Sir – Rex Knight, Clerk to the Governors at Oxford Brookes University, is right. Simon Callow does not have a ‘proper understanding’ (Actor opposes Brookes, April 30). What he has not understood is that the proposed new blocks at Brookes’ Headington campus do fit in.

Sadly, they are only too similar to the many uninspiring buildings already on that campus. The campus has suffered from decades of unremarkable new development.

There are so many inspiring new buildings at other universities around the country. Now there is an opportunity to have some at Brookes.

The university has wasted the opportunity to enrich the existing stock of poor quality blocks.

The proposed new buildings are monstrous boxes without visual merit.

On the Brookes website Mr Knight boasts of teaching architectural history. From the Parthenon to Cliveden, architects knew that the outline of a large box on a hill must be softened by line or feature, a lesson he now ignores.

Having worked in this visual swamp for over 25 years, and having seen staff rebuked if they questioned it, I join those pleading with the new Vice-Chancellor Janet Beer to intervene. This would be following a precedent of sorts. When her predecessor Graham Upton started at Brookes in 1997, one of his first acts was to sack the architects who were designing a new building (now the Media Centre) in London Road. Their proposal had an ugly inverted roof which they tried to justify by giving it a fancy name — a butterfly roof. No doubt Brookes managers will describe their current plans as ‘iconic’ or ‘landmark’.

However, Mr Knight needs to realise that fancy words will never give any grandeur to these shoddy new proposals.

Chris Coghill, Headington