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In an article in today’s “Sunday Times”, architecture critic Hugh Pearman casts his eye over the new Supreme Court building.  The article can also be found on his own website  with some impressive photographs and the above headline.  The Sunday Times website goes with a slightly more neutral title: “The Supreme Court Opens in October”

Mr Pearman points out that if a new Court had been created in France it would have had a new, modernist building, to occupy whilst, in Britain, an existing building is refurbished.

Nevertheless, he seems to like it:

“True, the new bits aren’t as good as the old bits. True also, some of the old bits are hideously ugly. This was, after all, originally designed by an Edwardian firm of commercial architects, Gibson and Skipwith, as a bit of a Gilbert and Sullivan stage set. Only sets of antlers are missing. They ladled on the baronial references to the point of parody. Political parody, actually”.

Overall, although he is entertained, he obviously wishes that something new and modern had been chosen but, as he points out “that’s not the British way, is it?”