Sir – Harris Manchester College is to be congratulated on its ‘jewel’-like building proposal for Holywell Street. If the real thing is anything like the artists’ impression, it will be the most quality addition to Oxford since the Magdalen College Auditorium.
What the architects of the brutalist carbuncles or glorified greenhouses which typically seem to go up in Oxford these days seem to forget is that their style of architecture is not what our visitors come to Oxford to see and if they cannot design buildings of character and craftsmanship which bear some narrative and sympathetic relation to the existing streetscape, they have no business being in business. Hurrah for good pastiches is what this citizen says — let every new building erected in Oxford seek to pay homage to its illustrious past, not to mention unique selling point as a world heritage site (albeit containing all the mod cons necessary to modern life and incorporating the requisite carbon-reduction measures obviously).
Laura King (Miss), Sandford-on-Thames
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