Dec 15, 2020

Watch: Beauty in Development

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In response to the Government's recent White Paper, Christophe Egret spoke as part of a panel discussing ''can architecture be beautiful?''

The Government will “ask for beauty… expecting new development to be beautiful”, according to its recent White Paper, “Planning for the Future”. In so doing, it has added a fresh perspective to a debate that has been discussed for at least 2,000 years: can architecture be beautiful and if so, what does that mean?

The panel discussion - sponsored by Montagu Evans - asked architects, developers and planning authorities:

Does our planning system sufficiently recognise beauty?
Will the Government’s proposals help or hinder the delivery of beauty?
In relation to cities and architecture, what does beauty mean anyway?

Very often, those ugly buildings of the sixties, actually all they needed was to be rooted back to the landscape and to the public realm. Not to be just some architect's idea, but to actually be landed into a community and contextualized.”

Christophe Egret

Featuring:

- Christophe Egret, founding director, Studio Egret West
- Heather Cheesbrough, director of planning and strategic transport, London Borough of Croydon
- Richard Knight, director of land and communities, Peel L&P
- Hugh Petter, director, Adam Architecture
- Dr Timur Tatlioglu, heritage and planning partner, Montagu Evans