She totters along in her high heels by now grimly determined to find one of these

She totters along in her high heels, by now grimly determined to find one of these yellow T-shirt people. We encounter one consulting a map and talking to an exhausted shopper "It's that way," the man in yellow says "You've got about a half-mile walk, unfortunately. Hediard?" He looks at the map, turns it upside down, bends his head to the side, does an about-turn, sets the map to rights again. "No problem, Mr Bennett, and I'll tell them you're going to be a little late." She's still helpful and still pretty understanding when I call again, on arrival at Bluewater, asking how we actually get into the place It is vast Alexandra and I cannot find an entrance "Look for people in yellow T-shirts, Mr Bennett. They'll be happy to direct you." She adds that most people don't find this part so hard. After taking the wrong exit at a roundabout, I phone the restaurant for directions The girl is very helpful, and very understanding.

Leaving the city by the south- east is anything but an uplifting experience. At least we have the prospect of Hediard's French cooking to cheer us up First, though, we have to find Bluewater. Three-quarters of an hour from north London on a Saturday night and we're whizzing by an endless line of industrial sheds, abandoned warehouses and empty lots fenced in by chainlink and flooded with sodium light. "THIS MUST be the scenic route," Alexandra, my agent, says, arching an eyebrow and casting a languid eye over the car- wrecking pound. We're on the A one-oh-something, heading for Bluewater in Kent, the new ultimate consumer experience. The difference between the two of them in terms of environmental advances, and in the way they look because of those advances, really amazes me." Mary Banham nods in agreement. "My only disappointment is that I really wanted the house to power itself with photo-voltaic cells," she says, with the air of one not given to compromise "Jonathan said it would be too expensive." 1.

"I can see that even in the five years between my house and Mary's. "But I'm a nicely-brought-up architect and the Modernist movement, as a 20th-century phenomenon, still seems pretty new to me. When people like Mies and Corb talked about things like form following function and truth to materials, they didn't really have the technology to follow through what they were saying."Modernism can only now really work for the first time because technology has finally caught up with the ideas of the people who created it," says Ellis-Miller. "Everyone's rushing about in architecture these days shouting `New ideas! New ideas!'," chips in Jonathan Ellis-Miller.