We made it to France – in spite of all the difficulties, the requirement to quarantine, the forms that have to be filled up, the need to show that we’ve been double vaccinated, we travelled in trepidation, amongst relatively few who are likewise brave or foolish, through the tunnel into the wide open spaces of Picardy, lunch in Laon, down to Beaune: it felt how it was pre-EU, an adventure, full of unknowns and uncertainty. But we’ve survived so far.

I have been alerted to the listing of the 25 most significant works of post-war architecture in this morning’s New York Times, selected by, amongst others, Annabelle Selldorf, recently selected to review and revise the Sainsbury Wing.

It’s an intriguing parlour game: starts off conventionally with the Farnsworth House and the Seagram Building, doesn’t include the Guggenheim Museum or Lina Bo Bardi’s Glass House, but does include her SESC Pompéia; includes obvious icons like Sydney Opera House and the Centre Pompidou; is pretty thin on the 1980s and 1990s, apart from Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals; then, no doubt rightly, goes global and anti-canonical, including Amanda Williams in Chicago. A snapshot of current mainstream architectural taste.

https://nyti.ms/2WBI5GQ

I was asked to speak today at the new EA Festival, held in the grounds of the castle at Castle Hedingham. It was such a pleasure to be in a tent instead of on Zoom. I had nearly forgotten the pleasures of interaction with a live audience – the feeling of audience engagement and response.

The Castle is Norman. Between 1713 and 1719, much of the castle’s surrounds were demolished and a small Georgian house built in their place with ornamental grounds which half survive:-