At any point in the world's history most architecture is going to be bad but I think there's been a collective mentality since the late Conservative years - the end of Thatcher/start of Major and certainly continued throughout New Labour and continuing now - that new is necessarily better, so there is this neophilia which isn't the vanguard of progress, it's just the vanguard of the construction industry enjoying itself.

Jonathan Meades

Categorized in : Thinking Years Construction Industry

If you believe in the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden you are deemed fit for the bin. If you believe in parthenogenesis, ascension, transubstantiation and all the rest of it you are deemed fit to govern the country.

Jonathan Meades

garden believe country

In creating a building, architects do think they're making the world a better place. And then they hope to make the world an even better place by making another thing which will be even bigger than the last thing... and it is part of the pathology of being an architect to believe thus, and they do believe it, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Jonathan Meades

creating believe thinking

I like extremely effeminate dogs like terriers or schnauzers. I make an exception for giant schnauzers and big poodles. Basically, I like dogs which can be dyed day-glo colours.

Jonathan Meades

poodles giants dog

I'm not against architecture per se, I'm just against bad architecture.

Jonathan Meades

architecture

If you're going to write about something it becomes a damn sight more interesting than if you're not going to write about it, because you engage with it actively in a way that you wouldn't if you were just passing through or if you were going to St Helens to visit family or if it was a place that made you resentful because you'd always wanted to escape from there.

Jonathan Meades

sight writing interesting

I think television is a medium which has the potential to do great things but has been traduced by these... terrible people who rise through the ranks.

Jonathan Meades

people television thinking

I genuinely find it difficult to think of places that I'd never want to see again. It might be because part of my career has been concerned with writing about topography.

Jonathan Meades

careers writing thinking

I like looking at the countryside as well as anyone... a little countryside goes a long way, but it's almost like the DNA of a civilisation is in its cities.

Jonathan Meades

dna cities long

The only bright feature of cultural relativism's triumph is that it has become establishment orthodoxy and will thus one day be derided, resisted and overthrown.

Jonathan Meades

cultural-relativism triumph one-day

I think in space or music or art or literature of any kind there has to be some kind of void where the viewer or the spectator or the listener or the reader can insert themselves into it, and there is a certain kind of architectural space which is totalitarian, which does not allow you to do that.

Jonathan Meades

space art thinking

I do make myself be interested in places in a way that I don't make myself be interested in people.

Jonathan Meades

people way

You always have to find something to say about the subject and in seven cases out of ten there is nothing to say.

Jonathan Meades

seven subjects cases

There is a tradition of television which isn't dross and stands up. Betjeman's programmes, which were made for 2/6d with one man and a cine camera, were amazing to watch because he was such a great talker.

Jonathan Meades

cameras men television

I think the French agonise more about being French, I don't think English think about being English that much. I think the Scottish think about being Scottish and the Welsh think about being Welsh, but the English don't really care. But the French think about it all the time, it's an absolute preoccupation.

Jonathan Meades

scottish care thinking

I'm a very, very unreckless person. I mean, I look left, I look right, I look left, I look right, then I repeat the process and then I decide not to cross the road at the last minute.

Jonathan Meades

lasts mean looks

I don't see any point in having a public service broadcaster which attempts to compete with the commercial sector. Obviously part of its remit is to entertain, but entertainment doesn't necessarily mean scraping the bottom of the barrel and appealing to the very lowest common denominator.

Jonathan Meades

bottom-of-the-barrel entertainment mean

I don't like the theatre. I like plays in which the audience is addressed by the actors. I don't like seeing people talking to each other on stage as if there isn't an audience.

Jonathan Meades

play talking people

Vertigo doesn't apply in planes for some reason. You think it's some kind of magic and you don't know how it's keeping you up, but when you're on a cliff top it's a different matter.

Jonathan Meades

magic different thinking

I think the only remotely interesting drug was acid. I had a slightly peculiar attitude towards it I think. Just about everything about hippydom I hated.

Jonathan Meades

attitude interesting thinking

I don't believe in synergy. I believe that things have to be specific to the medium that they're in.

Jonathan Meades

synergy mediums believe