award winning architects

Thursday, 01 December 2011 12:00

Bob Whittington, Chairman

Prince Charles

Our Chairman’s Choice For An Inspirational Industrial Figure – HRH Prince of Wales

It really started in 1984, when the heir to the throne declared the winning, modernist design of an extension to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square 'a monstrous carbuncle' , at an RIBA dinner, no less.

hrhcharlesTo the surprise and rage of the architectural profession, the gallery immediately stopped progress on the design by ABK, (a then, distinguished architectural practice, who never really recovered from the experience) and re ran the completion, eventually commissioning a sort of quaisi classical design by an American architect, Robert Venturi.

Armed with the knowledge that a ‘quiet word’ from the prince can completely overturn the choice of learned and distinguished architectural panels in approving design proposals, Prince Charles has dabbled in architecture ever since. He has even commissioned a new school of architecture, teaching people how to design buildings to his taste, which is basically about 300 years in the past.

Charles likes classical Georgian architecture (and so do a lot of other people) and seems to think that all modern designs should be based on renaissance principles.

He has commissioned a new village in Dorset called Poundbury, on Duchy land, which, he has decreed, should be based on traditional designs. Some of it is quite nice but rumour has it that He designed the fire station, which is horrible!

His most recent ‘interference’ was over the rebuilding of Chelsea Barracks in London. A multi billion pound redevelopment, designed by Lord Rogers, one of the worlds most famous architects, but Charles didn’t like it and said so. Once again, everything was stopped in 2009 and planning permission on a ‘Charles approved’ redesign (by another architect, Dixon Jones, Squire and Partners and Kim Wilkie) was granted earlier this year.

Prince Charles has no legal or constitutional place in the planning process and as far as I am aware, no architectural training, but his very influential comments can stop anything in its tracks.

However, there is a huge benefit to this  because it does raise the profile of architecture and everyone suddenly has an opinion.

Back in 1984 there were hardly any TV programmes about architecture and hardly any debate. Nobody (except the architects) really cared what buildings looked like and some pretty mediocre stuff was done.

Architecture is a service industry and relies on patronage. In other words architects need clients and do try to respond to the clients wishes. If the client doesn’t really care what it looks like and only cares about cost,  he gets something pretty boring.

We do need clients who are interested in design, and that is what dear Charles has done for us, he has made the public interested in architecture. There are now dozens of debates, newspaper articles and TV programmes about design and architecture every week.

People still get angry about his interference but the debate is great because we do get clients who now commission us with a genuine interest and knowledge about what they want.

Whether they like neo classical, deconstructive, modernist, post modernist or minimilst, it  doesn’t really matter, we have an informed and interested public and as a result, a much better standard and variety of architecture than we would otherwise get.

So thank you your Royal Highness, I don’t agree with your taste but keep it up.

Bob Whittington, Chairman, Stride Treglown Ltd.

bob-whittington-main

To the surprise and rage of the architectural profession, the gallery immediately stopped progress on the design by ABK, (a then, distinguished architectural practice, who never really recovered from the experience) and re ran the completion, eventually commissioning a sort of quaisi classical design by an American architect, Robert Venturi.

Armed with the knowledge that a ‘quiet word’ from the prince can completely overturn the choice of learned and distinguished architectural panels in approving design proposals, Prince Charles has dabbled in architecture ever since. He has even commissioned a new school of architecture, teaching people how to design buildings to his taste, which is basically about 300 years in the past.

Charles likes classical Georgian architecture (and so do a lot of other people) and seems to think that all modern designs should be based on renaissance principles.

He has commissioned a new village in Dorset called Poundbury, on Duchy land, which, he has decreed, should be based on traditional designs. Some of it is quite nice but rumour has it that He designed the fire station, which is horrible!

His most recent ‘interference’ was over the rebuilding of Chelsea Barracks in London. A multi billion pound redevelopment, designed by Lord Rogers, one of the worlds most famous architects, but Charles didn’t like it and said so. Once again, everything was stopped in 2009 and planning permission on a ‘Charles approved’ redesign (by another architect, Dixon Jones, Squire and Partners and Kim Wilkie) was granted earlier this year.

Prince Charles has no legal or constitutional place in the planning process and as far as I am aware, no architectural training, but his very influential comments can stop anything in its tracks.

However, there is a huge benefit to this  because it does raise the profile of architecture and everyone suddenly has an opinion.

Back in 1984 there were hardly any TV programmes about architecture and hardly any debate. Nobody (except the architects) really cared what buildings looked like and some pretty mediocre stuff was done.

Architecture is a service industry and relies on patronage. In other words architects need clients and do try to respond to the clients wishes. If the client doesn’t really care what it looks like and only cares about cost,  he gets something pretty boring.

We do need clients who are interested in design, and that is what dear Charles has done for us, he has made the public interested in architecture. There are now dozens of debates, newspaper articles and TV programmes about design and architecture every week.

People still get angry about his interference but the debate is great because we do get clients who now commission us with a genuine interest and knowledge about what they want.

Whether they like neo classical, deconstructive, modernist, post modernist or minimilst, it  doesn’t really matter, we have an informed and interested public and as a result, a much better standard and variety of architecture than we would otherwise get.

So thank you your Royal Highness, I don’t agree with your taste but keep it up.