I have recently stumbled upon an article titled “Why you hate contemporary architecture” by Brianna Rennix and Nathan J. Robinson of the “Current Affairs” magazine. It was an extremely interesting read, as the authors are not architects themselves and their impressions of contemporary buildings were those of normal people. At first I was skeptic about how naive some of their ideas were, but the further into the article I got, the more I agreed with their comments. Perhaps there really is something wrong with much of modern architecture?

Politics can often be seen as a kind of theatre, a world apart from everyday life where a bunch of fools scream and shout and wave their arms like drunks disagreeing with a rural pup quizmaster. It can be funny and entertaining, but it clearly doesn’t matter much, otherwise people would be talking about it. Politics is clearly not as important as coffee. But what if it was? What if politics was in fact having a huge impact on the way we live our lives, the places where we can live, learn and work, the way we shape our very own sense of self? The United Kingdom is due to leave the European union on 29th March 2019, and for those of us who are from the UK, this matters. I spoke with Professor of Interiors Building Cities Daniel Rosbottom to find out about his views about politics within the faculty and the implications of Brexit on his life, his practice and his teaching.