Prince Charles's Interest in Architecture and Urban Planning


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Prince Charles blasted over plan for 2,000 homes in Green Belt | Mail Online

Prince Charles is under fire from two conservation groups he champions over plans to build on Green Belt land and to bulldoze hedges that shelter wildlife.

He has been accused of abandoning his rural credentials after his Duchy of Cornwall estate offered to create 2,000 new homes on rolling pastures just outside the historic city of Bath.
 
Charles's letter damned 'brutalist' housing - Times Online

A letter written by the Prince of Wales to an Arab royal family reveals for the first time how much he interfered to thwart plans to build Britain’s most expensive residential blocks.

The letter, sometimes deferential and occasionally angry, speaks of his dismay at “brutalist” plans to redevelop London’s Chelsea Barracks into luxury flats and affordable housing.
 
wbenson said:
Prince Charles may be called to court over Chelsea Barracks redevelopment row | Mail Online

Prince Charles has been warned he may be forced to tell a court of his role in scuppering plans for the controversial re-development of Chelsea Barracks.
Click to expand...
Oh be still my fluttering heart! Charles "interferred" by exercising his right to write a private letter. The recipient exercised his right to take his points into consideration. :ermm:

The financial cartels stroke the ego's of those like Lord Rogers (who shamelessly uses his peerage to his advantage) and other well connected lobbyists who, hand across heart swear they are only lobbying in the best interests of those in need of low cost housing. If that shameless symbol devoted to conspicuous consumption could just be tucked away behind the needs of the plebs nobody would ever notice that it's the luxury apartments (or lack thereof) that is exciting the bile of these stirling models of moral rectitude and righteous indignation. :ROFLMAO:

People in glasshouses really ought not to throw whacking great rocks! :doh:
 
How Charles crushed £3bn development - Times Online

The discreet lobbying campaign waged by the Prince of Wales to kill off plans for a £3 billion modernist apartment complex in Chelsea, west London, has been exposed to public view for the first time.

Prince Charles, the Emir's wife and an £81m Chelsea battle - Telegraph

A dispute over the most expensive piece of land ever bought in Britain, which cost £959 million for a 12-acre site close to the centre of London, will finally boil over into a High Court legal battle this week.

The Prince of Wales, the Emir of Qatar and the £81m Chelsea Barracks lawsuit | Art and design | The Guardian

A bitter dispute involving the Prince of Wales, the Qatari royal family and architect Lord Rogers, who claims a multibillion-pound property project was wrecked by the prince, will come to a head in the high court this week.
 
Last edited:
Prince Charles finds allies to take his "carbuncle war" global - Times Online

Times Online - 22 May 2010

The Prince of Wales has teamed up with a Kuwaiti princess and a Latvian oligarch to take his war on Modernist architecture around the world. To the dismay of his architect foes, a partnership is being launched to move the Prince’s vision of traditional building designs on to a global scale. It has chosen Arab countries, the Americas and Europe as targets for what it describes as its “world-changing” ambitions.

Sheikha Fadia Al-Salem Al-Sabah, known as the “First Lady of Squash”...was inspired to help the Prince after attending a seminar on urban design at Poundbury. A spokesman for the Prince said he hoped that PF Urban would help more communities to create “thriving, healthy and prosperous places” in which to live.
 
Prince's complaint led to panic at property developers, court told - Home News, UK - The Independent

Secret e-mails presented in court have revealed the panic caused among property developers when the Prince of Wales complained about the design of a modernist housing project.

Prince of Wales 'upset' about Qatari development leak - Telegraph

The Prince of Wales was upset that a letter he sent to the Qatari royal family expressing his disapproval at plans for an expensive housing development were exposed, a court heard.

Prince Charles lobbied City Hall over Chelsea site, emails reveal | UK news | The Guardian

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.

How the 'meddling prince' and his aides turned up heat on developers | UK news | The Guardian

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.
 
MARG said:
Oh be still my fluttering heart! Charles "interferred" by exercising his right to write a private letter. The recipient exercised his right to take his points into consideration. :ermm:

People in glasshouses really ought not to throw whacking great rocks! :doh:
Click to expand...


I don't really know enough about Charles' campaign against modern architecture to point fingers at anyone with regards to this issue, but I think this quote from the last Guardian article posted by Warren demonstrates that, to people in the Middle East especially, Charles isn't just a private citizen. He's a member of the royal family, and royals wield real power in many of those countries.


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.
Click to expand...
 
I'm thinking of all the tradespeople who would have been employed by this project and the other economic spin-offs that would have resulted. I wonder whether Prince Charles took these into consideration?:ermm:
 
:previous:
They are changing the design, not scrapping the project.
 
Hopefully he won't object to the next design. I suppose that it's a delay in the starting of the work, even if it isn't eliminating the project.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mermaid1962 said:
Hopefully he won't object to the next design. I suppose that it's a delay in the starting of the work, even if it isn't eliminating the project.
Click to expand...

On this aspect I have to go with Charles and 'not in my backyard" thinking. On this side of the pond.. its been on TV how this most outrageous design etc.. and it does work for where they're building it. In England? something of the same? i'm with Charles and say NOT in that back yard.
 
Last edited:
Not only would Charles wish to stay away from the Bollywood aspect of things...but he's also aware too of the land they wish to build on and perhaps its not the best use of it in his eyes.

Perhaps it me but just maybe to Charles its like another country trying to control a bit of his home. We all know how much Fayed tried to buy his way into the aristocracy and be accepted and um..it never worked.

I'm with Charles. not in my backyard do ya.. (sits on porch. chews tabaccy and rocks with a bottle of Russo's merlot)
 
Because the modern architects think that those modern monstrosities are good for the area.
Had they proposed something that blended with the rest of the architecture of the area there would be no problem at all.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Prince Charles was 'only expressing views of unhappy local residents' by intervening in Chelsea Barracks development | Mail Online

Prince Charles was only expressing the views of unhappy local residents when he intervened over the multimillion-pound Chelsea Barracks property development, a senior aide claimed today.

Sir Michael Peat, his Private Secretary, insisted that Charles decided to write to the Qatari royal family in a bid to scupper the £3billion project because it was his 'duty' to make sure their voices were heard - and not because of any personal opposition he may have had.
 
Tv

Some years ago Charles made a TV programme,
.......not sure if it was about architecture.

I remember thinking at the time that he did rather well as a TV pundit... he has a rich... I would almost say husky voice and in matters of heritage and architecture , he knows what he's talking about.

No doubt he was panned by the critics at the time, but I think, with the right crew and good scripts he could make a series of programmes on the arts, literature, Italian art.... there's no end of subject matter.... he would be a Royal version of Kenneth Clarke !
Personally I think he'd be rather good at it and help educate the younger generation.
 
Can you remember the name of the TV program?
 
:previous:
excerpts:
Prince Charles called on to block modern Iranian embassy next to historic church

The Prince of Wales is being asked to intervene to prevent Iran building a brand new embassy and Islamic cultural centre next to a historic church in one of Britain's most expensive neighbourhoods. The Islamic Republic's proposed new embassy is expected to cost tens of millions of pounds to build and is a bold, futuristic building set among Victorian mansion blocks and Georgian terraces in west London.

Designed by an Austrian-based architect, the plans were lodged as far back as January with the local council, but residents have claimed that they only learned of the development in July – and a fortnight after public consultation closed. The proposed building, designed by Daneshgar Architects in Vienna, is five storeys high...Clad in marble and stone, the embassy – comprising what could best be described as an overarching rhomboid with a bright yellow square structure beneath – is less than 20ft from St Augustine's Church, a grade II*-listed church designed by William Butterfield, the renowned Victorian architect.

Residents are only now starting to campaign to stop the embassy. Maria von Moltke, 74, who lives about 100 yards away, is writing to Prince Charles, pleading with him to help. Clarence House said that the Prince would wait for the residents' letter to arrive before responding.
 
silverstar said:
Some years ago Charles made a TV programme,
.......not sure if it was about architecture.

I remember thinking at the time that he did rather well as a TV pundit... he has a rich... I would almost say husky voice and in matters of heritage and architecture , he knows what he's talking about.
Click to expand...

I think that I saw this program a month or two ago on cable in Australia. I remember it particularly well because, to my complete astonishment, the prince said that he'd read Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' and recommended it to the interviewer and camera crew, saying that it was 'wonderful'. Whereas I fully agree with his view, the trilogy in question has been highly controversial, particularly in the US. And he had read it, clearly, as he mentioned some of the special, iconic incidents which recur throughout the work.

For those who don't know this trilogy, part 1 is called 'Northern Lights'. A film was made of it entitled 'The Golden Compass', but it was so emasculated so as not to offend anyone or the Church, that the film was a terrific let down after the book and had little of the original tension, intensity, narrative brilliance and terror.

In this program, too, the prince talked knowledgeably and sympathetically about a magnificent, but decaying major country house which was being sold off in bits and pieces before he stepped in and helped organise funds and expertise to save Dumfries House, a Palladian mansion in Ayrshire, and its unrivalled collection of Chippendale furniture. One bookcase alone was valued at £4m! Prince Charles did outstandingly well in this program and I often wonder why he has so few opportunities to present himself in forums such as this in which he positively shines.
 
Prince Charles called on to block modern Iranian embassy next to historic church

Well, good for him if he does, Warren.

Even where I live, none is permitted to construct anything which positively shrieks at its surroundings and environment.

Although I don't share his opinions on modern architecture, overall, he's right to protest at the visual noise which modern architects and money-makers indulge in, inappropriately, and with nary a care for the inhabitants or the surroundings.

I fear though, as usual, he'll be castigated for his genuine concern for even the built environment if he accedes to this request.
 
He can't possibly "win", either way. If the architectural lobbyists don't get him, then the C of E lobby might.
 
Prince Charles drafted in to help rebuild quake damaged Port-au-Prince | World news | The Guardian

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.
 
:previous:Oh cool. There are very few that have stayed beyond the first month after the earthquake (Sean Penn, whom personally I cannot stand, however I greatly respect his efforts to help the Hatian people, and Tyler Perry whom I greatly admire and adore.) so I do hope HRH will make a difference for those people with his contribution.
 
Architects angry at Prince's power grab - Architecture, Arts & Entertainment - The Independent

He has damned modern designs for London's National Gallery and Chelsea Barracks, trumpeted a traditionalist model town in Dorset and delivered verdicts on buildings to ministers and world leaders. Now Prince Charles's architectural influence could be felt across Britain.

In a move which has angered architects favouring contemporary design, the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment has mooted plans to offer professional design advice on future developments nationwide.

Prince Charles offers to take on key architectural planning role | UK news | The Guardian

Prince Charles is poised to extend his influence over the skyline with an offer to arbitrate Britain's most significant planning applications, a role previously executed by a quango that had its funding axed in the comprehensive spending review.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Jo of Palatine
Prince of Wales - Title, Succession and Wales
2 3 4
Replies
96
Views
24K
Tatiana Maria
T
E
Poundbury
2
Replies
44
Views
12K
Dman
Dman
lula
  • Locked
State Visit from South Korea to Spain: February 11-14, 2007
2
Replies
39
Views
8K
ladejesus
ladejesus
J
Prince Charles's Interest in Organic Farming and Gardening
3 4 5
Replies
121
Views
24K
Dman
Dman
A
  • Locked
Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles News 2: July-November 2003
4 5 6
Replies
163
Views
20K
Alexandria
A

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom