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Prince's charity to have say on Chelsea Barracks redesign
Mira Bar-Hillel, Property Correspondent26.06.09
Prince Charles's architecture charity will play a key role in redesigning the plans for the Chelsea Barracks site.
However, refuting accusations that the Prince "destroyed" the original plans by Lord Rogers to provide "jobs for the boys", the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment will work with the Qatari owners on a no-fee basis.
In an exclusive interview with the Standard, Foundation director Hank Dittmar explained how the development of the sensitive site would now progress.
He said: "The Foundation was approached a few days before the previous scheme was withdrawn and asked to advise on design principles.
"The Qataris would like us to suggest possible firms and sit in on the interviews. We hope to stay on board afterwards, to inform and advise the Qataris and the planners."
The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment is an educational charity which was set up in 1998 to improve the quality of people's lives by teaching and practising timeless and ecological ways of planning, designing and building.
The barracks site has been controversial since Qatari Diar, the investment arm of the Qatari royal family, acquired it last year for just under £1billion with the Candy brothers, who have since been bought out. Lord Rogers was commissioned to design it.
He eventually submitted a Modernist steel glass development, and the Belgravia Residents' Association started fighting the plans.
The tipping point came when a letter written by Prince Charles to the Qatari prime minister was leaked to the press. Attacks on the Prince by the architectural establishment could not contain the revolt.
A week before the final scheme was to be considered by Westminster's planning committee it was withdrawn by the Qataris and Lord Rogers, who bitterly attacked the Prince's involvement as "unconstitutional and undemocratic".
Mr Dittmar said: "As an American, I looked for this constitution and couldn't find it. What I do know is that people have always tried to influence developers in various directions. The developers can easily ignore them - and often do.
"It was not the opinion of one man but that of hundreds of the previously silent majority which caused the scheme to be withdrawn. The Prince simply empowered them to speak up, and I find that very democratic indeed."
Mr Dittmar is equally clear about the future direction of the Chelsea Barracks development: "It is as simple as going back to the council's own design brief, which was agreed by Westminster in 2006."
The brief says any scheme must "relate sensitively to the surrounding historic townscape context" of mainly conservation areas in Belgravia.
Mr Dittmar said: "It should be perfectly possible to achieve high densities based on the traditional London model of mansion blocks - for example, the areas around Sloane Court and Franklin's Row in Chelsea.
"Moreover, while the models may reflect the approaches of the Georgian and Victorian eras, there could well be perfectly acceptable contemporary solutions within the rules of the brief."
Reader views (3)
Some of London's finest architecture was designed by non-architects (e.g. Frank Matcham who designed so many splendid West End Theatres) or commissioned by royalty and some of its most hideous buildings hated by the people of London are by so-called 'leading' architects working with town planners (e.g. the Elephant & Castle), so the involvement of the Prince's charity in the Chelsea Barracks site is to be welcomed!
- Thomas, London
Heaven Help Us!
- Gourmet, Hove England
How many charities does this man have!? an architecture charity?
BUTT OUT! He is NOT a trained architect and neither does he live near the site. These groups and the planners are the only ones who should be working together to sort this mess out not uncle charlie!
- Michael James, SW3
