Letter: Modern Planners Have Not Got a Clue

Published on: 23 Aug, 2022
Updated on: 23 Aug, 2022

“Pastiche” Warsaw Wikipedia

From: Ben Paton

In response to: In My Heart I Knew It Was a Forlorn Hope

Warsaw’s Old Town Square is an interesting example of “pastiche”.

Modern Warsaw is a Communist version of New York: grid pattern, square concrete tower blocks everywhere. Dour, boring and very communist. Like a 1960s London Council block – only worse.

The one place in the city that has a vestige of the past and character is a reproduction, a rebuilding of the flattened medieval Old Town Square.

Modern planners mouth “significant” words like “place-making” but they haven’t got a clue what makes a place. That’s why High Streets across the country look more and more the same and are populated by the usual identikit chain stores.

Walk into Boots or M&S or Waterstones on any High Street and you could be anywhere from Perth to Truro.