City planners should learn from Dresden

WHY is the planning department of Cardiff City Council accepting any Friday-afternoon Rightacres Legobox design to be built on any new land that is being planned in Cardiff?

Rightacres is a good name for the company as they are designing painful architectural designs for the city of Cardiff.

The Carolyn Hitt article a few weeks ago highlighted the dreadful skyscrapers being built in Cardiff. It is a sad reflection on the planning department in Cardiff.

In Bath any design of building must fit in with its surroundings and be built of Bath Stone to add to the beauty of the city.

My wife and I went to Dresden in Germany last year, what a beautiful city, rebuilt from the ashes of the Second World War.

Architects and city planners have come up with designs to complement the city and add to its beauty.

Architects in Cardiff only have on their drawing-boards square or oblong shapes.

Look at Rightacres’ design for the new luxury hotel in Westgate Street next to the old Post Office. How do the two boxes fit with the beautiful frontages that are there already?

Architects need to visit Dresden to see how it is done. The old Brains brewery site is a whole mass of boxes apart from the old brick buildings. Why can’t all the frontages of the new buildings have a brick-effect finish?

Modern building techniques can create any frontages of building required.

Sadly, once developers get planning permission for a building they cost everything at its cheapest price to maximise their profit for the project. Cardiff is developing quickly and cheap and awful Seventies’ designs seem the only options for the planners.

Cardiff should demand better designs to add to the city’s beauty. We need a modern Cardiff with appropriately designed buildings we can admire for the next few decades. Frank Davies Whitchurch, Cardiff