Boris Johnson and his collapsing pancakes.....

Again an interesting article from Design Week online, ....read on

"London Mayor Boris Johnson has reinforced his position as an upholder of tradition in design, while acknowledging design’s importance to the capital’s economy

Speaking at the opening of the London Design Festival last night, Johnson said he is ‘proud to be supporting new design and defending old great designs’. The statement follows his intervention last week after Transport for London removed the River Thames from Harry Beck’s seminal Tube map from the 1930s.

Johnson cited the policeman’s helmet, the telephone kiosk and the Routemaster bus – ‘a wonderful, perfect piece of work’ - as older designs that sum up the personality of London. He also mentioned the Brompton bicycle and, controversially, the Wolff Olins-designed identity for the 2012 London Olympics as enduring designs important to the capital.

Johnson says he sees London as ‘the hub of the creative industries’. The city may lack industrial resources, but, he says, some 186 000 people make a living through their creativity, generating £11.6bn in revenue for the capital each year. Design, he says, ‘is a marriage of artistic form and intrinsic value’.
Johnson delivered his speech at the Foster & Partners-designed City Hall, commissioned by his predecessor Ken Livingstone. He described the building as ‘a pile of collapsing pancakes and Darth Vader’s hat’, though he said it is a good place to work."

Design Week breaking news online 22nd september 2009

Hopefully spokes-people like Boris can only bring our debate to the fore and hopefully press the fact that a significant part of our econonomy is now driven by the design industry rather than what was once our traditional manufacturing base. Although as with many things the debate remains "London" centric, unless you can prove me wrong of course....it would also seem as although we seem to adore many of our established design icons such as the Routemaster bus and so on , why we seem to be at pains to replace them for progress sake.

Speaking at the start of the Design Week it is worth mentioning to those of you who havent as yet made the trip to the capital, that is is definetely worth it  and you must allow yourself a lot of time to see the miriad of exibits around the capital..