Terry's latest London project: 'architecture as Quality Street scenography'. Photo: David Sillitoe  God created Quinlan Terry in 1937. Or was it the BBC in 1988? That was the year they made a series of 50-minute TV documentaries, led by the Prince of Wales, about architecture, planning and heritage under the banner Visions of Britain. Terry's contribution was subtitled Classicism: The Rejected Alternative. It opened with the immaculately tailored, 50-year-old architect looking like an undertaker skulking in what appeared to be a candle-lit crypt. In funereal tones, Terry explained how God Himself had handed down the orders of classical architecture - Doric, Ionic, Corinthian - to mankind. Classical architecture was not simply more beautiful than soulless modern tosh, it was divinely inspired.  This, though, was a hoary old argument trotted out in previous centuries in praise of rival styles. In the 1840s, the pugnacious young Augustus Pugin argued that Gothic was the one true style for English architecture because it was Christian and this was a Christian country. Pugin's Catholic zealotry caught the imagination of those who commissioned and designed the muscular new Christian buildings of Victorian Britain, from colleges to cathedrals and even the rows of houses in between. Gothic was God-given.  An architect who believed he had God on his side in the money-mad 1980s, however, was as rare as a decent new public building. For a good 15 minutes, the media loved Terry, or "God's architect", as he was labelled. Indeed, with the opening of his Richmond Riverside scheme along the Thames the year before, and his commissions for country houses for the new City rich and his white stucco villas in Regent's Park for the Crown Estate, Terry's assortment of divinely inspired classical designs could hardly be described as a rejected alternative.  And, then, nothing. Neither a cornice nor a pediment. Not so much as a carved wooden pineapple to delight a gatepost. In the years since the media lost interest in the Prince Charles carbuncle debate, you rarely heard the name Quinlan Terry uttered in public. Had the architect gone to Heaven? Was he busy redesigning the Pearly Gates? No. Terry remained happily ensconced in Constable country (his studio in Dedham) doing God's work here, there and, almost without anyone noticing, slap, bang in the middle of London.  Baker Street, to be precise. Here in all its divine glory, is Terry's latest work: a big, ultra-modern office block; a concatenation of suspended ceilings, fluorescent lighting, brushed steel and glass-sided stairwells supported by breeze blocks, concrete screeds and the spirit of God.  Not that you would guess at first glance. For this is architecture as Quality Street scenography, a grouping of genuine Georgian town houses, some in rich, dark brick, others in penny-plain but handsomely lain yellow London stock brick, and, in between, the centrepiece, a show-off Palladian facade realised finely cut Portland stone.  It is architectural wrapping paper, a neo-Georgian facade folded crisply around a modern office block. You can argue that there is nothing wrong with dressing up an office block in Palladian ruffs and frills; it certainly softens the blow of what would otherwise be just another of the soulless buildings that have turned Baker Street from a handsome Georgian street into an alley of crapulous offices that might belong to any third-rate European town. But the effect, indeed the whole conceit, is spoilt on several counts.  First, when the lights are on, the fluorescent world of the offices behind Terry's groomed facades blazes through unsympathetically. Second, the nicely proportioned Georgian sash windows are sealed. Third, the shops at ground level are of the sort you might find in any suburban development. Fourth, details like door numbers and letter boxes look as if they are out of a run-of-the-mill house builders' catalogue.  Fifth, the architectural wrap is a little too fancy for Baker Street. The brick bits look good from a distance, but the Portland stone slice of the facade is out of place. It belongs to a provincial town with pretensions, not architecturally assured London. It is like a 1980s banker in a loud suit trying to mingle with old-fashioned gents about town.  However, there are virtues. Where many modern office blocks give way to slummy backs hiding wheelie bins and extractor fans, Terry's is civilised and well-detailed. That the block includes three restored Georgian town houses is also encouraging. Perhaps this is due to planning. But it is good that a new office development has not been allowed to gobble up every last inch of a city block in the ungodly pursuit of profit from acres of lettable and witless space.  There is, though, something else that he and his clients might like to consider. This month marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir John Soane (1753-1837), one of the most inventive of all classical revival architects. He has proved in his own work and that of generations of architects who have borrowed from him, that the classical language of architecture is flexible and profound.  There is no reason why architects should avoid the treasury of classicism, but there are many reasons why they, and their clients, should avoid classical fancy dress. Terry and God might want to go back to their drawing boards: for this building on Baker Street is designed to serve Mammon.
A state-of-the-art office block that looks like a row of Georgian town houses? That's just what Quinlan Terry wanted, says Jonathan Glancey.