You could be forgiven for thinking that the architecture of Oxford is actually quite nice. There are buildings in Oxford which represent each design epoch since the days of the Saxons, and the diverse landscape comes together in a spectacular fashion. It becomes almost odd that people are allowed to live in this ancient majesty.

But, as William Whyte pointed out in his talk at Magdalen College, Oxford is not and cannot be a museum. It is a site for politics and drama; controversy and architecture is one place where battles are fraught.

Whyte, a professor of architectural history, drew on the myriad of examples where well-regarded buildings have been met with strong criticism. The Ashmolean, the Examination Schools, and even the staircase of the Radcliffe Camera, installed in the 1880s, have attracted distain.

The hatred of Oxford buildings has, at times, been palpable. Whyte spoke of the architecture of Keble College and the unpopular use of polychromatic brickwork which compelled the neighbouring St Johns students to start a Destroy Keble Society. To become a member, one would have to steal at least one of the controversial bricks. Even the beloved Bridge of Sighs, much frequented by tourists today, was maligned by many community members when construction began in 1913.

Whyte’s talk was delightfully clever with a comedic use of source quotations. Much of it was dedicated to the discussion of the Christchurch Meadow, a thirty-year battle in the twentieth century to relieve traffic congestion. In 1944, over 44,000 vehicles crossed the Magdalen bridge each day – it was the only passage into Oxford centre from Cowley.

A proposed solution was to build a road across Christ Church’s Meadow, spoiling the residents’ view. The controversy was fierce. Fights erupted among academics in the street and the Prime Minister of the day, Anthony Eden, an ex-Christchurch man himself, became involved under a backdrop of the Suez Crisis.

Oxford’s beautiful surface is the home of debates and complexity. People to this day assess the relative merits of new developments (Castle Mill, the Blavatnik School of Government, the Investcorp Building at St Antony’s College’s Middle East Centre) and their ability to exist in harmony with the lives we lead in and around them. Whyte deftly unpacked the myth that Oxford is an undeniably beautiful place, and in so doing revealed that it is so much more.