Bad design: Is shaming the answer?

In Britain, architecture and design criticism is passionate. After seeing London's hulking Tower Thistle Hotel beside the beautiful Tower Bridge during the Queen's diamond jubilee, Broadcaster Matthew Parris said that architects and planners responsible for bad schemes should be publicly shamed, according to this report. "Parris said the 1970s brutalist building 'disfigured the record' and that the man who granted planning should be outed for the 'concrete crime.' " It's hard to imagine this sort of outburst in the US, but then again our Congressional debate is pallid compared to Parliament.

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