Years ago, Prince Charles made an infamous remark about an extension on The National Gallery. He likened it to a monstrous carbuncle on the face of an old friend. He immediately made himself very unpopular with The Royal Society of Architects. Decades on he attempted to reconcile his remarks by saying sorry for his infamous "monstrous carbuncle" attack on plans for an extension to the national Gallery made at Riba's (Royal Institute of British Architects) 150th anniversary.
"I am sorry if I somehow left the faintest impression that I wished to kick-start some kind of style war' between classicists and modernists; or that I somehow wanted to drag the world back to the 18th century," said the Prince, adding: "All I asked was for room to be given to traditional approaches to architecture and urbanism."
The attempt at conciliation appeared to appease some of the architects in the audience. An article in Building Design magazine stated: "It was low-key, polite and amusing at times. He seemed to say that 25 years ago, he was only saying there should be some room to do traditional architecture rather than saying everything should be traditional, so it's good that he corrected that."
But other architects like Will Alsop, who had called for a boycott of last night's speech, said: "He did start a style war, which is the most facile of architectural conversations. He missed the point entirely. He successfully stopped the National Gallery extension and the careers of the architects have never really recovered. He needs to think about that." So what Alsop seems to be saying is that there is no right for dissent.
Sorry Will, I'm no Royalist, but for once I think that the idiot boy got it right.
