Richard Burdett (ex director of the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Currently consultant to the Mayor of London as the 2012 Olympics come in sight)

I've been the rounds of the world's major metropolises these last ten years - Caracas, Mumbai, Tokyo, Milan. Now I'm working in London. I study towns and their economic phenomena as points of international and global flow in all senses of the word. What is clear to me is that architecture, with its artistic and social dimensions to balance, has got to find a new way. All these years it's become precious, an art object. But there's a much more social community side catering to the needs of people in problem areas. Over the next 20 years architecture can certainly win back new territory, become an art form - beauty, the joy of beholding its results, whether it's a fountain or a weird and wonderful stretch of paving. But it does have to combine this with practicality, one of architecture's basic functions. Practicality in a technical sense, but also in solving social problems. Any art or design operation - take Rome, Cairo, the cities of the Middle East - will remain for 1000 years as a benchmark of a culture and a historical moment.