Posts Tagged Monarchy
Alternative uses for Buckingham Palace
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 24, 2011
Apparently Prince Charles would prefer to be based at Windsor Castle when he becomes King. So what could we do with the old palace?
According to a new book by Andrew Marr, Prince Charles has considered abandoning Buckingham Palace for Windsor Castle when he becomes king, leaving the former to be converted into a hotel and event space. Surely there are more innovative uses for this property?
HMP Buck House If there's one thing Britain lacks, it's sufficient four-star penal accommodation to imprison an entire financial industry. The palace's 240-bed capacity could be extended by installing cages in some state rooms, and the viewing balcony is ideal for public floggings.
Downton Abbey Experience Guests at this new "reality hotel" will get a taste of below-stairs living, by cooking, cleaning and running a makeshift first world war-era hospital in the service of a wealthy family played by the winners of a special National Lottery draw.
SW1 Garden Centre The palace has a first-rate garden of a size unheard of in central London, with plenty of room to display plants, plus space for a cafe and a petting zoo. The building itself, once reconfigured, will provide ample parking.
Buckingham Mountain Listing may prevent alteration to the outside of the palace, but once it's been gutted it could easily serve as an indoor ski slope. Lift queues will take visitors past various treasures, and special blue runs will allow guests to ski directly on to the Victoria line.
Hampton Court Palace: ‘A potent symbol of political intrigue and violence’ – video
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 6, 2011
In the second of our series of films celebrating the best British buildings, political commentator Michael White retraces the steps of monarchs in Hampton Court Palace
London 2012 park sparks architectural argument between old and new names
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on August 1, 2011
Design Council chief celebrates Prince Charles' lack of involvement as traditionalists complain about 'overt prejudice'
A new skirmish in a long-running and often bitterly fought architectural "style war" between modernists and traditionalists has broken out over the stadiums and arenas of the London Olympics park.
Prince Charles's favourite architects have accused the head of England's national architectural review body of "overt prejudice" after he made a barbed attack on the heir to the throne's love of traditional buildings, and heaped praise on the resolutely modernist designs that will be beamed around the world as the backdrop to next summer's games.
Paul Finch, chairman of the Design Council Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the government-funded design watchdog that vets major planning applications with the help of government funding, applauded the selection of Zaha Hadid, the avant garde Iraqi-born architect who designed the sinuous aquatics centre, and Populous, the designer of the main 80,000-seat stadium.
But, more provocatively, Finch celebrated the fact that the country's leading traditional architects, who are favoured by the Prince of Wales, were not in any way involved. "One of the good things about the London 2012 Olympics is the realisation that we have a set of buildings produced not by Quinlan Terry, Robert Adam, John Simpson, but by Hopkins, Hadid, Populous, Make, Heneghan Peng et al," he said. "None of it endorsed by the Prince of Wales, none of it to do with heritage."
The Traditional Architecture Group, whose members include Terry and Adam, both leading exponents of classical buildings inspired by architects from the past, including Sir Christopher Wren and Andrea Palladio, has complained to the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and communities secretary, Eric Pickles, that Finch's remarks, made in the Architects' Journal, displayed "significant prejudice against one style or architectural philosophy at the highest level". The group said its members were "dismayed and alarmed".
"His is a fundamentally prejudicial point of view from someone in a senior position," added Adam. "He shouldn't be in the position he is in."
Prince Charles has previously enraged some British architects by speaking out against modernist designs. In 2009 Richard Rogers was dropped as the designer of a £3bn housing development at Chelsea Barracks after the Prince questioned his design in a private letter to the Qatari client. In 1984 he torpedoed a modernist extension to the National Gallery in London by complaining it was "like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend".
Now the prince's architectural allies feel they have found in Finch a lightning rod for their own simmering sense of injustice that a parallel "modernist establishment" is seeking to marginalise them with the result that some traditional architects believe commissions for Olympic projects were effectively closed to them. "It was considered a waste of time to go for the Olympic work," said Adam, a classicist who has designed a new 4,000-home settlement in Wales with the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment.
Lord Rogers chaired the selection panel for the aquatics centre and Ricky Burdett, professor of urbanism at the London School of Economics and a close ally of Rogers, was hired as chief design adviser to the Olympic Delivery Authority. Finch continues to chair the panel scrutinising designs for stadiums and arenas for the Olympics.
The firm of Sir Michael Hopkins, who designed the Portcullis House MPs' office, was responsible for the velodrome which is favourite to win this year's Stirling prize for the best building designed or built in Britain. Make, a firm led by Ken Shuttleworth who was a lead designer on the gherkin tower in London, has designed the handball arena, while Heneghan Peng, a Dublin-based firm, has designed a sinuous complex of footbridges between the main stadium and the aquatics centre.
In his remarks Finch singled out Terry, who provided architectural advice to Prince Charles in his successful attempt to block the modernist redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks, and John Simpson who was hired to carry out alterations to Kensington Palace.
The Traditional Architecture Group has asked Pickles, whose department funds the Design Council Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, to instruct councils to ignore the watchdog's views until Finch apologises and retracts his remarks. "It is the policy of this and recent governments to favour no architectural style in planning decisions," wrote Alireza Sagharchi, the group's chairman. "Yet by contrasting some better-known traditional architects with those working on the Olympics, Mr Finch has expressed his very clear bias against traditional architecture." He asked for assurances that Finch's views would "not be allowed to taint the planning system", according to Building Design magazine.
In response Finch said: "I will respond to them when they show me the courtesy of writing to me and I will be only too happy to point out the many apparent errors in what passes for their analysis."
A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "These are opinions expressed in a magazine article, not official advice to central or local government. As such we have no comment to make."
Finch's comments in favour of the modernist appearance of Olympic Park architecture appear to undermine the neutral stance he advocated last year when asked about a proposal by Prince Charles's Foundation for the Built Environment to take on some of the design review role now undertaken by the Design Council.
He said: "The public interest is better served by concentrating on the quality of a piece of architecture rather than style which can come down to superficial visual appearance. It comes down to whether their advice would be independent and disinterested and they obviously have a stylistic preference."
Charles's tastes: rated and hated
• Charles praised Dharavi, one of the largest slums in Mumbai, for its "underlying intuitive grammar of design", saying it represented a better model for housing populations in the developing world than western architecture
• He backed Quinlan Terry's alternative designs for Chelsea Barracks which were inspired by the work of Sir Christopher Wren, the 17th century architect of St Paul's cathedral
• Poundbury in Dorset is the most complete version of Prince Charles' architectural vision, including the fire station which has been described as "the Parthenon meets Brookside"
• When talking to soldiers destined for service in Afghanistan in 2008 he said the Ivor Crewe building at Essex University "looks like a dustbin from the outside"
• Earlier that year he warned a series of planned skyscrapers in London would be "not just one carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend, but a positive rash of them that will disfigure precious views and disinherit future generations of Londoners"
• Charles said the brutalist concrete Birmingham Central Library, designed in 1974 by John Madin, looked like "a place where books are incinerated, not kept"
Republican art rules OK
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on April 28, 2011
The royal wedding will showcase Westminster Abbey, but it is under republics, not monarchies, that artists flourish the most
The cultural heritage of the British monarchy is about to go on display all over the world as screens glow with the architectural and sculptural grandeur of Westminster Abbey. Founded in the 10th century, loaded with new marvels down the ages of which the most sublime is surely the chapel of Henry VII with its filigree fan vaulting, this royal abbey church is the best example anyone could ever adduce to support the contention that British culture is profoundly beholden to and involved in the regal tradition.
But in the history of European art, monarchy cannot claim all the masterpieces. On the contrary, republics and republicans have created some of the most dynamic and brilliant works of art of all time.
There's a clue to this fact in Westminster Abbey itself, in the Chapel of Henry VII. The setting is medieval in flavour and very English. But the tomb has putti that visibly come from Italy: it was created by the sculptor Pietro Torrigiano, who came to London from Florence. In fact, Torrigiano was trained in sculpture alongside Michelangelo, and broke his famous rival's nose in a teenaged fight. In 16th-century Italy, he was notorious as the thug who disfigured Michelangelo. In Tudor Britain he was valued as someone who could give it a taste of the most modern, dynamic culture in Europe.
So the British royal family imported Italian Renaissance art to Westminster Abbey. But the civilisation of the Italian Renaissance that it coveted was, however, obsessed with republicanism. The Renaissance started in cities that freed themselves from outside rule in the middle ages. The ideal these cities believed in was republican self-rule. In practice, most of them fell prey to despots – but the most brilliant tried to be republics. Venice ruled itself as a republic until the age of Napoleon, and its art, from Tintoretto's Paradise in the Doge's Palace to Giovanni Bellini's portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan in the National Gallery, is profoundly coloured by the unique cultural politics of the Most Serene Republic.
Florence, where Torrigiano came from, had a much less stable history. Where Venetian republicanism endured the centuries, the politics of Florence were bloody. The Medici family established de facto rule over the Republic, but they were deposed in 1494, violently restored nearly two decades later, and overthrown again in 1527 only to crush their enemies with tens of thousands of deaths in the Siege of Florence in 1529-30.
It is the history of Florence that should give cultural conservatives pause for thought. In Florence, from Donatello's Judith right through to Michelangelo's David, the most influential masterpieces of the Renaissance expressed the ideal of republican citizenship. Not only that: after the Medici finally defeated this ideal and became quasi-monarchical dukes, art in the city went into decline. The later Medici let their city become an artistic backwater compared with its great days. The city's artistic fire died with the Republic.
Artistic revolution happens in republics, you could reasonably conclude. The greatest artists flourish in free states far from the corruption of kings.
Meanwhile in Britain, the monarchical tradition has survived longer and more floridly than most other places. It is also a fact that of all the grandest European cultures we have the weakest tradition of visual art. In France, the Revolution inspired David. In Spain, the republican cause in the Civil War moved Picasso. Art does not flourish in monarchies, or to put it another way, in Italy they had republican ideals and they produced Donatello, Titian, the Renaissance. In Britain we've had thousands of years of hereditary monarchy and (since the Abbey) what has that produced? The souvenir mug.
Is it possible to like royalty and be a republican? | Jonathan Jones
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on January 18, 2011
The monarchy has shaped much of our culture – and some of our greatest art – so give the royals their due. Just think of Holbein
Hans Holbein's daunting portrait of Henry VIII, with the wraith-like figure of his father pale beside him, is surely the greatest work of art in the National Portrait Gallery. It is a colossal drawing, rather than a painting: part of the final preparatory drawing or "cartoon" for a mural of the Tudor dynasty that Henry commissioned for his palace of Whitehall. The mural was destroyed, along with the palace, centuries ago – but Holbein's portrait of the wide-chested king with his porcine pommel of a head, copied many times including in a fine painting in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, has defined the image of the ambitious, talented, ultimately tyrannical Henry VIII since.
It is one of the oldest works in the National Portrait Gallery, as well as the finest, and it makes a fitting introduction to a museum that is full of royal faces. Holbein's works for the Tudor court are unquestionably among the best works of art ever drawn or painted in Britain. Since the Renaissance the idea of fine art and the cult of monarchy have mingled in our national imagination.
Looking at works by Holbein on the same weekend that Ed Miliband denounced the idea of strikes on the royal wedding day this spring, I got to thinking. How as a self-styled republican ought I to mark that day – and is there any point in resisting it?
So much of our culture down the centuries has been shaped by royal patronage, and this is not all sentimental patriotic tosh – it includes the genius of Holbein. Royal palaces and chapels enshrine a lot of our greatest decorative art and architecture. Does all that mean anything? Well, put it another way. Can you tell a dissident cultural history of Britain in which radical and anti-monarchist artists subverted the royalist aesthetic establishment?
If you did, it would leave out Westminster Abbey as well as Holbein. Politics needs ritual, and art thrives on such ritual. Are the rituals of British royalty so bad? Is it really possible to have a coherent image of our culture that excludes all that royal jazz?
It probably sounds as if I am saying that just because the British monarchy was associated with great art in the past, republicans should give in to its charms. Well, part of me suspects this may be a reasonable argument. Tradition is part of the fabric of human culture and healthy societies.
Miliband is right to avoid the trap of politicising the wedding. In reality, the culture of monarchy in Britain is temperate, open, even empty – which means it can be used by modern people for what it is, a right royal entertainment, that happens to connect us for a moment with a history that includes Holbein's Tudor court.
Prince Charles: I defend ordinary people against property developers
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 29, 2010
Prince's private secretary claims he opposed modernist design out of duty to make ordinary people's views heard
It is an unlikely claim for a prince who enjoys a £17m private annual income and employs 16 gardeners but Clarence House today said that Prince Charles believes it is his duty to defend "ordinary people" against profiteering property developers.
The claim was made as part of a fightback following a high court ruling that appeared to check the prince's ability to intervene in major planning decisions.
A judge ruled last week that the prince's campaign against the design of a redevelopment of the Chelsea barracks in London was "unwelcome". The judgment sparked criticism that Charles had overstepped his constitutional role by secretly lobbying at the highest levels against planning applications he disliked.
Today Sir Michael Peat, the prince's private secretary, claimed Charles opposed Lord Rogers' £3bn modernist designs because "it is part of the Prince of Wales' role and duty to make sure the views of ordinary people that might not otherwise be heard receive some exposure".
The prince wrote privately to Qatar's prime minister voicing his opposition to the plans for apartments on the Qatari-owned land. But far from acting in his own interests against designs, "he was only writing to the Qataris because he was asked to do so [by local residents]", Peat claimed. The emirate's state-owned developer scrapped the scheme after Charles had proposed an alternative design by Quinlan Terry, a classical architect he admires.
"For many developers, hearing the views of local residents is very unexpected and unwelcome," said Peat. "They are there just wanting to make money."
The claim that Charles is duty-bound to stand up for ordinary people's interests in disputes with major property developers came as it was announced that the prince earned a record £17.2m last year from the Duchy of Cornwall, a professionally managed £664m property empire run solely to fund his lifestyle which has been criticised for failing to listen to the views of its tenants on new developments.
"It is frustrating to hear he thinks he is on the side of ordinary people against developers, because villagers and the parish council here have sent him dozens of letters over the last few years," said Jane Giddins, parish council chairwoman at Newton St Loe, a duchy-owned village near Bath, where the duchy has been planning 2,000 new homes on neighbouring fields.
"We have only ever received replies from the Duchy of Cornwall, fobbing us off. People in this village are at best bemused and at worst feel let down by His Royal Highness. No one can understand why he has not been listening."
Opponents of his interventions believe the prince cannot claim to represent ordinary people because he cannot be held accountable by them.
"Any individual who feels strongly about representing the people should stand for election," Lord Rogers said last night. "There is a carefully organised democratic system of electing councillors who appoint planning officers and there is a process which allows the public to hold open meetings where they can air their feelings. All of that happened over the four years' planning process for Chelsea barracks."
Peat said Charles only intervened on Chelsea barracks after local residents approached him about their concerns.
"They had commissioned Quinlan Terry to propose an alternative design which they sent to the Prince of Wales," said Peat. "They asked him to do what he could to ensure their views received exposure. Their views represented the views of the majority. They asked whether he might be able to raise the issue with the Qataris and so he did."
But Charles' letter to the Qatari prime minister on 1 March 2009 contains no reference to any local opposition to the scheme or anyone asking him to write on their behalf. Charles told Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani he was writing because "quite frankly, my heart sank when I saw the plans". He indicated he was motivated by personal concerns, saying: "For the entire duration of my life we have had to witness the destruction of so many parts of London, with one more 'brutalist' development after another."
Even though the existence of the prince's letter decrying the scheme only emerged in full in a high court dispute between the developers after the designs were scrapped, Peat denied the prince was trying to secretly undermine the project.
"He wasn't writing and expressing views that were private and weren't in the public domain," he said. "He was representing what the local residents were saying all along, so it was well-aired."
Campaigners for a democratically elected head of state said the royal household's claim that the prince has a duty to get involved in planning breaches constitutional principles.
"The role he is making for himself contradicts a well-established constitutional principle that the monarch and the heir to the throne keep out of politics, and that includes planning, for the very good reason that they are not accountable," said Graham Smith, campaigns director of Republic.
"It also appears he is only the people's representative when it coincides with his own views. Someone genuinely representing ordinary people would do so regardless of his personal views."
Prince Charles lobbied City Hall over Chelsea site, emails reveal
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 22, 2010
Disclosure raises questions over whether the prince abused his constitutional position
The Prince of Wales's interference in public projects was under fresh scrutiny tonight when confidential emails obtained by the Guardian revealed he lobbied the deputy mayor of London against plans for the £3bn Chelsea barracks site.
The documents were released to the paper by the high court, which has been hearing a dispute over the scrapping of the development designed by Lord Rogers. They show that before democratically elected planners were due to decide on whether to grant planning permission, Charles briefed Sir Simon Milton, the official in charge of planning in the capital, about his concerns.
The disclosure raises questions over whether the prince abused his constitutional position by using his influence to distort the planning process.
The 19 emails between senior staff of the Qatari royal family's development firm, Qatari Diar, provide a detailed picture of the impact of the prince's intervention, as the executives first consider dismissing his objections and then decide to co-operate amid fears of causing the emirate international embarrassment.
Clarence House has previously admitted that Charles complained about the proposals to leading members of the Qatari royal family, whose development firm, Qatari Diar, was undertaking the scheme. But this is the first time evidence has emerged that he personally intervened with public officials with direct influence over the project's fate.
In an internal email placed before the court, a Qatari Diar consultant told a senior executive at the company: "The PoW has briefed the dep mayor, Sir Simon Milton, which means that the mayor's office now know that the PoW is going to intervene and that in turn means it is almost certain the Westminster planners know as well."
The court previously heard that a senior Qatari Diar executive had deleted emails referring to the prince and his private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, from the company's Doha server. Following a court order, copies were found on a London-based server.
Campaigners for transparency over the prince's influence have seized on the revelation and called for full disclosure of all his lobbying activities.
A spokeswoman for Milton tonight confirmed that Charles did discuss the project with him at Poundbury, the Prince's neo-Georgian new town in Dorset. "Simon Milton recalls being introduced to His Royal Highness at a reception at which he was the principal guest and they had a brief exchange about architecture, during which the Prince of Wales referred to Chelsea Barracks," she said. "At that time Mr Milton was on the receiving end of many representations both for and against the scheme, which he then relayed to officers in the planning decisions unit, as he would for any major planning application to be considered by the mayor."
The prince's spokesman said the two men discussed "sustainable urbanism".
"The Prince of Wales asks senior people to Poundbury twice a year for presentations about the project and sustainable urbanism generally and a tour of the site," he said. "The Prince of Wales will have spoken to him at a reception for the guests, in a group with others, for about three or four minutes, in the same way that he speaks to all the guests."
The revelation suggest that Charles went further than was previously understood in his bid to undermine a scheme which he reportedly told the Qatari prime minister was unsympathetic and unsuitable for the prime central London site.
"Clarence House has claimed there was no lobbying going on, but this suggests otherwise," said Graham Smith, campaign manager for Republic, which campaigns for an elected head of state.
"Prince Charles has to be made accountable for what he is doing and we need full disclosure about his influence on public policy."
Following the scrapping of the Rogers scheme, the Qataris, who bought the Chelsea barracks site for almost £1bn, have worked with the prince's architectural advisers to draw up new plans with a different set of architects.
The high court case pits Qatari Diar against the company of Monaco property magnate Christian Candy, the Qataris' former development partner. Candy claims Qatari Diar owes him up to £81m which would have been paid had the scheme been granted planning consent. His lawyers argue that the Qataris breached their contract by withdrawing the application on the order of the emir. Qatari Diar argues it was withdrawn because of planning and commercial concerns. One email details a meeting in London between Qatari Diar's director of investment, John Ward, and the prince's private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, which reveals that Peat told Ward "that if the current planning application was to be pursued, QD would still be at risk from a refusal of planning permission by the politicians at Westminster and/or the mayor of London".
The minutes also show that a key architectural adviser to the prince, Andrew Hamilton, the development director at Poundbury, had spoken about the scheme to Milton and Kit Malthouse, also a deputy mayor of London.
Peat reported that "the prince was very unhappy that the matter had become public" after his letter to the Qataris emerged in the press. He also cautioned against the prince's own architectural advisers approaching Westminster directly about alternative, more traditional designs while the existing planning application remained live, "since this would suggest the personal involvement of the prince".
In an apparent attempt to undermine the effect of any planning decision in favour of the Lord Rogers designs, Peat told the Qataris that Charles "might press His Excellency [the Qatari prime minister] for a private view on whether or not the scheme would be pursued if indeed it is supported by Westminster".
The correspondence also reveals that Ward believed the prince's opposition, if made public, would probably lead to a planning refusal, "causing QD to lose financially but more importantly could be considered a major embarrassment to Qatar".
As a result they decided they must get Charles to "agree to the general gist of development" even if he would not support the architecture.
Prince Charles and the Qataris: the Chelsea barracks emails
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 18, 2010
The high court has released to the Guardian 19 emails referring to the role of the Prince of Wales in the plans for Chelsea barracks
How the ‘meddling prince’ and his aides turned up heat on developers
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 17, 2010
Confidential emails reveal how Charles intervened to scupper modernist design for Chelsea barracks
The Prince of Wales is no normal Nimby. When the heir to the throne says "not in my back yard", property developers, architects and planners quake.
That much has become clear in the Royal Courts of Justice as Mr Justice Vos sifts through the rubble of the prince's latest intervention, after which Qatari Diar, a state-owned company, tore up modernist designs for a £3bn Chelsea barracks development in west London.
We already knew the self-styled "meddling prince" had fired off a letter to the Qatari prime minister fuming about the design, complained to the emir of the Gulf state at a tea-time meeting in Clarence House, and had an architect friend draw up a classical alternative.
But today the court case, which centres on a contract dispute between Christian Candy and Qatari Diar, former development partners on the project, also threw up revelations about Charles's tactics which show the extent of Clarence House lobbying and how the tone of aides can switch from courteous to ominous without missing a beat.
Most significant among the 19 emails released today that referred to the prince or his private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, is the claim that far from simply lobbying prince-to-prince, as Clarence House had acknowledged, Charles made personal representations to the deputy mayor of London, Sir Simon Milton.
They also reveal the impact of his opposition to the Lord Rogers design and how, when he wields his ephemeral power, knowing how to react can be confusing in the extreme.
Even before Charles waded into the planning process last spring, there had been a debate in the Qatari camp about whether to approach him so he could not surprise them with objections. They decided against it partly on the grounds that Charles had never intervened in a private housing development.
But there is always a first time, and on 1 March Charles sent a letter to the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, also the chairman of Qatari Diar, urging him to "reconsider the plans for the Chelsea site before it is too late".
The emails show that the Qatari royal family was concerned as much, if not more, about the Gulf state's reputation as about profit on its development projects. Even though the letter remained secret, the Qataris saw the impact in geopolitical terms.
Shortly afterwards, John Ward, Qatari Diar's chief operating officer, emailed his London colleague, John Wallace, the company's UK managing director, warning of "major embarrassment to Qatar" if the planning application was refused.
Until the Qataris really grasped the power of the prince's intervention, all sorts of plans were floated to counter his influence. One idea was to take the prince on in public, something many architects and developers would never advise from bitter experience.
Wallace suggested "there is still the opportunity to 'rubbish' his proposals – architecture, commerciality etc" and to make it "Qatar vs PoW". He felt bullish enough to suggest: "PoW's track record on pronouncements on building design is not always one-way traffic," citing the planning consent granted to the 66-storey "Shard" skyscraper at London Bridge and a modernist development in the shadow of St Paul's cathedral, in spite of his opposition.
Christopher Joll, Qatari Diar's London-based spokesman, even suggested leaking the fact that the prince had a favoured alternative scheme, by Quinlan Terry, the neo-classical architect, "giving the media all the reasons why the QT scheme is unfeasible".
But then the story of the prince's letter broke and the Qatari position had to change.
In the fallout an apparently furious Peat told Ward that the prince was "quite upset that the media has exposed his private letter to his excellency" and accused Qatari Diar of being behind the leak, the truth of which is not known.
Minutes of a meeting held three days later between Peat and Ward reveal how Peat blended courtly language with what some might take as implied threats, to ominous effect. It shows how the prince and his aides were not content to allow the normal democratic planning process to decide on the merits of the design.
The meeting, a stone's throw from Clarence House at the Pall Mall offices of the Qataris' planning consultants, DP9, was palpably tense, with Qatari Diar still determined to press on through the proper planning channels, rather than withdraw as the prince wanted.
"SMP [Sir Michael Peat] … reiterated that HRH the Prince of Wales wanted to assist his friends in Qatar and avoid criticism of them which he feared would stem from imposing a scheme which was not popular in London, as evidenced by 80% support for the prince's position reported in recent newspaper articles," the minute recorded. "Peat said the prince was very unhappy that the matter had become public."
Ward responds that Qatari Diar had been "working through the proper planning process with Westminster [city council], the Greater London Authority and organisations such as the [government's] Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment". To do otherwise "would threaten embarrassment of the type that Qatari Diar had always been keen to avoid," he continued.
This adherence to the open and democratic process was clearly not good enough for the prince's side. Andrew Hamilton, the development director at Poundbury, Charles's neo-Georgian new town in Dorset, suggested the Qataris should approach the planners with the help of Charles's architectural advisers and suggest that it was open to alternatives to the current scheme.
In a rather strange piece of royal doublethink, Peat said this would not do, as it "would suggest the personal involvement of the prince". Never mind that he personally wrote to the Qatari prime minister, and discussed the matter with the emir at Clarence House.
Peat "noted that if the current planning application was to be pursued, QD would still be at risk from a refusal of planning permission by the politicians at Westminster and/or the mayor of London, against the advice of their officers".
With the dice looking stacked against the Rogers scheme, Peat went back to Clarence House, and Ward back to the Qatari office, with an agreement that the parties would stay in touch "as events unfold". Within two months the application had been withdrawn and the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment was helping advise on the selection of replacement architects.
The emails
The internal emails from within the Qatari Diar development team referring to Prince Charles have emerged very late in the case that pits former partners on the Chelsea Barracks project against each other. Qatari Diar was ordered to release them after the high court heard they were deliberately deleted by a senior QD executive who appeared to have especially selected those which referred to the involvement of Prince Charles or Sir Michael Peat, his private secretary. They were not available to interested third parties until the Guardian asked Mr Justice Vos to order their release in the public interest.
Chelsea barracks: the deal-maker
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 17, 2010
Amanda Staveley is best known for orchestrating Abu Dhabi's and Qatar's eye-catching £7.3bn investment in Barclays in 2008
Amanda Staveley, broker to the sheikhs, has pulled off another high-profile property deal for the emirate of Qatar, which is continuing its aggressive buying spree in London.
Staveley advised the Qatari property company Barwa Real Estate on the £250m acquisition of the Park House site in Oxford Street - the biggest development in the area since the Second World War - from the developer, Land Securities.
Staveley is best known for orchestrating Abu Dhabi's and Qatar's eye-catching £7.3bn investment in Barclays in 2008, followed a few months later by the takeover of Manchester City Football Club by Abu Dhabi's ruling family. The 37-year-old former athlete and model reportedly pocketed £5m to £7.5m in fees from the latest deal.
The news came as it emerged that the Qatar Investment Authority, the emirate's sovereign wealth fund, was in talks to take a third share in the Savoy hotel in London. The 120-year-old hotel is owned under a 50-50 joint venture by HBOS and Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal's Kingdom Holding. It is due to reopen in October after a refurbishment that has taken 18 months longer than expected and is likely to cost more than twice the originally budgeted £100m. The hotel comes with a big debt burden – its 2008 accounts showed loans of $212m and that figure is likely to be higher now.
Another part of the QIA, Qatar Holding, is said to have joined the bidding war for Grosvenor House, the five-star hotel put up for sale by Royal Bank of Scotland at the start of the year. The hotel, on Park Lane in Mayfair, has attracted interest from a handful of bidders, including the Abu Dhabi and Singapore sovereign wealth funds. The sale is expected to raise at least £500m.
The tiny emirate, which recently bought Harrods for £1.5bn, is on track to become the largest overseas property investor in the world this year, according to a report from Jones Lang LaSalle. The QIA, which is controlled by Qatar's ruling Al Thani family, was set up in 2005 to invest the billions of dollars flowing in from the emirate's huge offshore gas fields. Trophy assets acquired in London in recent years include the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, the Shard of Glass tower near London Bridge and the Chelsea barracks site in west London. It has taken advantage of the weak pound and the fall in property prices during the recession.
The development at Park House, 453/497 Oxford Street - currently a large sand pit next to Primark's flagship store - comprises 310,000 square feet and is due to be completed by November 2012. It will include 163,000 square feet of office space, 88,000 square feet of shops and 39 flats. The price adds up to £240m an acre - "possibly the most expensive acre of sand in London at the moment," said a spokesman for Land Securities.
"The investment demonstrates our commitment to Europe as part of our growth strategy and signals our interest in strengthening our portfolio interests in London," said Barwa chairman and managing director Ghanim bin Saad Al Saad.
Barwa will pay £225m immediately and the rest on completion. It will also pay a share of the profits to Land Securities within 12 months of completion, estimated at about £33m and capped at £50m.
Land Securities will recycle the sale proceeds in its growing speculative development pipeline, one of the largest in the country. The deal took the City by surprise, but analysts at JP Morgan Cazenove welcomed it. "On our estimates, the Park House development was not going to be the most profitable one. We see the best prospects in terms of development profit for Land Securities' Selbourne House."