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Aneirin -> The prince at it again. (5/11/2009 11:44:14 PM)
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With a follow up of his famous or indeed infamous 1984 'Monstrous carbuncle' speech to the RIBA conference, there are calls by prominent architects to boycott the prince's forthcoming speech to the conference on the 12th of May ;
http://www.24dash.com/news/Housing/2009-05-11-Architects-call-for-boycott-of-Prince-Charles-RIBA-lecture
Twenty five years ago, I remember this speech and it's outcome, the rabble press jumping on his words and highlighting his speech as though he was the saviour of the British architectural horizon. I also remember and have seen what British architecture largely became, too many and too much revivalist architecture, echoes of a past time, twee little pseudo Georgian ultra conservative buildings designed to not challenge the eye. What he created, was boredom in British architecture.
Maybe he had a point, some ideas were just plain crazy, and the man in the street often had no say on what offended his eyes, he being largely excluded from the machinations of the planning and design procedures, he feeling he had no say.
What does occur, looking back, is there is too much red brick, too much pseudo half timbered creations and very little for the future generations to look back upon and remember this time period, it is with a few notable exceptions, (the superb London Skyline mixing modern with old and the superb 'Selfridges' in Birmingham), uninspiring and boring.
Prince Charles likes the work of Sir Christopher Wren, to him that is desireable architecture, St. Paul's Cathedral in London from the Victorian era, but if the prince shoves his oar in again at the RIBA conference, are we in danger of having another twenty five years of largely uninspiring building art. We need Sir Christopher Wren's of today and tommorrow for present and future generations to consider and remember our present technological and artistic construction abilities.
A further point is, if our surroundings are a mass of old, new, ultra modern, brave, artistic different and challenging ideas, could such a eyescape actually inspire us to think in a better directions rather than the past all the time, maybe if we see daring around us, it may encourage more to dare, dare to be different and approach the same old sameness with a new mind.
Should the Prince keep out of it, or is he an important player ?
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