Churchill once remarked: "First we shape our buildings, then they shape us." If so, God help us should the Gehry design go ahead in its present form.

The two towers are spectacle for spectacle's sake - a desecration to the flanking Regency estates of Kemp Town and Hove, described as "the glory of Southern England", by Guardian journalist Simon Jenkins.

Does Brighton and Hove City Council seriously believe these nightmarish, apocalyptic towers - redolent of the horrors of September 11 more than Gehry's facile inspiration of "the movement of an Edwardian lady's dress" - will attract admiration from people in even ten years (forget the 200 or so which still leave people enthralled by Regency architecture)?

The council is displaying a visionless arrogance towards those it should serve.

Gehry may have constructed brilliant buildings elsewhere but that should not mean Brighton and Hove takes whatever he offers.

These buildings are pretentious, arrogant, hollow and superficial. They suggest an underlying cynicism towards anything which resembles a truly-inspired vision on a fitting scale. They also project, as if from some deep layer of the psyche, a vision of collapse and destruction.

As Jenkins wrote: "Modern cities are getting like zoos containing nothing but elephants. Hove still has birds of paradise. Why stamp on them?"

-Michael Winter, Westdene, Brighton