In praise of the Senedd

Today being St. David's Day, it was the obvious occasion for the official opening of the Senedd (pronounced 'Seneth'), the new, Richard Rogers-designed home of the Welsh Assembly. The £67 million project in Cardiff Bay is one of the 'greenest' public buildings in the UK and came in at about 15% of the cost of the, frankly ugly, Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Of course, there are always some shortsighted people who think any landmark public building is a waste of 'their' money, even when, as Sydney, Barcelona and even Bilbao have shown, such buildings can generate far more in tourism-related revenues than they cost. Good schools and hospitals and cutting edge architecture are not mutually exclusive.