Figure 2: Letter to Architect Christopher Beninger by Riyaz Tayyibji

b. In The early part of your explanation, you talk about the movement of people under the existing architecture building through from the New Plaza to the North Lawns. You say, and I quote, “I would like to see more people walking under the school of architecture” (42.15). Yet in your video a series of what looks like concrete walls and planters (with ridiculous pink flowers) blocks that very movement you desired. In fact the manner in which the building and ground meet is altered so fundamentally that your promenade actually closes and seals itself of from the existing icon, far from being responsive to it. You rant about the ugly additions to the north façade of the existing building, made and used by students as part of the inhabitation of the campus, and yet your intervention destroys one of the most important relationships of the existing building: the manner in which it meets the ground by adding a layer of decorative planters that have no real purpose. I find it incredible that an architect of your standing can say one thing and show something completely the opposite and expect it to be simply taken at face value.

Images extracted from the architect's video presentation and published under fair use provisions of applicable laws, including The Copyright Act (India) and Berne Convention