Sir – Bravo to those South Oxfordshire district councillors who voted in favour of Rowan and Sunetra Atkinson’s plans for their Richard Meier-designed home, to be built near Ipsden, and this against the advice of planning officers (Report, September 2).
Richard Meier is an heir to the great Le Corbusier, whose 1929 Villa Savoye, outside Paris, demonstrates the grace and beauty of of the ‘Machine for living’ ideal’. Local objections, while understandable, are misplaced, for here we will have an example of contemporary achitecture at its very best, and vivid proof, if proof be needed, of the poverty of vision of the Prince Charles toytown tendency.
As for ‘blending in with the landscape’, when Magdalen College, Oxford, was built, many protested that it was an eyesore, unsuited to its riparian setting.
Few buildings automatically ‘blend in’ but rather grow into the landscape, through familiarity and the acquired geometries of eye and mind. Some, the brutish Windsor Castle, for example, remain forever in conflict with their natural setting.
Not of course an Oxford college or a royal castle, the Atkinsons will have a home to be admired for generations to come.
Bruce Ross-Smith, Headington
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