Crime Against Architecture

摘要

In August 1966 the City of London's new police headquarters on Wood Street opened for business behind a crisp, modern yet classically inspired Portland stone facade. Ian Nairn, the celebrated writer and architectural critic, was immediately appalled, and launched a devastating salvo in a piece for The Observer titled 'Architecture Against Crime'. This 'mini-Newgate', he thundered, was a 'ferocious explosion of stonework with creepy overtones which looks very odd next to one of the tall slabs of London WalI'. He went on to write that with its 'naughty rustication, segmental-headed windows, suppressed eaves, a tower which looks like a jail itself, the building 'conjures up all those repressive images from the past that the police are understandably so anxious to dispel. It seems to me to be a disaster.'