The Prince of Wales is a study in contrasts: Britain’s first in line to throne after QE2 and tabloid target; simultaneously a proponent of organic farming and avid preservationist. Now Bonnie Prince Charlie is once again ruffling feathers by asserting his authority over two high-profile public building projects in the UK. What would Obama say?*
The latest brouhaha is over a proposed £14.5m building in Swindon for the UK’s National Trust, the non-profit caretaker of British land and coastline of which Prince Charles is a very prominent, and lucrative, patron. Despite the prince’s commitment to sustainability, his design preferences are less than modernist, resulting in an impasse that threatens his role as benefactor. And now the politicos are getting involved. According to Republic, the campaign for an elected head of state, “The public have a right to know the full extent of Charles’s meddling,” said spokesman Graham Smith. “We need to know if decisions are being made according to what the public wants and needs or according to what Prince Charles wants.” Them’s fightin’ words.
This comes after a scuffle reported on by The Guardian in which the Prince tried to intervene sight unseen with Jean Nouvel’s design for a £500m commercial and retail project situated next to London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. (Getting no love lately, are we Jean?) As a rebuttal to Nouvel’s contemporary plan, he urged the owners to adopt a different kind of architecture offered by his own team of architects, termed by Nouvel to be “pastiche design” and assumed by everyone else to be a diluted throwback to classical British architecture.
Naturally, we let you the readers weigh in.
*Though Obama and his VP Joe Biden both claim they would have gone into architecture if not for politics, we’re not sure which way he leans architecturally. We do know that the Pritzker Prize winners will be honored at a White House dinner for the next four years of his term, and that architect-in-question Nouvel took home the Pritzker in 2008. You connect the dots.
Comments (5)
I share Prince Charles' distain for many of the new "modern" styles of architecture. Big glass boxes, strange angles, exposed rusted metal beams, strangeness for the sake of being strange – no thank you. I don't think that new buildings should be the massive granite courthouse style buildings of the past, but when modernism goes unchecked – you end up with Frank Gehry buildings that look like wadded up aluminum foil. Paul Williams and Frank Wright were modernists with style – they could teach the designers of today some lessons in restraint.
No "modern" design is ever loved by the masses at first, that's what makes it modern and at the forefront of design. Most people, like Charles, like the comfort of the expected. Our cities are being destroyed by "comfort" architecture (both contemporary and retro styles) thanks to people like Prince Charles.
Context is an important aspect to consider and great design works within it's context. This project is next to St. Pauls Cathedral and needs to address this. Nouvel doesn't care about context, look at his MOMA project. This doesn't mean I want some retro classical or post-modern garbage. The project should be inspired by the context, not ignore it. I haven't seen any drawings of the project mentioned in the article, I hope it's inspired but assume it's not, being a Nouvel design.
You appear to be missing a few options on your poll, such as, "Someone expressing their opinion, no matter what their station, does not constitute meddling," or, "If one really believes in democracy, then even a Prince gets their own chance to express their opinion."
As may be. The biggest omission here is the usual one: You fail to take Nouvel to task for indulging in his own "pastiche design," the one widely known as Modernism. The Bauhaus was founded in 1919. Nouvel's own work and those of his fellow Modernists are as "contemporary" or "expressive of our time" as an Edwardian starched collar.
The question is not pastiche vs non-pastiche. The question is, which century-old pastiche does one personally prefer?
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The crappy buildings around St Pauls are a motley collection of rubbish and scars left over from the aftermath of world war 2. They should be completely removed and the sites be dedicated to open urban space, giving St Pauls space to breath and creating an amazing view of St Pauls from the Thames.
I applaud Charles attempt at architectural restraint around St Pauls, it IS a Holy place afterall, and the spiritual centre of the Church of England but I believe he should go even further and advocate complete demolition and clearance of the grounds around the cathedral.
regards
Gareth
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