The Australian Institute of Architects has demanded an apology from the NSW premier over his "distasteful" comments in relation to development at Sydney's Barangaroo precinct.
Last week, Premier Dominic Perrottet held a joint press conference with former prime minister Paul Keating to announce height and floor space limits for the last remaining developments in the waterfront precinct.
Transforming the former shipping container yard has long been a pet project for Mr Keating, who last Thursday praised the area's most famous building, the Crown casino tower, as the most "beautiful in Australia".
He went on to call the NSW chapter of the Institute of Architects "fruitcakes" for their past criticism of the 75-storey tower.
"If you want to know about kitchen amendments and you want to put a new toilet in the corridor somewhere, go to the core that runs the NSW Institute of Architects, that's their speed," Mr Keating said.
"We're supposed to join with those fruitcakes at the NSW Institute of Architects to say 'oh no, this is shocking ... we can't have that'."
Mr Perrottet echoed the former PM's feelings.
"The Institute of Architects have absolutely no idea, they have absolutely no idea," he said.
"It's poor architecture that ruins great cities."
Now the peak body for architects, with over 12,000 members, has written to the premier to take issue with his comments and for "twisting tales".
In the letter, the Institute said Mr Perrottet's remarks were "distasteful, derogatory and false" and demanded he apologise.
"[The comments] of course, caused outrage among many of our members," the letter by national president Shannon Battisson and NSW president Laura Cockburn read.
"The facts of the matter are that at no time in recent months has the NSW Chapter made derogatory comments on the Wilkinson Eyre (Crown Casino) tower, or on the design elements of the Barangaroo site project itself."
The letter described Mr Keating and Mr Perrottet's comments as a "misguided and completely unwarranted attack".
"The institute does not negatively pass judgement on the work of members of our profession. It is our role, however, to point out government process discrepancies and failures which impact our profession and the general public, and this has been the case historically with the Barangaroo site."
In past years, the institute criticised the government for approving the Crown tower, despite the company refusing a recommendation from the Department of Planning to reduce the size of the building to create more open space.
The tower, called One Barangaroo, was the first Australian project to win the prestigious Emporis Skyscraper Award last year, but has been received mixed reviews by many leading architects who believe it ate up valuable public land.
But last week, the premier was adamant he would always put open space before developers and the new 35-metre height restriction for the final developments in Central Barangaroo would achieve just that.
He said scaling down the plans put forward by developer Aqualand would mean less shadowing and better sight lines from Observatory to Barangaroo.
Planning Minister Anthony Roberts recently knocked back a 20-storey residential tower for the area, saying it served no public benefit.
The ABC has sought comment from the premier.
