Letter: Wrong city plans

So Dundee is to get an international attraction (your report, 28 September)? There isn't a single iconic building among the six shortlisted entries.

The best architects in the world? Heaven help us if that's true.

And let this put to rest the moans of those who complained that we used a foreign architect to design the parliament: the single shortlisted design from a UK practice looks like a power station.

And someone has finally noticed that the council's string of pearls is more like a cheap, tacky bit of costume jewellery bought from a cheap, tacky shop on Princes Street.

In the 1950s and 60s Princes Street was almost destroyed by the planners allowing the construction of inappropriate modern buildings. Now they're at it again with a new team of modernist architects who clearly have learned nothing since the last mess was made.

The planners are preoccupied with making sure that Edinburgh citizens don't build anything inappropriate onto their houses in places where they can't be seen, citing Edinburgh's status as a World Heritage Site as the reason, yet are quite happy for developers to destroy historic buildings in important places and replace them with modern tat.

Lindsay Buchan

Lindsay Buchan Architects

Queen Charlotte Street

Edinburgh

I was heartened to read of Dundee's V&A Museum proposals. To see such an iconic and important building on this stunning site on the river Tay would be marvellous. It would be a great boost for the city.

At the same time I have a nagging concern lest the project suffers from the severe problems experienced by the new Visual Arts Facility in my home town of Colchester.

That design was also chosen after an international competition. With multi-million-pound cost overruns it ground to a halt on site, is three years late, is the subject of acrimonious litigation and without the funds to properly fit it out.

Most "iconic" projects seem to end up costing far more than expected. Think of the Scottish Parliament or the Millennium Dome. Perhaps there are vested interests which tend to be over optimistic when reporting costs in order to encourage projects to proceed.

As a graduate in civil engineering from Dundee University I would love to see one of the stunning proposals realised, and think Dundee would get best value by not compromising on the design. I hope there will be sufficient funds made available to meet the high risk of large cost overruns.

Ken Wallace

Inglis Road

Colchester, Essex

Your editorial (28 September) could have been written many times in the past.

"Princes Street has a fine view but hardly a decent building. Even in 1822 it is noted as 'perhaps the most tasteless and clumsy line of shops in the island of Great Britain'. Possibly it still holds the lead." That is from Georgian Edinburgh, written by Ian Lindsay in 1949.I have an old Christmas card with a painting of Princes Street from the west, when it was just terraced houses, as Heriot Row is still.

People, after all, are really just check-out fodder. If developers had the chance they would have no compunction about razing the New Town to the ground every 20 years or so. After all, their balance sheets are what comes first to them.

Bill Taylor

Tradespark Road

Nairn