Meanderer
Supreme Member
Carbuncles and King Charles: was the royal family’s meddling supertroll right about architecture?
28 September, 2022
‘Glass stump’ … Mies van der Rohe’s proposals for No 1 Poultry in the City of London. Photograph: John Donat / RIBA Collections
"The prince relished his position as the high priest of taste. He gleefully scolded the royally chartered professions of architecture and town planning for creating “godforsaken cities” littered with “huge, blank and impersonal” buildings. His words were carefully tuned to grab headlines."
"Birmingham city centre was damned as “a monstrous concrete maze,” with a library that looked like “a place where books are incinerated, not kept”. The brutalist National Theatre on the South Bank was “a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London”. The British Library looked “more like the assembly hall of an academy for secret police”."
"Like an accomplished shitposting troll, the prince knew how to rile his targets. He had tested his strategy a few years earlier, in an address to the Royal Institute of British Architects, on the occasion of its 150th birthday."
"Styling himself as a defender of popular opinion, he chided the audience for “ignoring the feelings and wishes of the mass of ordinary people in this country,” and famously damned a proposed glass and steel extension to the National Gallery as “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend,” nixing the scheme in the process. Four decades on, the c-word continues to be hurled by outraged local residents at everything from luxury flats in York to a station revamp in Lowestoft."
Royal visit … the former Prince of Wales in Poundbury, Dorset, earlier this year (2022). Photograph: WPA/Getty Images
28 September, 2022
‘Glass stump’ … Mies van der Rohe’s proposals for No 1 Poultry in the City of London. Photograph: John Donat / RIBA Collections
"The prince relished his position as the high priest of taste. He gleefully scolded the royally chartered professions of architecture and town planning for creating “godforsaken cities” littered with “huge, blank and impersonal” buildings. His words were carefully tuned to grab headlines."
"Birmingham city centre was damned as “a monstrous concrete maze,” with a library that looked like “a place where books are incinerated, not kept”. The brutalist National Theatre on the South Bank was “a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London”. The British Library looked “more like the assembly hall of an academy for secret police”."
"Like an accomplished shitposting troll, the prince knew how to rile his targets. He had tested his strategy a few years earlier, in an address to the Royal Institute of British Architects, on the occasion of its 150th birthday."
"Styling himself as a defender of popular opinion, he chided the audience for “ignoring the feelings and wishes of the mass of ordinary people in this country,” and famously damned a proposed glass and steel extension to the National Gallery as “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend,” nixing the scheme in the process. Four decades on, the c-word continues to be hurled by outraged local residents at everything from luxury flats in York to a station revamp in Lowestoft."
Royal visit … the former Prince of Wales in Poundbury, Dorset, earlier this year (2022). Photograph: WPA/Getty Images
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