How right you were to accompany Elain Harwood’s fine tribute to Trevor Dannatt (Obituaries, 19 February) with a good picture of the stairs in the Royal Festival Hall. As an architecture student 70 years ago, the experience of walking up these stairs expressed for me then the values I was trying to include in my own designs – social inclusivity, robust structure, high-quality materials, functional and elegant shaping of every part. They met the Vitruvian ideal: commodity, firmness and delight. Throughout my working life as an architect in public service, these stairs were a constant standard and an inspiration.
Jeremy Lowe
Cardiff
• I was surprised to read in the obituary of Trevor Dannatt that he thought the groove in his banisters for the Royal Festival Hall was to accommodate one’s thumb. I was lucky to be taken to the Robert Mayer concerts on Saturday mornings in the early 60s, when the wonderful building was still strikingly new and many fellow concertgoers knew they were for sliding a roll of Polos down. Spangles did not work.
John Page
London
