British designer Thomas Heatherwick's speculative Garden Bridge was officially scrapped by the Garden Bridge Trust last week, but the murmurs about the project and its acclaimed designer Thomas Heatherwick are still unstoppable by public, media and architecture critics - because Heatherwick is different from many architects, he extensively touches emotions and feelings through his sensitive "material, object and innovative techniques". 

In this fascinating piece, Rowan Moore makes in-depth analysis about the celebration of Thomas Heatherwick by the clients and media. Moore writes that "there is a tendency to believe him capable of almost anything, even when there is no evidence of his aptitude, such as masterplans or the making of new neighbourhoods."

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It might be thought that the bridge’s designer, Thomas Heatherwick, should bear some responsibility for the escalating budget. Instead, much of the media reaction to the project’s collapse has been to deplore a magnificent opportunity lost, a great British failure of vision.

Architects are trained to examine and re-examine their plans, to exercise doubt, to adjust proposals to their surroundings, to reconcile form and function. Heatherwick cuts through all that or waves it away. He is oblivious to the question of scale – the same shape could be a flower pot, a stadium or a city block – which gives his larger works a self-absorbed indifference to their location.......Continue Reading

Top image © Jason Alden

> via The Guardian