Sans Humour?

– Niall Hobhouse

It seems that architects are too self-conscious – or perhaps in need of being seen as permanently on duty – to portray themselves or what they do with much humour, let alone self-critical caricature. Edwin Lutyens is an honourable exception, even if his self-mockery ultimately becomes a public performance – a narrow genre of which Petitot is ever the master. Sironi and Botta seem at least to suggest that such things are sometimes a little easier in Italy, but each of them here still carefully allows himself some ironic distance.