Thread by @cinemashoebox

IT HAS ARRIVED

he gave his life that this report might live

yes, it's the Building Better Buildings By Building Buildings Beautifully Bommission Beport

(link - omghcontent.affino.com/AcuCustom/Site…)

am i going to livetweet reading a government report about building aesthetics? i am not NOT going to livetweet reading a government report about building aesthetics

welcome to my tinder profile

then there's a whole series of quotes...

but this is the interesting one. this one...isn't wrong! but what are the *reasons*, i wonder...

the noble eight-fold path of planning dharma

bruh

"COMMISSION VISITS TO EVERY CORNER OF ENGLAND" proclaims the map. you went north of Birmingham TWICE. you went to Devon more than you went to the entire northern half of England. oh my god

and OBVIOUSLY they went to Poundbury. someone working community service is probably still scraping the commissioner's jizz off the hideous fire station

*commissioners'

so now they're trying to define terms. anyone reckon this might prove to be difficult? well anyway, here's the definition of beauty

anyway then there's some stuff about cars being bad and whathaveyou, the death of the street, atomisation - all true as far as it goes. and then they show their whole entire ass while talking about historic building materials, of all things

i mean. there it is. the ass of the entire conservative architectural establishment, hanging out, with "a good building is a building that someday could be a boutique hotel" tattooed on it

but does the ass then go back in the trousers? it does NOT

now we're talking about Kant. "yes Roger, we promise to keep the bit about Kant in"

crucial amenity

the report is shitposting

look obviously i'm just Here For The Content but yes there are bits where this report does identify very obvious but also genuine problems. but then, every time, it makes you want to scream. like this bit. perhaps we could call this master developer..."the government"?

but no, this is an entirely cogent analysis of the problem that decides the solution is "landowning tycoons, but, make them...nice"

who will save *squints* deez asses

this is what i like to think of my twitter content as doing

we have reached the first mention of Critical Regionalism, everyone drink

soon we will be able to 3D print our own boutique hotels

hnnnnggggggggg

who are the "people" who will pay more here? are they people who already have money to buy property? or are they taxpayers who will fund housing? like, these are...different things. entirely different approaches.

"right. sorted. report's finished. pub?"

BIMBY. BIMBY? BIMBY

Roger "Bimby" Scruton

the government has today recommended the bimbyfication of English housing

i'm not even halfway through this fucking thing but BIMBY has broken me. there...there isn't even more than one house type on show here!

"im bimby" - Sir Roger Scruton

getting SASSY

oh SNAP

this is hideous, tho

ah, the tax law recommendations bit, which seems to propose just...not taking property developers who meet the entirely arbitrary standards in the report?

bah gawd, that's Lisa Nandy's music

at about halfway through the report, language collapses entirely

nobody now remembers why British children say a thankful; prayer to the folkloric figure of "Uncle Roger" as they pluck a rosy apple from the tree outside their bedroom window each morning

for the conclusion, the commissioners return again to Halifax, where they did not in fact go

anyway the conclusion is just some summary stuff and then there are appendices. i was getting ready to say something conciliatory about how there are still certain worthwhile policy aims in this thing and at least they're thinking about architecture, etc etc etc. BUT THEN

i found this appendix

K
N
I
G
H
T

F
R
A
N
K

so there it is. the 'research' here, such as it is, was done by a massive commercial estate agent. why do any of us even bother.

so instead i leave you with this, from the glossary at the very end, and i say unto you, in the words of the late great Sir Roger Scruton:

BIMBY