Posts Tagged Qatar
London’s Shard: a ‘tower of power and riches’ looking down on poverty
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on January 3, 2012
Renzo Piano's skyscraper, which will be Europe's tallest building, may provide a shot in the arm for London – or be merely a symbol of Qatari financial muscle
Slicing through the air above the dank and dripping Victorian tunnels by London Bridge is a new symbol of extraordinary confidence.
The glinting Shard of Glass has become the tallest building in Europe, rising higher than Canary Wharf's main tower, Frankfurt's Commerzbank and the Ostankino television tower in Moscow.
The 310-metre-high (1,017ft) building is scheduled to open in June, in what is forecast to be a continuing economic slump. But, experienced from the highest apartment on the 66th floor, thoughts of Britain's stagnation are obliterated by the mind-boggling views.
From the cavernous double-height living room more than 200 metres up in the air, the city of eight million people looks like a toy town. The London Eye becomes a fairground attraction and HMS Belfast a model boat. The twin stadiums – Olympic and Wembley – feel within touching distance. Trains inch along like millipedes into London Bridge station, while to the east the Thames curves out to the sea.
In certain weather all this is above the cloud deck. The spectacular views will next year go on sale to the highest bidder when apartments could fetch tens of millions of pounds each.
In all, there will be 27 floors of offices, three floors of fine dining restaurants, an 18-floor, five-star Shangri-La hotel with a spa, and 10 palatial apartments, each on average seven times bigger than a semi-detached home. A four-storey public viewing area is being built starting on the 68th floor which is likely to cost around £20 to access. The developer is even considering renting out the very highest room on the 78th floor for high powered conferences and political talks – summits at the summit.
"We could send Europe's top politicians up there and not let them down until they solve the euro crisis," said Irvine Sellar, the building's developer.
The architect, Renzo Piano, has mooted an alternative use as a meditation suite and is said to be keen the space should not become a playground only for the super-rich and powerful.
But how does all this, rising beside some of the poorest wards in the country, add up in Britain's listing economy? It is notable that so far no office tenants have signed up, although the developers say they are in talks with several and are being selective. The answer may lie in its ownership - the Shard owes its existence to a power play by a gas-rich kingdom more than 4,000 miles away.
From spring 2009, when construction began, Qatari wealth poured into the project. As the global economic crisis forced builders to down tools on sites across the UK, around £1.5bn – mostly from the Gulf – bankrolled the Shard.
Two of the apartments span two entire floors each and are expected to become London homes for members of the Qatari royal family. The Shard – 80% owned through the country's central bank – is now the jewel in the crown of the emirate's growing London estate, which also includes Harrods, the American embassy building in Grosvenor Square, and Chelsea Barracks.
The Qataris insist they are simply diversifying their investment holdings. But observers of Gulf politics believe there is a diplomatic purpose and regional one-upmanship at play. For example, some Kuwaitis and Emiratis are said to be jealous that Harrods, their favourite London shop, is owned by Qatar.
It was not meant to be like this. In 2000, when the Shard's silhouette was first sketched on the back of a Berlin restaurant menu by Piano, the project was wholly in the hands of Sellar, a former Carnaby Street trader, and his business partners. London's skyline was rising on a tide of easy credit and buoyant property prices. Lord Foster's gherkin-shaped tower for Swiss Re was about to be built in the City and plans for a cluster of taller towers – the "cheesegrater", the "walkie talkie", the "helterskelter" – were being drafted.
A planning inquiry followed the unveiling of Piano's design, which he charmingly said was inspired by the spires of London's old churches, and John Prescott, then deputy prime minister, gave his approval in 2003. But when it came to erecting the building, Sellar and his partners could not raise the construction finance because of the global financial crisis.
Qatari investors bought 80% of the project in January 2008, when it was valued at £2bn.
"The UK is a dear country to us," said the Qatar ambassador to London, Khalid bin Rashid bin Salim al-Hamoudi al-Mansouri. "We have been investing in this country before and after the crash. Our investment is a long-term investment. We don't need cash money now. This comes from a strategy of diversifying our economy over 10, 20, 30 years. We think the UK is the right place to put our investment. The UK is a strategic partner with our country."
The governor of Qatar's central bank, Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud al-Thani, has been more explicit about the diplomatic potential of the acquisition. He said he was confident the Shard would become "a symbol of the close ties between Qatar and the UK".
Dr Christopher Davidson, an expert in the politics of the Gulf at Durham University, said the Shard played a part in Qatar's programme of "soft diplomacy" with countries such as the UK and US that provide it with security guarantees.
"The invasion of Kuwait is still fresh in the memory of rulers in the Gulf and being invaded for your petrochemical wealth remains a nightmare," he said. "Qatar is in a tight spot between Saudi Arabia and Iran and its very survival rests on the west's guarantee. The thinking goes that if someone invades a country that has the highest skyscraper in London, then surely the UK should come to the rescue."
For Davidson, the Shard is in the same category as Abu Dhabi's purchase of Manchester City Football Club. "It is high-profile and won't necessarily turn a profit, but the benefits are non-pecuniary," he said.
Such talk about hidden agendas for the building makes Piano uncomfortable.
"This is not about money," he said. "It is about surprise and joy. This is about the way cities should go. They should stop and we should not go beyond the green belt. If you do this by going vertical that sends a message about conserving land. The building is not about arrogance and power but about increasing the intensity of city life."
He compared the project to the Pompidou Centre in Paris, which he designed with Richard Rogers in the mid-1970s. It turned the model of the fine art gallery inside out, placing the building's innards – its ducts, pipes and structure – on the facade.
"Architecture is not neutral, it celebrates something," he said. "When we built the Pompidou Centre it celebrated rebellion against the idea that culture should be intimidating. The Shard will celebrate community, the sense of the city, the sense of exchange. I think the building will become loved in London because it is not arrogant. Normally towers are not loved because they shut down at 6pm and you have a black glass block. This is not about money or power. It is about surprise and joy."
While many Londoners have already taken the building to their hearts, some locals are puzzled by their new neighbour and are struggling to understand its economic rationale.
"None of it hangs together and to me it seems commercially absurd," said Russell Gray, owner of the Tanneries, a small business complex created from restored Victorian warehouses close by. "But that doesn't matter if what you are after is a latter-day pyramid celebrating the arrival of the Qataris on the world stage."
Sellar couldn't disagree more and believes the building is the kind of counter-cyclical investment the UK economy needs. "If we want to get out of this malaise then this is the sort of project that should be done," he said. "We think it is a great image. It says, 'This is London, this is the Shard and we can kick sand in the face of the Eiffel Tower.'"
More than 2,000 16- to 24-year-olds in Southwark not only have no work, but are also not in education or training. The council is hoping to use £4.4m obtained from the developer in the £15m planning gain agreement to transform this small army and others into "a supply of enthusiastic, job-ready, local young people and adult jobseekers".
There is hope that people could train at Southwark College as beauticians to work in the spa at the hotel, as fitness instructors for the gym, and as florists, shop assistants, security guards, secretaries and office managers, although council papers reveal that "there is no obligation on the tenants and businesses in the completed development to provide job opportunities".
So far the council can boast that "up to the end of September, the key output is 40 local people into jobs in the building".
"There has been a failure of imagination," said Nick Stanton, a Liberal Democrat and former leader of Southwark council. "There should be something in this building that the community uses on a daily basis instead of just walking around it. There should be something like a library in it … one of the frustrations I had as leader was the inability to link a big project like this to local outcomes."
Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics, said it was a "tower of power and riches" in a poor borough. "It points to the paradoxical nature of property development in cities such as London. In order to bring about transformation it is necessary to accept gentrification. It is inevitable the arrival of a sharp piece of global capitalism is an odd incursion into a borough that is still authentic old Victorian London."
The appearance of the building has created what Travers calls a "new mental geography" of the capital. For example the presence of the Shard makes suddenly obvious what every London taxi driver already knew: that the quickest way from Westminster to the City is via the South Bank.
Lord Prescott, who approved the tower in the face of stern opposition from English Heritage, has watched it "growing all the time" from his flat in the Parliament View complex by Westminster bridge.
"It was a difficult decision that I was faced with about high-rise buildings along the Thames," said the former deputy PM. "I thought this one was interesting. The Shard was in a part of London on the South Bank that needed to be developed as well. From what I have seen of it, it will achieve that. I thought its design was very striking and significant and part of modern cities and on the South Bank, whereas before the thinking was that high-rise buildings would be in Canary Wharf. Were we simply going to locate them there or would there be a regeneration argument for locating them on the South Bank?"
Over the river in the City, the Corporation of London appears miffed by the Southwark upstart. It has urged the London mayor, Boris Johnson, to prevent the Shard being used as a precedent by other developers to disregard protected viewing corridors that restrict development around St Paul's, the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.
Piano is unperturbed by criticism it is too dominant on the horizon and says "the building disappears into the sky".
"This is the most important moment when you realise what the building will be like in the city," he said. "I think it is what I wanted. It is going to be sharp. It is not going to take away light. It is a building that will reflect the humour of the weather because the shards are not vertical, they are inclined. It will reflect the ever-changing process and colours of the sky."
Sellar, for his part, is sure the building will become a new icon. "People will feel proud," he said. "This is London. This is the Shard."
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.
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.
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.
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."
Chelsea barracks hearing witnesses accused of perjury
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 15, 2010
Developer CPC Group accuses site owners Qatari Diar of deliberate removal of 19 emails involving Prince Charles and lying about involvement of emir
Witnesses lied under oath to cover up Prince Charles's influence over designs for the £3bn redevelopment of Chelsea barracks, while a senior aide to the Qatari royal family, owners of the site, deliberately deleted emails on the prince's involvement, the high court heard.
Mr Justice Vos was told that John Ward, the managing director of Qatari Diar — the Qatar royal family's development arm, which bought the prime London site — deleted 19 emails that referred to either the Prince of Wales or Sir Michael Peat, his private secretary.
Witnesses from Qatari Diar also "concocted an untrue story" to cover up the role of the prince and the Qatari emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, in the cancellation of the modernist housing project and lied to the judge, the court heard. Among those accused were Ghanim bin Saad al-Saad, the global chief executive of Qatari Diar.
Lawyers for Qatari Diar denied any cover-up and insisted the allegations were entirely unjustified. They said the allegations were effectively a claim that the Qataris perverted the course of justice.
The allegations are the latest twist in a court battle that pits Christian Candy, a London developer, against Qatari Diar, his former development partner on the barracks project.
The case centres on whether the Qataris abandoned the planning application drawn up by the firm of modernist architect Lord Rogers because of planning considerations or because Prince Charles complained about it directly to the emir and his wife one evening at Clarence House. If it was the latter, Candy's company, CPC Group, argues it is owed up to £81m by Qatari Diar.
Qatari Diar insists no instruction to withdraw was issued by the emir. It withdrew the application on the eve of a consent hearing at Westminster city council after the prince voiced his dislike of the design.
Evidence of the deleted emails and of 41 other documents emerged today — more than two weeks after the court finished hearing evidence in the case.
Qatari Diar admitted that it had not searched an email server in its London office during pre-trial evidence gathering. Following a court order, emails containing references to the prince and his most senior aide that had been deleted by Ward from the server in the firm's Doha office were then found and placed before Vos on Friday.
"It looks on the face of it that whenever he spotted a reference to the Prince of Wales he deleted the email," said Lord Grabiner QC, representing CPC.
He said that Ward deleted 24 emails, all but five of which referred to Prince Charles or Peat.
Grabiner said his actions appeared to be "a deliberate distortion of relevant emails by Qatari Diar".
"The court should infer that Mr Ward deliberately deleted sensitive emails in order to prevent their disclosure. This was a determined effort by Mr Ward to delete what he believed would damage Qatari Diar's case."
Joe Smouha QC, representing Qatari Diar, said the new documents "do not add anything material to the evidential position as it was at the conclusion of the trial".
He said that far from being covered up, the deleted emails would have been available as they would have been held on their recipients' servers.
Smouha said they had not been released earlier partly because "the disclosure of electronic documents [in court] is never a perfect process".
Grabiner said that executives at Qatari Diar knew all along about the emir's involvement but had given evidence in court that the withdrawal of the planning application was triggered by other causes.
"All those witnesses lied to your lordship when they gave evidence. They were motivated by concern to conceal what actually happened to protect Qatari Diar and the emir to enable them to avoid paying the money under the contract. It was a political decision not permitted under the terms of the contract."
One email released to the court from Qatari Diar's then public relations consultant, Christopher Joll, shows he believed that the scheme had been withdrawn on the emir's orders.
Alluding to press reports that Qatari Diar wanted to get the "warring factions" around the table he said: "The media seized on [this] as a thinly coded signal that the scheme is being withdrawn which it is, on the instructions of the Emir, but no one outside Candy & Candy and Qatari Diar knows that is the reason."
The judgment is due to be handed down by early July, Vos said.
Analysis: 'Absolute power', the public good, and the reach of royal influence
Anyone dropping into Court 57 at the Royal Courts of Justice over the past month has been granted a peek into two of the world's most opaque powerbrokers: the Prince of Wales, who wields the influence of the British monarchy from the stucco splendour of Clarence House, and the emir of Qatar, whose oil- and gas-rich nation this week emerged as the biggest international property investor in the world.
The Chelsea Barracks case, on the face of it, is a contract dispute between property developers – the emirate's investment arm, Qatari Diar, and the Monaco-based developer Christian Candy. It hinges on the extent to which the emir and the prince were instrumental in halting the £3bn project. But it also sheds light on how royals use their clout when it comes to matters of public interest.
The court heard how Prince Charles plotted a "fight to the finish" campaign to block architecture he didn't like, scrawled handwritten notes to Qatari royals, and would lobby anyone with the influence to have the project halted.
Aides to Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani spoke of the Qatari ruler's "absolute power" and the court heard how the emir "went mental" when he thought he may have offended the design sensibilities of a fellow royal – a claim that emerged from a process of Chinese whispers, according to lawyers for Qatari Diar.
It also emerged that the emir stood aloof from even his most senior officials, speaking to the chief executive of Qatari Diar only five times in the past six months and then for no more than 15 minutes in meetings arranged by appointment through the manager of his private office.
The Qataris bought the site for almost £1bn from the Ministry of Defence, but concerns about the project within the two royal households were more of a diplomatic than commercial nature.
"Many would be eternally grateful to Your Excellency if Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment could bequeath a unique and enduring legacy to London," Charles wrote to the Qatari PM after first seeing the original modernist plans. He underlined the words "eternally" and "enduring".
The Qataris were also concerned about the project's legacy. Ghanim bin Saad al Saad, the global chief executive of Qatari Diar who oversees projects for the state-owned firm, told the court: "My aim was to protect the project from delays and the reputation of the state of Qatar."
Candy's company, CPC Group, argues it was a meeting between Charles and the emir that triggered the scrapping. One spring evening last year the prince received the emir and his second wife at Clarence House. A note of the meeting by the prince's private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, revealed "the emir was surprised by [the architect Lord Richard] Rogers' designs for Chelsea Barracks and said that he would have them changed". It was Candy – whose sometimes coarse language and directness in his business dealings became clear in court – who said the Prince had "pissed in [the emir's] ear".
What happened next is disputed. Candy said the emir "went mental at Ghanim, telling him how awful the design was and to withdraw ASAP". The court also heard the Qataris "floundered" at the prince's intervention and the emir's reaction. Not so, said al Saad, insisting the emir was not involved in the decision to withdraw.
Despite the insights from court 57, there is a gap in the court papers that looks unlikely to be filled. No correspondence relating to Clarence House and the emir has emerged for between 11 and 15 May, the five days after the prince met the emir.ends
How Prince Charles triggered an £81m headache for the emir of Qatar
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on May 21, 2010
A court hears how Doha feared 'serious consequences' after the prince objected to Richard Rogers' designs on the site of the former Chelsea barracks
By pouring billions of pounds of their oil and gas wealth into a few acres of central London real estate the Qatari royal family had hoped to burnish their country's reputation as well as to make money.
But the high court today heard how the emirate's decision to invest £3bn in building hundreds of palatial apartments on the site of the former Chelsea barracks descended into an exercise in damage limitation after Prince Charles complained repeatedly about the glass and steel designs of Richard Rogers, their chosen architect.
The case, which will enter its second week on Monday, is ostensibly a dispute between Christian Candy, who with his brother, Nick, runs a high-end property empire based in Monaco, and the Qatari royal family's development company. Candy worked with Qatari Diar on the project and is demanding it pays £81m for breach of contract after it withdrew the contentious planning application.
But the case has also revealed the geo-political tremors caused when one prince pits himself against another: Prince Charles, with nominal powers, but wielding a history of influence, and the absolute ruler, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, whose country has begun to exploit its petro-wealth only in the last 15 years.
Doha feared "serious consequences" after Prince Charles objected to Rogers' designs and urged the Qatari prime minister to "reconsider the plans", the court heard. The design had cost the Qataris £7.3m but, even at that price, they were not good enough for the Prince of Wales.
His objections sent the Qataris into crisis management mode, according to a witness statement from Ghanim bin Saad al-Saad, then chief executive of Qatari Diar, the state investment arm responsible for the deal. Al-Saad said he had approved the withdrawal of the application after Charles' intervention.
He said the Qataris had been forced to draw up a strategy to "comfort" the prince and keep his concerns secret to avoid them wrecking the application. "The briefing note made clear that there could be serious consequences for the project if the letter was leaked to the press, and therefore stated that Qatari Diar's objective was to 'agree with Clarence House to keep this matter private'," al-Saad said.
The strategy failed: the letter was leaked, attempts to suggest a compromise were rebuffed, and the Prince called for a meeting withQatar's ruler in which he was reported to have "pissed in the emir's ear about how awful the scheme was".
Al-Saad said that after this, he received a phone call from the emir in which "he said he did not particularly like the design". This conversation was earlier described by Christian Candy in an email that said the emir "went mental at Ghamin".
"I have been told many times that Qatari Diar was not just a profit making operation and that many projects were politically driven …," Candy told the court. "The emir would always be sensitive to the views of the future king of England."
Under cross examination by Lord Grabiner QC, Al-Saad said when the emir travelled to the UK to see Prince Charles, he was "very concerned about the national relationship as well as the financial position of Qatar".
Al-Saad said it was his job to "protect projects from delays and the reputation of the state of Qatar".
On Thursday, the court heard some strident criticism of the Qatari's approach to the project.
Candy told the judge that the contract the Qataris had signed, which included the £81m payout if the contract breached, was "bloody embarrassing" and he described their attempts to negotiate a compromise with the Prince of Wales to modify the plans after consent had been granted as "insanity".
The trial was adjourned until Monday.