Moore’s profile of Zaha Hadid (Comment) with interest, particularly as the introduction refers to her “questionable choice in client”. It is clients who choose architects, not the other way round; therein perhaps lies the current problem with buildings that do not work.

I have rarely come across a client who knew how to brief a humble exhibition designer, much less an architect; moreover, there seems to be no guidance on how to find and select one. Probably the best way to select an architect for a major project is by competition, but even then a clear statement of what is eventually expected must be prepared.  

For the much praised (in the architectural press) pavilion for the Seville World’s Fair in 1992, the architect was selected by a panel that did not include anyone with real exhibition design experience. The result was a pavilion hopelessly unsuited to containing displays. The infamous Dome was commissioned and built without its purpose even being known and the fact that it has managed to be converted into a successful arena is pure serendipity. It was demonstrably a rotten place for exhibitions. If you give any designer or architect a free hand, you are asking for trouble.Giles VelardeBattle, East Sussex

I make the rueful comment that leaving aside the element of talent, Zaha Hadid’s apolitical stance has paid off handsomely. I was at the Architectural Association School (a couple of years ahead of Zaha) and like many at the school at the time was looking to move architecture on from the perceived failings of “modernism”.  Personally I was a technocratic modernist and with Tony Gwilliam developed sustainable accommodation before the word “sustainable” was invented, but more to the point I believed then and through my working career in the view that architecture is fundamentally political.

As such, I looked to work on social projects such as those in the education and public housing sectors and “bottom-up” planning. I’m now on the UK state pension but of course still have to work. Think Zaha might have got it right.Ian GiulianiHenley on ThamesOxfordshire

Sadly, the British love a toff

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see a link between Armando Iannucci’s “Feted in America, made in the UK. So why do Tories disdain our TV industry?”, Rebecca Jones’s “We GPs also deserve good health and a decent quality of life” and Catherine Bennett’s “The enduring class panto behind the Cameron biography” (all in Comment). As Andrew Rawnsley pointed out a few weeks ago, like Baldrick, the Tories have a cunning plan, in this case to cut down to size and then destroy all institutions they regard as inimical to their interests.

The BBC, for all the reasons Iannucci rehearses, of independence, popularity, commitment to impartiality and a determination to hold the executive to account. For the NHS, it’s a campaign of attrition – chronic underfunding in combination with an overburdening of demand and expectation against a chorus of constant criticism designed to lead to inevitable failure, at which point they will be able to proclaim that the NHS is broken and announce their own preferred alternative – private health insurance.

Unfortunately, as Catherine Bennett points out, the British electorate have a fatal weakness for a posh git. The Labour party needs to look forwards and outwards now, not indulge in internecine strife, and maybe even think the unthinkable in terms of progessive electoral alliances if they are to save us from minority Conservative governments and the social dislocation they continue to create into the future.Dr Jan SewellStratford-upon-Avon

Credit due to hospices

Your report on Care Quality Commission inspections of adult social care services belies the high quality of care offered in hospices (“Half of all services now failing as UK care sector crisis deepens”, News).

Under the new regulatory regime, hospice services are indeed inspected as part of adult social care services. However, this is a very broad administrative category and highlighting results for this grouping as a whole eclipses the high CQC rankings achieved by the hospice sector.

The vast majority of hospices have been rated either outstanding or good. Hospices have long been renowned for the quality of care they provide. They are funded differently from other care sector organisations, receiving on average a third of their funding from the government and raising the bulk of their funds through community fundraising.

Hospices rely on the continuing goodwill of the public to provide high quality care.Dr Ros TaylorNational director, Hospice UKLondon WC1

Give grain to people, not cows

Animal husbandry is a factor for not eating meat (“Vegan Kerry’s views on meat just won’t cut it”, Barbara Ellen, Comment) but a better case can be made because it is an inefficient system of food production. The grain that is consumed would feed far more of the world’s population, and more cheaply.David BuckinghamLeamington Spa