“I’m not that stupid.” The Prince of Wales, in the documentary ‘Prince, Son and Heir, Charles at 70’, November 2018, when asked about continuing his commentary on` architecture and the environment.
WARNING: This column is by a Republican, with a high regard for Inigo Jones and Norman Foster. If you’re a Monarchist, with a love of Thomas Archer and Terry Farrell, you may wish to skip this article.
The newly minted King Charles has said that he will renounce his activism on environmental and architectural matters. Our PM, amongst others, hopes he will continue with the former; I for one hope he never advocates for the latter again. Ever.
His many interventions into architecture in the 1980s and 90s may have been paved with good intentions, but for me, and many disgruntled others, his desire for a return to traditional forms and construction, promoting the idea of village life over the city, translated into turning Britain back into some sort of feudal fealty. With cutesy chocolate box Disney facades.
In advocating for ‘New Urbanism’ he was seeking to turn back the clock to an earlier architecture, that of King George and Queen Victoria, and a revival of classical architecture. But he missed the best Kings for British architecture: the two earlier Charles. So, let’s start there.
Charles I, 1600 to 1649
In contrast to the economical stringencies of the first Elizabethan age, James I, father of Charles I, spent lavishly on buildings. In 1616, he commissioned Inigo Jones, the finest architect of the age, to design the Queen's House in Greenwich for his wife Anne. Work was halted on her death, but the profligacy resumed in 1629 under Charles I; this time the building was to be for his Queen Henrietta Maria. Finished in 1635 it is regarded as the first truly Palladian building in Britain, using classical forms from ancient Rome.
Charles continued to employ Inigo Jones for more regal projects: the Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall (with a ceiling by Peter Paul Rubens), and the Queen's Chapel for his Roman Catholic wife. Inigo Jones designed both Covent Garden Square and Lincolns Inn Fields and the Lindsay House in that square was the basis for so many Georgian townhouses throughout London, including John Nash's Regents Park Terraces. Inigo Jones was also crucial in the repair and remodelling of St. Paul's cathedral, but the work was destroyed in the great fire of 1666.
Charles had chosen wisely. Inigo Jones is regarded as the father of British architecture, a pioneer in his era, bringing Palladian restraint and order to then chaotic Medieval buildings and starting a golden age of building. Not such a glorious career for Charles I; after fighting the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War he I lost his way, and head. Tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in 1649.
Charles II, 1630 to 1685
Charles II became King of Scotland following his father's execution but didn’t become King of England until the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1660. Despite being known as the merry monarch for his hedonism, he was deeply interested in the sciences of physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The latter started in his childhood under William Cavendish and continued with the philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
When (Sir) Christopher Wren constructed a detailed model of the moon, he was installed as the King's chief architect in 1661. Chiefly remembered for St Paul's Cathedral, under Charles II's reign Wren set about building 53 Anglican churches in London’s boroughs, engaging the best architects, including John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor (my favourite). The monarch supported all this architectural development in London, but it waned in later years as he became embroiled in a parliamentary political storm over James (his brother, and next in line to the throne) being a Catholic. The bitter disagreements were critical in the founding of the Tory and the Whig political parties.
Charles II had a dozen illegitimate children by seven mistresses (and no legal heir). Diana, Princess of Wales, was descended from two of those illegitimate sons, the Dukes of Grafton and Richmond, so her first born, Prince William, Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge, heir to the British throne, is likely to be the first British monarch descended from Charles II. But enough royal tittle-tattle, let’s get back to the architecture.
Charles III born 1948, made King 2022
Charles III had a keen interest in architectural and environmental matters from an early age, some say traceable back to his time as a 16-year-old in Australia at Geelong Grammar's Timbertop in the 1960s. His boredom after that, waiting to be King, leads him into to some intellectual cul-de-sacs.
In 1986, Prince Charles took up the case against the proposed additions to the National Gallery in London. He described the proposed schemes as “being like a carbuncle on the face of an old friend”. A furore erupted. The winning scheme by Robert Venturi, John Rauch and Denise Scott-Brown caused him great displeasure: its arhythmic column structure on the façade was the apotheosis of postmodern historic mannerism (check your Jencks). The Prince demurred.
Sceptics said Charles became involved in these disputes about architecture (and later environmental issues) because it gave him something to do, whereas friends insisted that he had a civic, moral, and even religious duty to stand up against what he sees as arrogant and misguided efforts to desecrate his realm. Either way he’s now a proselytiser.
Prince Charles speaks
Charles begins a barnstorming tour of Britain documenting modernist buildings that “were destroying the cities”. He’s outspoken. He called the National Theatre’s concrete and glass building by Sir Dennis Lasdyn as “a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London, without anyone objecting. He famously said, “at least the Luftwaffe did not attempt to replace the rubble it created with monstrous new buildings”.
He describes the Birmingham Library as “a place where one would burn books rather than read them” (a comment sometimes erroneously attributed to the British library by Colin St John Wilson), which he also hated for good measure. The King's thoughts on Birmingham’s new radical post-mod-high-tech library by Francine Houben of Mecanoo are unknown. I doubt he’s pleased.
At the 150th anniversary of the RIBA in 1984 at Hampton Court Prince Charles was the ‘after dinner speaker’. The RIBA president lamented that, too late, the RIBA realized they were the main course. And so began the great debate on architecture in England.
When he spoke at the American Institute of Architects the next year, it was called a Royal blitzkrieg. Stanley Tigerman wondered aloud whether or not the AIA was validating the views of a foreign national. Eric Owen Moss described him as “this guy is a kind of Estee Lauder salesman, putting a kind of makeup all over the world's problems”.
Back home, Richard Rogers said, “modern architecture is in danger of being obliterated by an indiscriminate wave of nostalgia” and “in many ways, the architect is only the messenger” and “if society says what we want is a building at the lowest possible cost, with the largest possible area, and in the fastest possible time. Then all I'll do is design a thin large box”; (perhaps that explains Barrangarooted).
It's worth noting that his rigorous debate could not have taken place in the 17th or 18th C, so beloved of Prince Charles. Another Charles, of the Jencks variety, believed that the relationship between the press and the Royal family “in the information world of today to be the basis of a new stage in the evolution of England's constitutional monarchy”. Which he went on to call the ‘New Wave Monarchy’; (being played to the hilt by Fleet Street with Harry and Meghan).
Prince Charles writes
The Prince is so energised by these debates that in 1988 he hires Leon Krier (and numerous others) to advise him and to design a ‘new town’ near Dorchester in his Duchy of Cornwall, but this work proceeds very slowly, So, in 1989 he writes A vision of Britain, a Personal View of Architecture, which was accompanied by an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a 90 minute television program.
He offers guidelines for good architectural design. “I always feel that people get on best if they can live in an area that is like a village community within a city. If you have things on too vast scale, you lose the human dimension. The trouble is of course, who designs these things who makes the decisions and who the planners are.”
Much of the writing seemed admirable: “Architecture should respect the landscape, a building size should reflect its public importance, buildings must relate to human proportion, buildings should be in harmony with surrounding structures, and buildings should create a sense of privacy and safety. Buildings should be made from local materials, new architecture should respect the landscape, decoration on buildings helps to enrich our spirits, art should accompany new structures, signs and lights should be part of the architecture and that buildings should encourage a sense of community.”
He offers 10 principles, seemingly cribbed from his time with Krier, his love of Seaside, the vernacular based town in Florida designed by Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and in particular from Christopher Alexander's seminal work A Pattern Language. And the book is illustrated with five full page reproductions of his watercolour sketches of almost uninhabited landscapes, which he views in the TV series from the window of his Royal train.
Replies
The reposts come thick and fast. The first critique by his accusers may be summarised as an intellectual mistake to confuse matters of architectural style with those of substance.
Critics contended that Charles spent too much time concentrating on the facades of buildings and not enough on their functional uses. His biographer, Anthony Holden said the Prince “is living in the past. He grew up in castles and palaces. So, it's no surprise he wants modern buildings to look like them. He represents a backward-looking fuzzy nation that is simply frightened of the future”.
Charles himself has conceded that he'd been accused of encouraging people to live in a kind of glorified Disneyland of classical buildings. He encouraged the idea of classical or Georgian architecture (including the brilliant ideas of Colen Campbell). By doing so in a stilted way, using now expensive traditional materials, it showed little regard for better ventilation and light in modern buildings.
If the quality of the buildings’ exteriors and their contribution to the streetscape, and the “reading of the place”, is critical, then you need the right sources. For me, one of the most damning aspects of the Prince’s book is that he never refers to Gordon Cullen’s masterpiece Townscape (later, The Concise Townscape). Cullen is English and bases his masterpiece on the same towns as the Prince. All good architects and urbanists have it on their shelves (less than $30 on Bookfinder if you don’t) .
Allied to the issues of facadism was criticism of his adamant anti-modernism. Then President of the RIBA Maxwell Hutchinson in his book, The Prince of Wales, Right or Wrong. An architect Replies, accused the Prince of “making honourable that which would've been considered cowardly half a century ago. The renunciation of the new in favour of the old”.
Part of this anti-modernism is his desire for rules (as any ruler would). The “few sensible rules” initiated in a 1987 speech evolved into the 10 principles in A Vision of Britain. Hutchinson refers to the ‘Principles’ as ‘The 10 Commandments’ as if frozen, and without the flexibility to deal with modern issues such as increased population, changes in work, the demands of motor vehicles and modern complexities in life patterns.
A third critique was of his scathing contempt for what he called “the over numerous shackles of bureaucracy and the all-pervading atmosphere of the professionals, knowing what is best for you”. Somehow a Prince thinks the elites are to blame. He blames authorities for giving permission for architects to build too big.
Two problems here. Charles was attacking the wrong people for the wrong reasons: it was the clients or patrons who benefit. Who insists on cheap designs in building materials? And secondly, it has always been thus: when St. Paul's cathedral was built it towered over its neighbourhood, in much the same way that other buildings now tower around Wren’s masterpiece.
Another line of attack was religion. Prince Charles said, “when a man loses contact with the past, he loses his soul in his dedication to retain those parts of the realm dedicated to the worship of God”. Jencks Charles replied that what he's really saying is “you’re heathen, you’re pagan, you must change your ways and build for God”.
But the biggest critique surely is his nostalgia for the countryside, and its villages. Suggesting that we reject the city in favour of a return to village life reveals both a complete misunderstanding of the modern city and how it operates, but moreover it speaks to his overweening arrogance and a desire to return to the feudal times when the king was all supreme, with inherited wealth and power. It is no coincidence that Seaside, his favourite town, is the real ‘set’ for The Truman Show, a movie about ultimate control.
Prince Charles teaches
Undeterred he presses on. In October ‘92 he opens the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture which initially begins offering its course to 30 students, located in two classical stucco buildings designed by John Nash on the edge of Regents Park (the very ones copied from Inigo Jones). In the Prince's words the school is “intended to promote the delicate thread of wisdom that connects us with the work of our forebears and to emphasise the timeless approaches to design planning and building”.
The original director was Brian Hanson and the redoubtable Christopher Alexander, author of The Timeless Way of Building, was on the faculty. The school changed names several times: The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment until 2012; The Prince's Foundation for Building Community until 2018; and finally, just The Prince's Foundation. It is part of The Prince's Charity, a group of not-for-profit organisations of which Charles III is president.
The foundation has involved more than 8,000 people in designing over a hundred projects, including university campuses, new towns, and numerous buildings, including the Alder Hay Children's Hospital in a park.
Recently, the foundation has been enmeshed in several scandals of ‘cash for honours’ allegations - for Saudi businessmen Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, Lord of Abernethy; for Bruno Wang from Taiwan; for Lord Brownlow; and for accepting £200,000 from Dmitry Leus, a Russian convict. It has been refuted that the Prince knew of any of these dealings, and the allegations are currently being investigated.
Prince’s Poundbury
Meanwhile the Prince’s pet project, the new town called Poundbury, adjacent to Dorchester, is being planned out and built. The proof of the Prince’s pudding is in the eating, and it’s so indigestible that the review will have to wait until next week.
Tone Wheeler is an architect & a Republican and as such, the views expressed are his and his alone. You can contact him at [email protected]
