Errata

Oh to be able to call this post Erratum. Looking back on old posts they are littered with spelling and grammar mistakes and inconsistencies. Yesterday provided at least one especially goofy example.

I intended to check up on Terry Quinlan to see if he was still working and if so what projects he had on the go. A pity I didn’t do my homework as I would have seen that his name is Quinlan Terry and that his practice is now called Quinlan Francis Terry (QFT) reflecting his son, Francis, becoming a partner. They are still in business (as Timothy Ferres points out in his comment yesterday) with offices in Dedham and continue “to hold aloft the torch of classicism”; Gavin Stamp’s words not mine. Mr Stamp bitchily concluded, “something he was, I fear, quite unfitted to sustain”.

Roger Scruton disagrees, describing his style as “one long breath of fresh air” in his article, Hail Quinlan Terry: our greatest living architect. I of course do not hesitate to join the fray. First I like the look of his buildings and his re-interpretation of classicism. An example I remember reading about is a country house with long sash windows going down to the floor. QT’s riff on this was to design them so that both sections open upwards disappearing into the wall above making the window into an opening onto a terrace.

Secondly, I think that his buildings wear better and have fewer problems than those designed by the modernists who hold him in such contempt. I haven’t read any complaints at any rate, while problems arising from modernism are legion. It must be bloody embarrassing, frankly, to design a perfect looking glass box and then find the roof leaks and the client doesn’t like being looked at by the passengers on the upper deck of the number nine bus.

One important caveat: QFT’s style works on a domestic scale, an office block would look terrible. It has been attempted by others – plenty of examples in London’s Docklands – and they look monstrous.

This is Ferne Park in Wiltshire built, or rather re-built, by QT in 2001 for Viscount Rothermere. It has a useful feature that QT may not have intended. The parapets look ideal for siting clay pigeon traps to get one’s eye in before the shooting season. By the way, before you decide to use QT to do a make-over, be aware that Ferne Park cost about £40 million to build.