Harris Manchester College is to be applauded for its plans to build a ‘jewel-like’ clock tower and student rooms at Holywell Street in Oxford (Monday’s Oxford Mail).

This exciting development offers an appeal to something most modern architects would probably consider sacrilegious: aesthetic quality.

Your article suggests that the college and its architects are expecting some criticism of the design; but only a moron would fail to appreciate that the classical design proposed is the only sort of conception fit for a conservation area in one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

Too often, left-wing architects and councillors in this country approve modern buildings that utterly destroy the character of some of our most treasured towns and cities.

Such people should be considered nothing more than architectural vandals and their wanton destruction of our heritage must be stopped at all costs.

If only Yiangou, the college’s architects, could be employed to do something about the Westgate Centre (and, for that matter, most of the rest of Queen Street).

Tourists who come to Oxford are often left dazzled by the brilliance of its architecture; new buildings should therefore be built in such a manner that people’s eyes are turned towards them (as with this design), not away from them (as with the Westgate Centre and other monstrosities).

It is important that new developments are given the go-ahead; however, such buildings should only be approved if they are aesthetically pleasing as well as functionally sufficient.

This excellent design ticks both boxes.

In 100 years’ time it will probably be considered an Oxford classic; I doubt some hideous pile of bricks under the label of a ‘modern’ design would achieve a similar accolade.

CHRIS FOX Gladstone Road Headington Oxford