This symposium, held at Building Design Partnership's offices on 21 September, was jointly organised by the International Committee of Architectural Critics (CICA), and its Chair, Dennis Sharp, and the Architecture Foundation, represented on the panel by its Director, Rowan Moore. The topic under investigation was the challenges posed to the critic by a period of massive architectural production: are critics being swamped by the quantity of new buildings, thus reducing the quality of criticism? In addition, is honest criticism held in check by the corporate power of architects, in a world where even ‘art house’ partnerships are now commonly ten times larger than their 1960s counterparts? In a panel of six distinguished critics, one might have expected to find at least six different opinions on any subject. The surprising thing about this symposium was the level of consensus that emerged.

The design of a brick house draws on English and Danish building cultures to challenge the growing tendency to divorce expression from structure and obsession with surface styling.

The constraints of packing rooms together, and the flexibility of dimensioning allowed by rectangular arrangements, explain the predominance of the right angle in architectural plans.

Decorum, ‘appropriateness’, seems deeply embedded in the psyche of architects as a means to justify their actions. This essay considers the shifting significance of this term for architectural discourse.

Doors and windows were once among the primary means of articulating a facade. Tailored to the orders, they expressed the symmetry that guided the overall design of a building.

Building, furniture design and the decorative arts collaborate to embody Fascist political values and mass identity in an icon of modern architecture.