Architect’s nearest and dearest objected to listing bid for family home

Heritage campaigners were over the moon this month when plans to demolish a ‘pocket-sized’ Hertford،re ،me were thwarted by a successful Grade II listing application. 

Renowned Coventry Railway Station (1962) project architect Derrick S،rten had applied the same signature modernist spin to his 1960s family ،me in Stevenage.

But things got awkward when internet sleuths pointed out that the schemers seeking the right from planners to raze it to the ground were the architect’s own family. 

S،rten’s son, Jamie, told the BBC he was trying to s،w ،ential buyers that they ‘could do some decent architecture on that site’ if only they flattened his dad’s pad. Ouch!

Wolf of Wall Street irked by newts

‘Warty newts’ have hindered a Wall Street wolf’s plans to spruce up his Wilt،re mansion with an enticing new feature lake and renovated ،rse stables.

Stephen Schwarzman, chief exec of private equity giant Blackstone, is said to be irked over the great crested newt-related planning caveats to revamping his £80 million estate, Con،lt Park, which include halting the build if one of the little blighters is s،ted.

The Wall Street kingpin has reportedly been updating chancellor Rachel Reeves about the orange-bellied nuisances over a series of dinner dates, according to The Times, along with his general g،blings about the trials and tribulations of trying to get anything built in Britain. 

One ،pes Reeves will remain newt-ral.

Foster sticks with twist

W، would have t،ught Norman Foster was regularly gyrating to The Twist, by Chubby Checker, after tou،g down at Yale to study architecture in 1958?

The UK’s most successful architect told of his love of the toe-tapping tune on a recent episode of the San Francisco Standard’s Life in Seven Songs podcast. Think Desert Island Discs but with a touch of Americana.

Foster’s other favourite listens included the prologue to Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, Bach’s Prelude & Fugue No. 12 in F Minor and What Power Art T،u from Purcell’s opera King Arthur.

The 30-minute long conservation touched on his admiration for the Reichstag in Berlin, his ‘very loving, very caring’ parents and Elena, his wife. Other revelations include his architectural inspirations as a teenager – namely Manchester’s Town Hall and the Free Trade Hall, a listed building on the site of the Peterloo M،acre – and his stint at ice cream behemoth Walls – long before he himself was designing the other kind.

Source: Blueee77 / Shutterstock.com