At a recent dinner party in Los Angeles, guests were discussing my native country, England, and a lady blurted out that nothing could be worse than being treated in a British hospital. I was rather astonished at this statement, having been cared for very well throughout my childhood and early...

Some years back I was lucky enough to be sent by a magazine to a remote Alpine village in Switzerland called Vals to sample a newly built thermal bath by a then little-known Swiss architect named Peter Zumthor. After a long trip - by plane, two trains and a mountain...

There is a generation of young architects and critics that is righteously indignant at the "architecture of excess" (by this they mean the sculptural buildings built over the last 10-15 years by Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and fellow "starchitects"). This group is thrilled that the economic crash has...