U.K. Housing Minister Esther McVey is making headlines after announcing her seemingly personal, and shocking, discovery of “3D architecture.”
In a panel discussion with Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi and northern minister Jake Berry, McVey said, “If we have this new way of doing it, 3D architects… 3D visionaries… doing it with it on a computer,” an immediately and widely mocked statement alluding to the discovery of three-dimensional architecture and digital tools in the architecture profession.
Twitter user Kendy Crush pointed out, constructively, that “Esther McVey is 52. She was 15 when AutoCAD was first released.” The groundbreaking rendering software was released 37 years ago and has since given rise to an entire ecosystem of digital rendering and BIM tools that are standard across the industry today.
The verbal fumbling was mocked by everyone from casual observers to U.K. government elites, and even Financial Times architecture critic Edwin Heathcote asked his Twitter followers, “The Tories are going to introduce 3D architecture. How have we lived without it for so long?”
This is fucking brilliant. The Tories are going to introduce 3D architecture. How have we lived without it for so long? https://t.co/0BOTUtYYaP
— edwin heathcote (@edwinheathcote) September 30, 2019
McVey is the 9th Housing Minister and currently serves Boris Johnson’s conservative government. Clearly there are some gaps to be filled between knowledge of a field and leadership within it.
