If Only France still had a Royal Family

Louis Le Vau's Hotel Lambert in Paris.

The Qatari Royal family is moving full steam ahead to modernize the historic Hotel Lambert in Paris. Just wondering if Parisians wish they had some Royal connections to the Qataris to prevent such madness. A well I guess its better to be free.

Westminster Abbey Competition for the Design of a New "Corona"

The London Times reports on a (possibly) exciting competion to complete Westminster Abbey's long unfinished crossing spire. The Abbey, site of coronations and royal weddings for nearly a millenia, has over time been added upon and improved by the likes of Sir Chrisopher Wren and George Gilbert Scott. However, the spires and towers proposed by numerous architects for the crossing have never been built. The crossing now is to be surmounted by a "corona" to mark the 75th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and likely to celebrate the crowning of the Prince of Wales as King Charles III.

The Corona would replace the small pyrimidial crossing cap seen today.

Now since Prince Charles is likely to be at least personally interested in this project, one has to wonder who will be chosen to submit the design and what will the design be like? Will the Royal Institute of British Architects reign supreme over this project and demand a modernist scheme? Will the nonsensical preservationist criteria of designing in a markedly different style (meaning exclusively modern) be trotted out?

Or will sanity be preserved and the design be classical/gothic and be more sympathetic to the historic church? Given the amount of vitriol and venom recently spewed in the direction of the Prince for his offering of an opinion on the Chelsea Barracks plan, one is likely to see the level of attack on classical architecture and Prince himself to reach a fevered pitch. If a classical scheme by Quinlan Terry is even part of the discussion, the charges of royal interference in the benighted practice of architecture (as if patrons don't have a choice), and how Prince Charles is singlehandedly trying to destroy architecture.

Could a design such as this top the famous royal church?

However I think HRH will yet again appeal to the common sense of beauty and tradition in the face of such barbs, and will yet again be backed not by the popularity of the architectural elite, but of his people. The Abbey has yet to unveil the designs for the corona, so there is still reason to hope that a classical design will be chosen, far better hope than we might have here in the US in a similar situation. The tide is changing in England, and as I've said before, it is in no small part due to the Prince's good opinion and taste for the traditional and classical beauty found still in Britain.

Prince Charles: A Champion for Classicism

On March 25, His Royal Highness Prince Charles spoke out against a proposal by architect Richard Rogers to build a massive modernist apartment block in a historic district of London. The Chelsea Barracks scheme calls for superblock of glass and steel apartment buildings standing in a rambling anti-urban park setting, ala Corbusier, directly adjacent to the historic and beautiful Royal Navy Hospital built by Christopher Wren.


The Rogers design had a great deal of local opposition, and during an event at the Wren Hospital, Prince Charles weighed in and backed the opposition and also wrote to the chief financial backer of the scheme, the Emir of Qatar, urging him to reconsider the design. Predictably, the modernist establishment went apoplectic. Some accused Charles of "high-handed arrogance" and one architect said that his opinions were a return to the "era of the divine right of Kings."
In one "news" article the Terry design was described as "a classical pastiche," an overused cliche if there has ever been one.


Now I'm not going to comment so much on the designs themselves, I think readers of this blog will be able to predict my sentiments fairly well. (Feel free however to debate in the comments the merits or demerits of either scheme, I'll save my comments on the designs for then.) What I really want to comment on is the vital role that Prince Charles takes in the debates in the UK about architecture.

Prince Charles is no stranger to debates about architecture. Back in 1984, a modernist scheme had been proposed to the Sainsbury Wing for the National Gallery in London, and in an address to the Royal Institute of British Architects, described the proposed addition "like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend." The speech hit the architectural establishment like a sledgehammer, and did more than sink the design, it turned the entire architectural establishment on its head and allowed the door to open just enough to let classicism return to life.

Classicism by the 1980s was left for dead and for all intents and purposes, was dead. The number of architects who practiced architecture with a mind to tradition and beauty probably numbered only a dozen or so in the whole world. From this speech by Charles and further comments and speeches that followed over the years, he raised doubts about modernist architecture and its inevitable march, he raised the question, why not beauty?


Before Prince Charles gave his carbuncle speech, modernist architecture reigned supreme, triumphant and defiant. The few who would question the modernist establishment would have a difficult time even making it through university, and none would be able to rise to a level of authority to be a critic of the hegemony. But in the Prince of Wales, by virtue of his royal birth, classicism had for the first time in half a century a champion who would be listened to. Charles was a real voice for those who before had been dismissed as "nostalgic" and "backwards-looking." Certainly the architectural establishment still sneered at him for his traditional and classical leanings, but to the public at large he could not be ignored.

In the UK today modernism still reigns as the dominant force in architecture, but it has lost its monopoly hold on the culture. Today the work of classical architects such as Quinlan Terry and Robert Adam are routinely seen in the architectural press. Now reviews of classical work are dismissive and downright mean, they are not ignored in the way they are in the architectural press in the United States. To architects working in London, Robert Adam is as recognizable name as Lord Foster, whereas here in the US, classicists still labor in anonymity. I would venture that few architects outside the classical community even know of Allan Greenberg or John Blatteau, let alone recognize any of their work.

Prince Charles' criticism of modernism and patronage of classical architecture has opened architecture up for debate. That debate has been rancorous and uncharitable more often than not, but at least classicism is no longer ignored. I only wish that here in the US, good classical architects be taken as seriously as they are across the pond and not simply dismissed.