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The announcement of the list of master planners for Chelsea Barracks alongside the unearthing of a four-year-old letter from the Prince of Wales to the developer of One New Change next to St Paul's Cathedral has once again put planning and architecture issues in London in the national eye.
While media attention has focused on the private correspondence of the Prince of Wales, the Evening Standard's editorial on 12 August declared that these planning issues were more important than the “style war” being waged between the Prince and the architecture community.
This isn't just about style. The assertion that the prince didn't see the larger issues was erroneous, and the Chelsea Barracks and One New Change cases can demonstrate the point.
In his lecture to the Royal Institute of British Architecture this year, the Prince argued that there is “a much more fundamental division than that between Classicism and Modernism: namely the one between “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches to architecture ... There remains a gulf between those obsessed by forms (and Classicists can be as guilty of this as Modernists, Postmodernists or Post-Postmodernists), and those who believe that communities have a role to play in design and planning.”
Your editorial called for a genuine public consultation, and, in fact, serious community engagement is key to the prince's foundation's Enquiry By Design process, which brings officials and residents together to reach a consensus on the ultimate plan. This approach contrasts with the “show and tell” that passes for consultation in most major schemes.
I am pleased that the Chelsea Barracks developer has engaged a firm to adapt these principles to the new master planning effort there. Your editorial also argued that land values had forced the densities to be too high. Indeed, the prince spoke about this issue in 2008, when he said “these location efficiencies can be achieved easily by traditional English building types, including the four- to five-storey terrace and the six- to 10-storey mansion block. It's worth remembering this. In fact, Kensington and Chelsea, which lacks tower blocks, is the densest London borough.”
To test this point, The foundation looked at the density of Chelsea neighbourhoods near the Barracks site and found the densities required could be accommodated through a master plan of traditional London blocks with a four- to six-storey mansion block. The master planning will allow this premise to be evaluated in detail.
The idea of starting with a master plan merits an explanation. The tendency nowadays, even for large sites, is for architects to treat the site as a heroic composition, or even as a single massive building. The Paternoster Square development next to St Paul's Cathedral is a good example of a more robust approach. There, after controversy, a master plan of blocks and buildings was developed involving a number of architects. The street and building pattern was eventually built, and the result is an addition to the City of London's streetscape, with both traditional and modernist buildings by many hands rather than one pair of hands.
The past decade has seen an increasing emphasis on heroic schemes, ratified by expert design review panels and passed by planning officials cowed by expertise and the desire to be “cool”. In saying the emperor is wearing no clothes, the prince is only speaking for most Londoners who look at these projects and wonder how they got approved. At least with Chelsea Barracks there is the chance to get it right. For the site next to St Paul's, it is too late.
Hank Dittmar is chief executive of The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment.
Reader views (4)
I don't know on what basis this partisan comment has been published but in NO WAY does the Prince of Wales speak for Londoners. He is neither elected, apointed or qualified for his self congratulatory role as aesthetic arbiter.
Charles Windsor is the best and most compelling argument for a Republic than anyone I can think of. Thank goodness that his Mum has more sense and feeling for diplomacy and her role in society than her son.
Can't the RIBA and RICS lobby the Government to remind him of his constitutional responsibilities and role?
- Peter, London, UK
As such an esteemed expert you clearly are aware Kensington and Chelsea lacks tower blocks... so I suppose you'd call Trellick Tower which resides in that very borough a "mansion block"?
- James, London
'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' and it strikes me that what some top architects regard as beautiful, most mere mortals regard as horrible.
- Alex C, London
Couldn't agree more. The famous architects are just annoyed that their pet projects are being scrutinised by someone with the common sense to point out that they are horrible. The whole issue of giant buildings not in keeping with their environment is getting far worse in London. We are going to end up with a cityscape of tower blocks and grotty "public spaces" around them which a few years in will be as covered in graffiti and rubbish as the 50's & 60's estates are now. Proper houses of a decent size are what people want to live in, not a box stacked on top of several floors of identical boxes.
- Rob, London
