no rest for the dead of Jericho

All so they can build this monstrous carbuncle:



The Blavatnik School of Government, a place of study for a mere 120 students, could quite easily have been accommodated in a discreet two-storey building behind the wall, with the graveyard areas forming a landscaped garden. But no, the university wants an ostentatious six-storey Herzog & de Meuron carbuncle that's going to stick out like a sore thumb amongst the surrounding old buildings and local conservation area, and never mind the 700 bodies they've got to dig up to get their way.

This Blavatnik School of Government is apparently a centre for teaching other countries' governments about good policy making. But they've started by thumbing their nose at Oxford's good policies about height regulations and not-disenhancing the ambience of existing listed buildings.

They say they want the Blavatnik building to be "open" and "transparent", but what they're really doing is setting themselves up in a lofty glass tower that looks down on the plebs and ignores the wishes of the local people. Perhaps it should be renamed the Blavatnik School of Arrogance.