Poet in the dock

Dreaming spires apart, rarely does a university building inspire poetic feelings. But the University of East London's new Docklands campus has had just this effect on Patrick Hodgkinson, emeritus professor of architecture and urbanism at Bristol University. In a letter to The Times he calls the campus "a beautifully humanised dream ... Yes, poetry." The Times is more down to earth about Hodgkinson's own work - the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury. An article last year referred to it as "a concrete monstrosity better suited to downtown Minsk".