Plumbing the shallows of Twitter

One of the ways that you may have come to read this story is because I have tweeted it. I wouldn't say I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter - more a blowing hot and cold one. Rather like those annoying people in relationships who sometimes are all over you and at others just can't be bothered and would rather tidy their flat or drink with their mates, I have days of great activity and others of ignoring twitter altogether. Mostly I like it, although I am still not sure what it is FOR.
Anyway, Building Design has recently published a list of its top 10 architecture critics and journalists on Twitter. There is an unsurprising and acceptable degree of nepotism. The list includes executive editor Ellis Woodman and online editor Anna Winston, as well as former staffer Oliver Wainwright and regular contributor Owen Hatherley. Interestingly news editor Andrea Klettner didn't make the cut, although Peerindex placed her higher than Winston. And top of the list is Hugh Pearman, who edits rival publication the RIBA Journal.
Lists like this are always fun, and there is always a wistful moment of thinking 'could this have been'. My first reaction was to tweet a link to the story accompanied by 'Could try harder'. But of course the strength of Twitter lies in its diversity. Just as we don't all want to see the same films or eat the same food, so we should follow those who help, inspire, amuse or perhaps irritate us. In fact one rule may be that you should follow at least one person with whom you disagree profoundly.
For some Twitter is crucial - for instance the winning team of the recent Flitched competition who met through Twitter. For most it is fun, as long as you don't let it take over your life, and occasionally enlightening. And, like so many things, the best way to find out what it is for is to engage. You have nothing to lose except a few minutes a day.

What's in a name?

When I worked at The Architects' Journal, the news editor used to take especial pleasure in finding sobriquets for the latest tower proposal (he probably still does, but I don't see him so regularly). He was particularly proud of the 'can of ham', a title that was subsequently taken up by the Daily Mail. And no less a figure than Peter Rees of the Corporation of London claimed to have named the 'cheesegrater', Roger Stirk Harbour's Leadenhall building.
Rees may have been more aware of the significance of these names, but at the AJ we certainly thought of this as an amusing game. But according to the cultural critic Owen Hatherley, writing in the Guardian earlier this week, there was a sinister underlying purpose. The country, and particularly the left, has been suckered into promote tall commercial buildings, Hatherley argues,
Where once they championed the vernacular and 'community architecture' they came to love the idea of tall buildings with commercial sponsors, partly Hatherley believes, because Thatcher's government had taken away local authorities' spending powers, and this was the only way for them to make their mark. The ideas were promoted by Richard Rogers' report on cities, and by the formation of organisations such as CABE. And, Hatherley believes, the funny names helped us all to accept them.
'The Gherkin was clearly the first of these new cuddly skyscrapers,' he writes. 'Its originally much-vaunted green technologies barely worked, but its accidental masterstroke was its very name – its shape eliciting a cabbie's affectionate monicker. Subsequent towers all came ready-nicknamed – Helter-Skelter, Walkie-Talkie, Cheese Grater, Shard. Typically, they weren't much more public – the days when the tallest buildings could be council housing, like the Trellick Tower, or NHS hospitals, like Guy's Hospital Tower, neighbouring the Shard, were long gone – but they were definitely more populist.'
Hatherley is a very clever and passionate writer, with a strong agenda - he loves much of the brutalism that many decry - and his arguments need a careful unpacking. But like the towers he derides, they are seductive - and who knew that the poor AJ news editor had been suckered into a conspiracy of brainwashing?