Letter on a Lecture: Paul Finch records his thoughts on Eric's Berlin presentation

In his 'Letter from London', renowned architectural critic Paul Finch reflects upon Eric Kuhne's vision for 21st century retail, as presented at the recent World Retail Congress in Berlin:
"There is a question, however, as to whether developers and investors would do better to think of their schemes in a much wider context. Why is this latter-day equivalent of the agora, a combination of market, village green and town square, not more widely used for social and cultural purposes? The architect Eric Kuhne, whose ground-breaking design of the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent transformed thinking about retail in Britain and elsewhere, told our Berlin audience that this would be the case. After nearly a century in which individualism had ruled retail thinking, we were moving back to concepts or a bigger society, and a world of development where the greater the mix, the better."
Architect's Journal, 04/11/10

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