Don't mention the restoration! Prince quits heritage body in censorship row
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Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall outside their converted farmhouse near Llandovery, Wales
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The Prince of Wales has resigned as patron of Britain's most venerable heritage society after a heated falling-out over his conservative architectural views, The Independent has learnt.
Prince Charles quit as patron of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, which William Morris founded in 1877, after it rejected a foreword he had written for a handbook on the restoration of old houses.
The Prince forcefully took the view in the piece that old houses should always be restored in their original style, while the society, despite its title, is committed to employing the best of modern architecture and design in restoration projects.
When it asked for the foreword to be amended, it was rebuffed and told it was all or nothing. It chose to reject the piece, issuing a virtually unprecedented snub to the Royal Family. The Prince, taking the view that he was being censored, responded by ending his association with the society.
The embarrassing rift took place several months ago but has until now been kept entirely confidential.
Yesterday, the society's secretary Philip Venning confirmed that the Prince had quit over the issue of his rejected comments.
The Prince's office also confirmed that his five-year association with the society had come to an end.
The row will further reinforce the image of Prince Charles as a dyed-in-the-wool conservative in architectural matters, a view which was given wide currency last month when he intervened to secure the abandonment of a £1bn high-tech development at central London's Chelsea Barracks site by the leading modernist architect Richard Rogers.
An infuriated Lord Rogers accused the Prince of "an abuse of power" and of acting unconstitutionally.
In the dispute with the society, the Prince's rejected foreword was intended for The Old House Handbook, a guide to repairing and caring for old buildings written in association with the society by two of Britain's leading architectural commentators, Roger Hunt and Marianne Suhr.
Hunt is a well known architectural journalist, while Suhr is a chartered surveyor, writer, and expert on historic buildings who co-presented the television series Restoration alongside Ptolemy Dean and Griff Rhys Jones.
Mr Venning said the Prince had agreed to write the foreword at the request of Hunt and Suhr and although the society was happy with most of his comments, there was one section which "could not be squared" with its views and with what the book was saying about new design in connection with the restoration and extension of historic buildings.
The Prince felt the issue of "honesty" in conservation – using design and materials of your own time, to which the society is committed – had been used too often to justify unsatisfactory alterations and ugly additions.
The society asked the Prince's office for the passage to be amended, but its request was refused. As a result, Mr Venning, in consultation with his executive committee, rejected the foreword and wrote another one himself.
Shortly afterwards, the Prince's five-year tenure as the society's patron was up for renewal and he decided not to continue in the position, ending his relationship with the society.
Asked if he regretted the Prince's departure, Mr Venning said: "The fact is, we agree with so much of what he says, but on the issue of new design there are occasions when we disagree, and we won't disguise the fact. We were pleased he was our patron."
The Prince of Wales took over as the society's patron after the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who had been patron since 1977. The society has yet to appoint a new patron.
The 'grandaddy' of conservation groups
Founded by the socialist architect, designer and writer William Morris, the SPAB is the world's oldest environment campaigning group, the "grandaddy" of all conservation organisations, preceding the National Trust, for example, by nearly 20 years (the Trust's founder Octavia Hill was a SPAB member). Over its 132 years of existence it has been supported by many of Britain's leading cultural figures, from Burne-Jones and Ruskin in Victorian times to John Betjeman in the 20th century and more recently, by figures such as Griff Rhys Jones, Jeanette Winterson and Bill Bryson.
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Comments
Totally correct - restoring ancient buildings with new materials & new ideas? - What the hell are these people thinking? Restoring buildings is about leaving them for following generations - there's not much to be learned from a building that has had a "McDonalds makeover" unleashed upon it.
I am behind Charles all the way; if it wasn't for him, the inner city of London would have ceased to sport fine architecture years ago.
This is not only a matter of taste and technology, but we simply cannot continue to build in the way we have, for environmental reasons. The future of buildings requires use of glass, steel and plastics, sorry about that. These materials are all recoverable. Natural materials like stone and slate are indeed beautiful but the quarries are an eyesore and by now practically empty anyway, at least in Britain. Wood is beautiful too, but there won't be much of that left soon, the tropical forests are already severely depleted. Concrete is needed for the foundations of buildings, bridges etc. but it too should be used sparingly because of the huge energy bill in making cement, not to mention more quarrying.
As for restoration, well, I have to admit that Charlie has a point. As far as possible, ancient buildings that are considered worth preserving should be preserved using the materials that they were first built with, as far as possible. I admit too, that there will be a conflict here with the lofty (but necessary) aims that I outlined above re:future buildings. A slate roof should be repaired with slate, oak beams with oak etc. etc. There should be an allowance made for use of such materials in really important old buildings.
But, like it or not, William Morris's blueprint for the (his) future is completely invalid today.
Eaxactly. So why are the champions of a pastiche style based on Germany and France immediately after WWI so fervent in their advocacy, and determined to represent their preferred century-old pastiche as "modern" and "of our time."
Modernism is just as tired and old as any other style. There hasn't been any genuine movement in architecture for a century now, as modernism's acolytes have become increasingly reactionary.
If you go to any stately home you will be told that 'parts date back to the xx'th century' - the west wing was built in the xx'th. A really interesting and important structure shows the passage of time and the traces of the societies that have lived and worked within it.
Perhaps Prince Charles should stick to building quaint, picturesque parodies of the past. It's very arrogant to think that history ends with us - 100 years from now, the buildings we create now will be all that remains of us and will be part of the traces of the past that our society leaves behind - and I would rather it be an accurate description of the times than a pretend pastiche. The P.O.W is putting the 'Mock' into 'Tudor'
We have the technology to reproduce the natural look and feel to man made materials. Safety must be the first priority to rebuilding the old structures. Some of the materials first used are no longer available or so cost prohibitive that the repairs could not be made. This would lead to further deterioration, eventually loosing the structure all together. Common sense is needed when restoring an old building an all old or new attitude does not work.
I often wonder how much of an eye sore St Pauls cathedral must have looked when it was being built, towering over the whole of London a huge stone monolith surrounded by small wooden houses.
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Old houses (worthy of preservation) should ALWAYS be restored in their original style.
Most other cultures do exactly this, and in doing so preserve ancient skills that lift the spirits of everyone else around them.
It is frankly unconstitutional, not to mention barmy, to argue that old houses should always be restored using the best of modern architecture and design.
Lord Rogers is wrong and should stick to doing what he does best: producing massive glass boxes for Shanghai, Beijing, Dubai, and Singapore.
Norman Foster is a pompous oik who has been destroying Britain's architectural urban landscape for more years than anyone can remember without any reference to the wishes of the British people who this enobled knob clearly believes are are beneath him. No surpirse then that he's the favoured architect of that other hive of elitists, the Labour Party.
It's good that in Prince Charles the British people have someone who is prepared to stand up for them and the urban environment which they have to inhabit but have so little say in.
If he had been born 50 years sooner would he have insisted that people should continue to live in restored 2-up, 2-down back-to-backs? Does he have any idea the additional costs imposed by listing buildings?
The fact is that SPAB are fascists. They are so intolerant they refuse to allow Prince Charles the freedom to say what he thinks. The refusal to tolerate dissent is fascism.
SPAB admit that the differences between them and Prince Charles are very small, so why not allow him his say? To be so intransigent as to demand total and complete agreement is fascism pure and simple.
And Hunt and Suhr , while both expert in their fields, could not be any stretch of the imagination be described as two of this country's foremost architectural commentators.
Possibly before anyone else makes uninformed comments, it should study the SPAB website, which expands on its views. Without SPAB, we would have lost many fine ancient buildings, and far too many would have been 'restored' not 'repaired' with sympathy.
http://www.spab.org.uk/html/what-is-spa
Mostly, within its aims, it works with a certain degree of pragmatism. However, how Prince Charles was unaware of the SPAB philosophy is a mystery, and it only advocates the highest standard of new design where appropriate.
Are you a SPAB member?
However, addition, renewal and repair does not have to be unsympathetic and damaging to the original building, but it should not try to confuse.
However, his five year stint is at an end, and he's allowed not to agree with SPAB philosophy and to wish not to carry on as patron. All this is past history. The book is not recent.
And as Philip Venning said on radio today, you can't, as protocol, argue directly with HRH. Which is a shame, as I have no doubt some sensible discussion would iron out any perceived differences. I suspect they are minor.
He has done some excellent things in the realm of historic building conservation, overtly and otherwise.