I wonder if visual considerations are allotted enough weight on the balance sheet measuring social value?

I would argue for the importance of the pleasure given by fine materials, well used. The tonal elements given by, for example, copper as it weathers to green or Corten as it gingers down, the textural delights of shuttered or bush-hammered concrete, or the sheen and colours of fine ceramic tiles are all positive contributions to the built scene, bearing in their different ways marks of skill and close attention. Without coming over too John Ruskin, for there are machines in the room here, there is something of craftsmanship in all this.

Back in 1916, when Hendrik Petrus Berlage designed and built his consummately beautiful office block for the Dutch shipping line, Holland House in the City of London, he indulged in a flurry of ceramics; a musty green on the exterior, luminous, de Morganesque turquoise on the interior and, for the very observant, the corner detail of a shiny black prow to give the clue to what the company was up to, turning the corner on to Bury Street. The City streets could do with such beauty in the wartime atmosphere – even provided by a neutral neighbour, the Netherlands.

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