“For centuries, the task of the architect was to build the ideal city, whether the city state of 15th-century Italy, or a Modernist backdrop for car-driving, welfare-state citizens. Naturally, they all failed.” In the 60s, a group of Italians called Superstudio “had the audacity to say that after 400 years of failure we should give it a rest. Utopia? It ain’t coming.” The problem is, they couldn’t come up with an alternative. So “three decades after the Italians exited stage left, architecture, and especially British architecture, has fulfilled all their prophesies. It’s cursed with niceness. It’s dull. Unquestioning. Terminally polite.”