Students need a tradition to build on

摘要

Two architecture stories came together last week, as the publicity ban on Olympic Games architecture was lifted only to reveal that an American firm had generated sketches with remarkable similarity to Thomas Heatherwick's design for the Olympic cauldron. The story broke onto the front pages of the broadsheets and Heatherwick was quick to respond, lining up Danny Boyle and others on his side. Copycats have been much in the news, with disputes over who was lead designer of the Gherkin some months back and copies of Zaha Hadid's buildings in China being leased out even before her own are completed. Even Poundbury, favourite of home-buyers and scourge of the architectural cognoscenti, has been copied by Thames Town in China and the "Poundbury effect" has been noticed in housing estates across Britain.