Charles lands blow against towers of steel and glass

12 April 2012

Prince Charles has fought a 25-year battle against modern architecture - ever since branding a plan for an extension on the National Gallery as a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend".

His intervention then led to the National Gallery scheme being scrapped and now he has won again, this time defeating Lord Rogers's plans for Chelsea Barracks.

The prince prefers traditional bricks and mortar to glass and steel and made those feelings known to the Qatari royal family who are behind the Chelsea Barracks scheme.

As first revealed in the Evening Standard in April, Prince Charles launched his campaign against the development with a letter to the prime minister of Qatar in which he described Lord Rogers's scheme as "unsympathetic".

The Qataris, not wishing to offend a member of the British royal family or upset residents, appear to have taken heed of his advice and backed down.

The prince will now want to see a classical design on the site, bought for £1billion at the peak of the property boom.

He has long promoted classical architecture and has even built his vision of a modern village at Poundbury in Dorset. Many modern architects despise it.

They are also angered by his attack on Lord Rogers's proposal for the Chelsea Barracks site, believing he used his position to exert undue influence on the democratic planning process.

Only last month, Prince Charles appeared to apologise for his "carbuncle" comments at a speech made at the Royal Institute of British Architects.

He said: "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.

"All I asked was for room to be given to traditional approaches to architecture and urbanism."

But he then went on to launch a further attack on modernist architecture, branding the destruction of towns and cities in the Sixties as "brutal" and "insane".

Today's announcement that the Lord Rogers plan is scrapped will only intensify architects' anger with the prince.

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