Posts Tagged Prince Charles
One New Change: never brown in town
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 21, 2010
It has been designed by Jean Nouvel – but the brown glass walls of this new London shopping centre jar with its City surroundings
One New Change is likely to be called many names in its lifetime, not all of them complimentary. An enormous shopping and office complex thumped down to the immediate east of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, it has been designed by French architect Jean Nouvel.
Though Nouvel's bright red Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens made a colourful splash this summer, the architect is not particularly well known in Britain, and this is his first permanent building here. Some of his very best work – like the diaphanous Fondation Cartier and the mesmerising Institut du Monde Arabe with its hi-tech play on traditional Arabic designs, both in Paris – are truly captivating structures. However, One New Change is a very different beast.
The Prince of Wales, who believes the Luftwaffe did less damage to London than modern architects, has been sniping at One New Change since 2005, when he wrote to the developers, Land Securities, hoping to get Nouvel off the job and have him replaced by one of his "traditionalist" chappies. He failed, and One New Change looks like the kind of building that will cause controversy. The computer images on Nouvel's website, especially those showing it lit up at night, are seductive in a cinematic way. They make the building shine darkly, as if it were some unexpected meteorite or giant jewel glinting from the City streets. The reality, in the grey light of London, is far more sombre than this, if not exactly prosaic.
It's already known as the "stealth building" for two good reasons. First, this low, wide £500m behemoth, with its three floors of shops and five floors of offices, has muscled its way into the City while – remarkably – being all but invisible from just a few streets away. Second, its design – or, at least, its faceted facade or skin – really does have something of the look of a US Air Force Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, or stealth bomber, whose folded surface makes it virtually invisible to radar.
However, it's the colours of this bulky new arrival that truly startle. Instead of the military shades of grey one might expect, One New Change is sheathed in acres of largely opaque brown glass. For many centuries the Square Mile has been an enclave of largely white, grey and black buildings with discreet splashes of red brick or marble. Brown? No sir.
In fact, though Land Securities would never admit it – still less the team of architects led by Richard Rogers who chose Nouvel's design in an open competition held in 2003 – the role of One New Change may be to shock. Squeezing such a big building into the City has been a bit like pouring a heavyweight boxer into a city boy's suit. And, rather like a bespoke three-piece, while the exterior of the Nouvel building is essentially formal, its cruise-ship shiny, shop-lined interior is as flash as a loud silk lining.
The big idea is that the building appears to be a single block of material with passageways or "streets" carved through it, so that it feels like at least four separate, yet connected, buildings, turning around a central atrium. These "streets" are lined with shops and cafes, and have sloping walls. The biggest of them leads from the heart of One New Change to St Paul's Cathedral, framing studied views of Wren's enduring monument.
When you reach the atrium, a glass "panoramic" lift takes you up to a zig-zag, sixth-floor roof terrace. Whatever you make of the building as a whole, the experience of standing up here, so close to Wren's haunting dome, is undeniably moving and exciting. "You feel you can reach out and touch St Paul's," says Nouvel. It's true. Sitting here outside the rooftop cafe will be one of the most inspiring everyday experiences the City can offer.
There is little doubt that when it opens next Thursday, One New Change will be jam-packed with City workers and tourists. How can it go wrong? Nouvel sounds so very convincing when he says that "the design of One New Change is about enriching the City with a new sort of modernity. It is a contemporary building which will set up a dialogue with St Paul's and the neighbouring buildings. The design is calm and deferential to St Paul's and provides a unique opportunity to bring the public into the site."
The public will come anyway, such will be the allure of yet another branch of Topshop, H&M and Banana Republic, another outlet of Nando's and Eat; how can they resist a new Gordon Ramsay restaurant or Barbacoa, the latest culinary venture by Jamie Oliver and Adam Perry Lang? There are some independent shops, yet these are swamped by the big chains. Meanwhile, any new building on this site – good, bad or indifferent – would inevitably set up a dialogue with St Paul's. This mighty landmark can never be ignored, and the buildings around it must say something to their majestic neighbour if only to the effect that they don't care what it or anyone else feels about the way they look.
There goes the neighbourhood
Two big questions need to be asked about One New Change. One is whether the City of London should follow the path of every other British city centre; the other is whether Nouvel's stealthily bombastic design is the right neighbour for St Paul's. For me, it seems a little sad that the City is unable to follow its own star. Until very recently, it had retained its own special character. Here, a largely medieval street pattern adorned with fairytale names like Threadneedle Street and Pudding Lane is matched with secret, shoulder-wide alleys leading to quietly angelic churches, venerable pubs, ancient livery companies, and even the odd surviving independent shop with some half-remembered name, such as Shivelights and Shadowtackle or Dombey and Son. All this packed into the legendary Square Mile, between monuments to Mammon as traditional as the Bank of England and as a radical as the Gherkin, the up-and-coming Cheesegrater and all the other new towers with equally potty nicknames.
Certainly there have been fine places to shop in the City in the form of covered markets (such as Leadenhall Market, in the shadow of Richard Rogers's Lloyds Building), as well as the noble 1844 Royal Exchange alongside the Bank of England. Yet the City has remained aloof, or simply remote, from the wave of malls inundating Britain.
A cheeky wink to Wren
Until it was demolished to make way for the Nouvel building, St Paul's did have a good, and modest, neighbour in the guise of No 1 New Change, a Portland stone and red-brick office complex designed for the Bank of England by Victor Heal. Completed in 1960, this cautious and polite building was much mocked. And, yet, for all its conservative nature, Heal's building was a careful foil to St Paul's. Where Heal nodded politely to Wren, Nouvel winks at him cheekily as if saying: "Come on, grandpa; get down with the bling, and get shopping."
Assuming the Heal building had to go, I would never have recommended replacing it with the kind of Kentucky Fried Georgian buildings facing the north and west fronts of St Paul's in Paternoster Square. Creatures of the 1990s, these were – mostly – every bit as wrong here as One New Change is. Ultimately, St Paul's was best set off by the tight clusters of streets and buildings that stood almost within touching distance of its Portland stone walls until blitzed by the Luftwaffe. I suppose that today's big-shot developers could never make their money by creating a contemporary take on narrow streets and small independent shops and cafes; because of this, St Paul's was bound to be faced by a building as big as One New Change.
For me, though, it would make no difference whether or not One New Change had been designed by Frank Gehry or Alvaro Siza, or by today's equivalent (should they exist) of Wren or Hawksmoor. It just seems a shame to see the City of London go the way of all other cities. The heavily marketed idea that you can reach out and touch St Paul's from a funky new "stealth" shopping mall is not reward enough for robbing the City of what passes for its soul.
Prince Charles drafted in to help rebuild quake damaged Port-au-Prince
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 10, 2010
Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment will restore part of Haiti's historic capital
Everyone from Ben Stiller to Bill Clinton has promised to help, but now Haiti's homeless have a new would-be saviour. Eight months after Port-au-Prince and its residents were devastated by a powerful earthquake which killed more than 230,000 people, the Prince of Wales has responded to a plea for greater assistance from the Haitian government and deployed his architecture charity to help rebuild a swath of the capital's historic centre.
The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment will lead the planning of a makeover of the capital's old quarter, with the prince's aides travelling to the island to start the design process in December.
Sources close to the project in the Caribbean country have warned that the move risks embroiling the prince in Haiti's complex and often corrupt politics.
The country's flagship rebuilding programme is being overseen by Lesley Voltaire, an architect by profession who is standing for president in the 28 November general election, and who is said to have spoken directly to the prince about the scheme.
Last week the prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, trumpeted the prince's charity's involvement, telling reporters: "The contact has already been made, there is an informal agreement."
The prince's architecture charities have helped redesign historic centres in difficult conditions before, including Kabul and Kingston in Jamaica, but Haiti will be his biggest challenge yet.
Last week, an engineer working for a charity building shelters at a refugee camp was shot dead by robbers shortly after he cashed his pay cheque, and a British architect working full-time in the country reported he travels everywhere with an armed guard after being attacked on several occasions.
"We are honoured to have been given the chance to help create a better future for Haiti after the suffering and devastation of the earthquake," said Hank Dittmar, chief executive of the prince's foundation. "We hope to play a small part in bringing hope and benefit to the city by maintaining its authentic character, reducing its environmental impact and helping train local people in construction skills that equip them for future employment."
But there is suspicion locally that the prince's charity may have been drafted in by Haiti's government to score political points.
"There is no way he has chosen Prince Charles because he offers the kind of architecture he wants," said a source close to the project who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He [Voltaire] has done it to help burnish his image and grab headlines."
The foundation was approached amid growing concern about the international response to Haiti's medium and long-term problems. Bellerive has estimated there are 1.3 million homeless earthquake survivors living in camps in and around Port-au-Prince and has been critical of the international response, saying last month: "I need more, I need better and I need it differently."
He has estimated that building decent housing for the victims could cost $10bn (£6.2bn), almost all of the foreign aid promised so far, and is seeking a "coherent" rebuilding plan for a capital notorious for its chaotic layout.
The prince's foundation will work with Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, planners and architects based in Miami and Washington, to run a workshop involving local professionals, property owners and representatives of the Haitian-American communities among others. The result will be a masterplan including homes, streets, public spaces and amenities.
Regardless of the political subtext of the prince's involvement, his decision to work in Haiti puts him at the forefront of British involvement in one of the biggest problems facing Haiti, the construction of solid, earthquake proof and hurricane proof homes to replace the lightweight structures devastated in January.
The only British firm of architects working in Port-au-Prince is thought to be John McAslan and Partners, which is redesigning the historic Iron Market adjacent to the Prince's Foundation site. It is also overseeing an international competition to design templates for new homes that will be built using funds from the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission which is overseen by Bill Clinton, the UN envoy to Haiti, and prime minister Bellerive.
"There simply aren't many British firms there," said Andy Meira, who runs McAslan's operations from a surviving apartment in the largely collapsed Montana Hotel where 200 people died. "In terms of construction and design we are the only ones."
The firm has worked with British engineering firm Arup to kick-start the development of cheap housing on behalf of the Haitian government, producing designs for 150 rapidly buildable and environmentally responsive homes costing only £3,000 each. Designs by nine firms of British architects, including Proctor and Matthews and Jestico and Whiles, which are experienced in building social housing in the UK, have been accepted by the Building Back Better Homes competition which is being run by McAslan on behalf of the Haitian government. Individual British architects have been volunteering through the charity, Architecture for Humanity which is active in Port-au-Prince.
"I hope that we're going to see Port-au-Prince as a huge construction field," said Haitian central bank governor Charles Castel last week, adding funds freed up by an International Monetary Fund cancellation of $268m (£167m) of debt would help in the reconstruction of the city's administrative heart.
From the archive, 14 August 1991: Prince Charles bows out after museum slight
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on August 16, 2010
Originally published in the Guardian on 14 August 1991
The Prince of Wales has resigned as president of the patrons of the National Museums of Scotland in a furore reminiscent of the "monstrous carbuncle" saga, because he was not sufficiently consulted over architectural plans for the new Museum of Scotland.
Buckingham Palace said yesterday the prince had twice warned the organisation that he would relinquish the post if a competition to design the new building was not changed. The prince, who favours the neo-classical style of architecture, is thought to have wanted more public consultation on the building which will adjoin the existing museum in Edinburgh's Chambers Street.
His resignation was timed to coincide with the announcement of the winning plans and is being interpreted as a criticism of the six shortlisted entries, all of which he saw. Announcing the winner of the competition yesterday, the Marquess of Bute said the timing was "less than ideal." He added that the prince's heavy commitments had made it difficult to consult him regularly on the project.
The prince served as the patrons' president for 18 months. A persistent critic of modern architects, he complained in 1984 that plans for a new extension to the National Gallery looked like a "monstrous carbucle on the face of an elegant and much loved friend." Three months later they were dropped.
Dr Sheila Brock, director of public relations, said: "The prince obviously felt he didn't have the opportunity to comment all the way through. I wouldn't say I am surprised and we are not fazed by it."
The competition for the contract attracted 371 entries. The prince is unlikely to approve of the winning design by the Scottish architect Gordon Benson and the Newcastle-born Alan Forsyth. Unlike the new Sainsbury wing of the National Gallery designed to blend into its environment and of which the prince approves, the £25 million building will stand out in the sombre Chambers Street as one of the city's most innovative and modern.
To be built in stone, it looks like an industrial factory, with windows resembling gunports and a turret half way up. It will prove a direct contrast with the existing museum, a quasi-classical construction built last century. The building will display many Scottish objects now in storage and is due to open in 1996.
Joanna Coles
These archive extracts are compiled by members of the Guardian's research and information department. Email: research.department@guardian.co.uk
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."
Qatari Diar breached Chelsea barracks contract, court rules
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 29, 2010
Prince Charles's intervention caused Qatari royal family's property company to withdraw planning application, partner company argued
The high court ruled today that the Qatari royal family's property company breached its contract with a partner company when it withdrew a planning application for the £3bn Chelsea barracks development after the intervention of Prince Charles.
Mr Justice Vos said Qatari Diar, which is owned by the royal family, breached the contract when it withdrew Lord Richard Rogers' modernist designs on the eve of a planning decision. The Prince of Wales had complained directly to the prime minister of Qatar, saying "my heart sank when I saw the plans" and advocating a more traditional design.
CPC Group, the company owned by the Monaco-based property developer Christian Candy, who had been Qatari Diar's partner on the project, was claiming £81m in compensation because it said the reason behind the decision to withdraw breached its contract. Candy argued that the withdrawal was a direct result of the prince's intervention with the prime minister and the emir. Qatari Diar had argued that the designs were withdrawn because they were unlikely to be granted permission by local authorities.
Mr Justice Vos said he did not accept that the London mayor, Boris Johnson, had indicated an intention "to exercise his power to direct the [Westminster city council] to refuse the planning application", as the Qatari side had claimed.
The judgement clears the way for an application for costs and damages by CPC.
In a summary of the judgement, Mr Justice Vos said: "QD's conduct in relation to the planning application, including its dealings with the Prince of Wales and its new outline strategy and the withdrawing of the planning application, was not a breach of its duty of utmost good faith."
The judge said the Qataris found themselves in a difficult situation after the prince's intervention: "... it was between a rock and a hard place, and was doing the best it could in difficult circumstances".
The verdict will be seen as a victory for Rogers and other architects who have long complained that the prince has too much influence on the democratic planning process and that his interventions exceed his constitutional role.
The court heard claims that a Qatari Diar executive systematically deleted emails containing references to the interference of the prince and his private secretary, Sir Micheal Peat, ahead of the hearings, and did not disclose them until ordered to do so by the court. The Qataris denied this.
CPC Group had been a development partner with Qatari Diar, the state-owned development company, but had sold its stake prior to the prince's intervention. It retained a contract which included a payment of up to £81m if the scheme won planning consent.
Lord Grabiner, representing CPC, told Mr Justice Vos that the Qataris "floundered" after Prince Charles and his aides launched a "fight to the finish" to derail designs for more than 500 apartments on the former site of the Chelsea Barracks by Rogers, the modernist architect with whom the prince has repeatedly clashed.
Damages are due to be awarded at a later date, but the judge said Candy was not entitled to a payout of £68.5m under the original contract, as he had claimed.
Wren’s carbuncle
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 28, 2010
Unsurprisingly, the lead letter in today's Daily Telegraph sticks up for Prince Charles and his "unexpected and unwelcome" covert interventions in the Chelsea Barracks saga. I'm more impressed, however, by the subtler message of the fourth one down. It's from Geoffrey Shaw of South Croydon:
Sir - How very unfortunate that Charles II did not share his successor's views on modern architecture. His influence during the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire could have resulted in giving Londoners the cathedral with which they would really have been comfortable – a nice, familiar, Gothic "retro" building, rather than the monstrous carbuncle that now defaces the top of Ludgate Hill, built by that upstart young mathematician Wren.
Harrumph. Frightful business.
The prince, the lord and the Chelsea stitch-up | Rowan Moore
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 26, 2010
The row over the Chelsea Barracks development scheme exposes the tawdry practices behind planning decisions
Rarely does one want to clasp a judge to one's bosom, but these are my feelings towards Mr Justice Vos. When he said that Prince Charles's intervention in the Chelsea Barracks case was "unexpected and unwelcome", it was wonderful to hear the law speak truth to royalty.
Vos was ruling in the case between Qatari Diar, owners of the barracks, and their former development partner, Christian Candy, following the abandonment of a redevelopment scheme under pressure from the prince. Quite how much pressure was revealed by the case – letters, emails, meetings. There is something rank and slimy about these behind-closed-doors stitch-ups of public matters.
But hold on. We also have to consider the process by which the disputed project came to exist, which had its fair share of the networking by which too much of Britain's architecture and planning is decided.
The scheme was designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners, the practice led by Lord Rogers of Riverside. After Ken Livingstone became mayor of London, Rogers became his architectural adviser. With input from Rogers, the London plan was drawn up, which would set the framework for planning decisions in central London.
The plan embodied Livingstone's then view that booming financial services were the future of London and Rogers's belief that high-density development, along with "quality architecture", was the best way to make cities. "Quality architecture" was a bit vague, but one definition soon emerged: it meant almost anything designed by "world-class architects", such as Rogers. It was also defined by committees, such as the design review committee of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, whose membership included other "world-class architects".
Rogers appeared at planning inquiries into contentious projects, including the Shard of Glass designed by his former architectural partner Renzo Piano, and declared them world class. During this period, Rogers's practice dramatically expanded its London portfolio, designing high-density, world-class projects all over the city.
One such was One Hyde Park, a citadel for the megarich in Knightsbridge. Here, Livingstone expressed his support for Rogers. It was necessary, he said, for London's "role as a world city" that the block should rise above the treeline of Hyde Park. Candy and Candy, developers of One Hyde Park, invited Rogers into Chelsea, only for it to founder when the most vocal and best-connected local residents in Britain objected to its density and invited in Prince Charles.
Of course, the success of Rogers Stirk Harbour may be entirely be due to its professionalism, but it is hardly healthy that professionals and politicians should be so intertwined and mutually supportive. We also know that Rogers was prepared to use his own connections, when he urged John Prescott to stop a project by the prince-favoured architect, Quinlan Terry, just across the road from the barracks site.
The prince and the lord, then, seem to be playing similar games, with the important difference that the lord has at least earned his influence with a lifetime of achievement in his field. Practised by either, it stinks. What is left out is an open and fair debate as to what should happen on crucial sites such as Chelsea Barracks.
Chelsea barracks trial shines light on Prince Charles’s interference
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 25, 2010
Case exposes secret strategies used by 'meddling prince' to intervene in public affairs
The Chelsea barracks case has offered a rare glimpse into the otherwise secret strategies used by the Prince of Wales when he wants to interfere in public affairs.
From the typed letters on Clarence House notepaper underlined in his own hand, to the clever blend of courteousness and implied threat used in his own correspondence and by his righthand man, Sir Michael Peat, the case has revealed in detail how the prince wields his power.
The high court ruled today that the Qatari royal family's property company breached its contract with a partner company when it withdrew a planning application for the £3bn Chelsea barracks development after the prince's intervention. In describing the prince's intervention as "unwelcome", Mr Justice Vos said the Qatari royals immediately recognised that the prince's complaint "raised a serious political issue that needed to be dealt with at the highest level".
His verdict on what happened next sheds new light on how tea with the emir last March at Clarence House was conducted in a uniquely royal way, without any of the senior protagonists doing anything as gauche as issuing a demand or an instruction.
"I am sure that in their meeting, the Prince of Wales expressed his dislike for the Rogers Stirk Harbour Partnership's design, and the emir politely concurred," said Vos. "It seems likely to me that the emir would have said something more nuanced than that 'he would have the plans changed', but I am sure he gave the Prince of Wales and Sir Michael the impression that that would be the outcome."
At a subsequent meeting between the emir and the chief executive of Qatari Diar, a company which at the time boasted a $40bn (£27bn) investment portfolio with 60 projects in 32 countries, there was no "blunt instruction" from the emir, but the judge said "he was not happy about upsetting the Prince of Wales and that he [the chief executive] should find alternatives to the existing design".
For others though, the prince's tactics may seem familiar. For almost three decades Charles has developed a reputation as, in his own words, "a meddling prince" who has waded into issues including farming, genetic modification, global warming, social deprivation, planning and architecture.
Given the inherently political nature of such topics, the prince has established a network of 20 charities as a key tactic for circumventing the convention that the royal family, especially the heir to the throne, should stay neutral. Some people have complained that they push the prince's beliefs much too aggressively.
One of Charles's most active charities has been the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, which promotes his belief in more traditional forms of architecture and planning. In the Chelsea barracks case, the court heard how the prince, the charity's president, encouraged the Qatari royal family to use his charity to make alternative plans.
Recent history shows the same charity also helped carry out the prince's campaigns against other developments. It became involved in the redevelopment of Smithfield Market after Charles declared himself "confused and bewildered" by earlier plans and wrote about his worries to the then-chairman of English Heritage, a government body that advises on which historic buildings to protect.
Charles also offered the charity as an adviser to Francis Salway, the chief executive of Land Securities, one of the biggest developers in London, when he objected to the modernist design of its office scheme beside St Paul's Cathedral.
In the controversial area of complementary medicine, the now defunct Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health became involved in trying to change government policy. The charity was paid £1.1m by the Department of Health to advise on the regulation of massage, aromatherapy, reflexology and other complementary therapies as Prince Charles personally lobbied health ministers to use the treatments across the NHS.
It engaged in a public row with the professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, Edzard Ernst, after Ernst attacked its draft guide to complementary medicines as "outrageous and deeply flawed".
The Charity Commission was asked to launch an investigation into allegations that the foundation may have breached charity regulations by pursuing a "vendetta" against Ernst. A separate police investigation then saw the former finance director, George Gray, arrested and subsequently charged with theft, fraud and money laundering.
The trustees have now closed down the charity, a sign perhaps that the strategy of devolving the prince's campaigns to his charities could be damaging his reputation.
The Chelsea barracks case also showed the prince's use of hyperbole to make his case. In his letter to the Qatari prime minister, he called the designs "a gigantic experiment with the very soul of our capital city".
Such extravagant claims will be familiar to the scheme's architect, Richard Rogers, whose designs for the office development beside St Paul's Cathedral in the 1980s were torpedoed when Charles implied in a public speech that the plans were more offensive than the rubble left by the Luftwaffe during the blitz.
Sometimes, the prince chooses to be more discreet. He was said to be "very unhappy" that his complaint to the Qataris had been leaked, perhaps because he knows how effective he can be pulling strings behind the scenes.
When Rogers, a frequent foe of the prince, was bidding to redesign the Royal Opera House, he believes the prince wrecked his chances using covert pressure.
"We got a phone call from the people at the Royal Opera House one evening, about 9pm saying 'good scheme, but you're too risky'," Rogers has said. "I was basically told: 'the prince does not like you.'"
Last year the Guardian used the Freedom of Information Act to find out that since 2006 Charles had written to ministers in at least eight Whitehall departments - Food and Rural Affairs, International Development, HM Treasury, Foreign Office, Work and Pensions, Education, Communities, and Culture, Media and Sport. The content of the letters was withheld, under laws which protect royal correspondence (see box).
The royal household insists that Charles will become far less involved in his causes if and when he becomes king, but sources suggest otherwise.
In late 2008, after the prince's 60th birthday, it was reported that aides at Clarence House and Buckingham Palace had begun informally considering redefining the sovereign's role to "allow King Charles III to speak out on matters of national and international importance in ways that at the moment would be unthinkable".
The claim was made by Jonathan Dimbleby, the prince's close friend and biographer, but Clarence House insisted no plans were being made for the prince's accession to the throne.
Letters to Whitehall
An attempt to uncover the extent of Prince Charles's lobbying across government has been launched.
The Guardian is seeking to obtain copies of letters the prince has written to ministers in seven Whitehall departments. The government is resisting the application, which will be decided by a freedom of information tribunal.
The prince has faced frequent accusations that he meddles in areas of government policy, such as architecture and the environment.
The government argues that correspondence must be kept private. Ministers are relying on a "well-established constitutional doctrine that the heir to throne has a right and duty to be instructed in the business of government in preparation for the time when he himself will be the sovereign". The Guardian will argue that the letters should be made public so the public can see how much the prince seeks to influence government policy.
The letters – known as "black spider memos" because of his sprawling handwriting – involved the departments responsible for business, the environment, health, schools, culture, Northern Ireland, and the Cabinet Office.
Rob Evans
Prince Charles’s role in Chelsea barrack planning row ‘unwelcome’
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 25, 2010
Prince of Wales's intervention in the £3bn Chelsea barracks redevelopment placed the rulers of Qatar, in 'an impossible position'
A high court judge today dealt an unprecedented blow to the Prince of Wales's ability to interfere in public life by describing his opposition to a major planning application in London as "unexpected and unwelcome".
Mr Justice Vos ruled that Charles's intervention in plans for the £3bn Chelsea barracks redevelopment in the capital placed the rulers of Qatar, who owned the site, in "an impossible position" and had an impact on the views of the elected politicians charged with deciding on the plans' merits.
In a historic judgment, Vos found that Qatari Diar, a property development company wholly owned by Qatar's royal family, changed its plans for the prime London site as a result of the prince's direct complaint to the emir that he did not like the designs by the firm of Lord Rogers, a leading modernist architect with whom he has clashed on several occasions.
Charles had voiced opposition to the plan for more than 500 homes on the former Ministry of Defence site at a teatime meeting with the emir at Clarence House last spring, and also wrote to the prime minister of Qatar attacking the designs as part of a "gigantic experiment with the very soul of our capital city". He said it should be scrapped in favour of something more "old-fashioned" like the buildings in "Bath or 18th-century Edinburgh".
The judge ruled that by withdrawing the application shortly after his intervention, Qatari Diar breached its contract with co-developer CPC Group, owned by Monaco-based businessman Christian Candy, clearing the way for a claim for costs and damages.
However Vos did not support Candy's claim for an early payout of £68.5m, which would have come if planning consent had been granted. He said that Qatari Diar was "caught between a rock and a hard place" as a result of Prince Charles's impassioned demands for an alternative scheme and had been "doing the best it could in difficult circumstances" involving "diplomatic and political implications" to continue the planning process as normal.
The judgment exposed the prince's powerful influence and how he was prepared to go to great lengths to lobby not only fellow royals but also to consider putting pressure on the mayor, Westminister city council and the media to ensure that the scheme would never be built.
Vos said both Qatari Diar and CPC Group "were faced with a very difficult position once the Prince of Wales intervened in the planning process in March 2009". He said Qatari Diar executives had to try to "calm the political waters and prevent royal feathers being further ruffled".
"Qatari Diar was in an impossible position," Vos said. "It could not pretend that the Prince of Wales had not written to its chairman. It could not do nothing. It was, in modern parlance, caught between a rock and a hard place. If it did nothing, it would have risked exacerbating the position with the Prince of Wales, thereby risking that he might take his opposition further by contacting the mayor, the WCC or even the press."
The case has raised serious questions over whether the prince overstepped his constitutional role by becoming involved in a democratic planning process, and today Ruth Reed, the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, said Charles's actions had been "an abuse of privileged position" and had "failed to engage with the planning process entirely openly and appropriately".
"The UK has a democratic and properly constituted planning process: any citizen in this country is able to register their objections to proposed buildings with the appropriate local authority," she said. "The message that this affair sends to overseas investors considering working on UK projects is very concerning."
In his 98-page judgment, Vos said changes were already being negotiated on the scheme through the mayor's office when the prince became involved because Boris Johnson objected to the repetitive design in one area, but not because he objected to its overall modernist premise. "This process was interrupted before it had reached its natural conclusion," he said.
Clarence House declined to comment today. The prince's spokesman, Paddy Harverson, has previously said: "The prince has every right to express an opinion privately, which he does with passion, because he cares."
Vos said: "I formed the clear view that the intervention of the Prince of Wales was immediately recognised … as raising a serious political issue that needed to be dealt with at the highest level."
He also ruled that even after the Qataris had decided to pursue an alternative scheme, the prince's position continued to have an "impact on the views of the officers and politicians (but primarily the latter) at Westminster city council and the Greater London authority".
The judge said what might have been regarded as a relatively simple dispute "appeared at times to be all-out war". Both sides made "overblown" allegations of bad faith. He asked them to try to work together to achieve planning consent, but that seemed a dim prospect. A Qatari Diar statement said "CPC's claims have been a complete waste of time" and that it had lost "a future business relationship with QD as a result of its conduct".
A new design is being drawn up by Dixon Jones, architects of the Royal Opera House, fellow architects Squire & Partners, and Kim Wilkie, a landscape designer who has proposed a market garden, beehives and nut trees. Ben Bolgar, senior design director at the prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, sat on the judging panel and Prince Charles continues to be briefed on the design. Plans are due to be submitted to Westminster council next month.
A backbench prince | Peter Preston
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 27, 2010
If only Charles had gone into politics. He'd have been a natural wet, and perfect lobby fodder
Suppose that, three decades and more ago, Prince Charles had actually wanted to do what his demons told him. Suppose, up front, renouncing all private letters and salon whispers, he'd become a proper, elected politician: say, the Hon Member for Highgrove or Cornwall West. What would have happened then?
No great ideological problems, perhaps. Charles at the end of the 70s was a natural knight of the shire, which meant – at the dawn of the Thatcher era – being a "wet". He'd have sipped Earl Grey in the tearoom with Jim Prior and Francis Pym, waving to Willie Whitelaw across buttered scones. He'd have given little-reported speeches about social fractures in Britain. He'd have been on Newsnight after the Brixton riots, calling for more cash, more healing, more love and understanding. Archbishop Runcie would have hugged him close. But, look: see the scowl on the Lady's face.
Out, out, damned wets! Charlie MP could probably have slunk through the Falklands. After all, it was our empire, our navy and his brother up there in a chopper. But they play damned good polo in Argentina. He was bound to feel unease. And once Mrs T was in her pomp, rejoicing, roasting old Runcieballs for guilt-dipped sermons, then Charlie would have been doomed to the backbenches. No dreams of becoming a minister of state at agriculture or parliamentary secretary for privileged education. He was to sit at the back, the most docile of lobby fodder, frowning while miners struck (that fractured society bit again), pursing his lips through the Lawson boom (though naturally pocketing its fruits), celebrating in his muted way when some Hezza fellow laid the bloody woman low.
A career reborn? Alas, public and private lives didn't mingle. That simpering blonde wife and two adorable boys he'd featured in his election pamphlets. That passionate old flame with the compliant hubbie who, unlike the flame, always went out. Those horrible stories in the News of the World.
It was so, so distressing, the end of everything surely: and yet, once David Mellor sucked toes and Edwina Currie started bathing with John Major, the circus of shame moved on and he was left, still standing, free to make speeches about saving the landscape for landowners, eating organic pies and pâtés from a neat little food company he'd worked on between wives, and attacking nasty, if renowned, architects building nasty, if renowned, buildings. Somehow the dear wet days of on-one-hand-and-on-the-other were dead and gone for Charlie MP. Now he knew what he didn't like.
But was anybody listening? Not as Ken Livingstone's skyscrapers marched across London. Not as ever younger prime ministers took over in Downing Street. Maybe a word in the right ear would be better than sounding off? Maybe a few letters in green ink could give him the influence he craved? Perhaps coffee with passing emirs – as chairman of the Parliamentary Qatar Friendship Society – might stop that obscene mess near Chelsea Bridge?
Behind the scenes was better than front of house, he thought. Lying low could bring many things he loathed low, too. But then, one bleak morning, he opened the Telegraph and saw his own face frowning out at him. Charlie Windsor in Moated Duck House Cash Claim Horror, the headline howled. Supposed Charities Pushed MP's Personal Passions! Tory Knight's Fingers in Porky Pie!
And so, of course, his career was over. He was back at Highgrove. Maybe if I'd been a prince or something, people would have heard what I had to say, he thought. But politics? Getting elected? Just too much jolly sweat and disappointment. Where on earth could he go now to give speeches nobody wanted to people who didn't listen? Ah yes! Thank God for the House of Lords.
Architecture, Art and design, Comment, House of Commons, London politics, Margaret Thatcher, Politics, Prince Charles, The Guardian, UK news
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