A Vision of Britain:
A Personal View of Architecture
by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales
(Doubleday, 160 pp., $40)
Tudor, Regency, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian: as every suburban real estate agent know, some of the most attractive styles in the history of architecture and design took their names from British monarchs. Until a few years ago, however, probably no one imagined that there were still more floats to come in this stately parade of royally sanctioned decorative art. I doubt very much, for instance, that the current monarch either hoped or wishes her name listed to the Festival of Britain style, a prissy modernoid mode named after the 1951 event held two years before her coronation, much less to the style called Brutalism that captivated architects a few years later.
But then, in 1984, rounding the bend of the peculiar time warp in modern history known as Postmodernism, the heir to the throne loped into view, cupped hand waving, media horns blowing, cameras running as stirred the stagnant air of contemporary Britain with a stream of sophomoric insults aimed at proposed architectural projects. Monstrous carbuncle. Giant glass stump. Old 1930s wireless. Frankenstein’s monster. Last year this killer wit fleshed out his views to the length of a seventy-five minute BBC documentary, A Vision of Britain; and now there’s a book of the same title, based on the broadcast. Sumptuously illustrated with watercolors by the prince, paintings by Turner and Canaletto, and dozens of color photos of buildings he dislikes and those he favores, its endpapers and chapter headings adored with his personal crest, the book sets forth the tenets of a new Power Look. Windsorism, anyone?
The selling point of the book is that it marks the first publication of Charles's fully developed Ten Principles--"a set of sensible and widely-agreed rules, saying what people can and what they cannot do." But some may find the book mote useful as a textbook study in the use of language to prop up the privileges and the self-esteem of a declining nation's pooped-out ruling class. Anyone who's spent time on the sceptered isle will recognize with a shudder the mixture of heavy cream laced with bile that Charles pouirs out in his prose: the false modesty ("I humbly acknowledge my lack of academic credentials"), the scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon? contempt for achievement (the twentieth century has produced no great architects, only "great architects"), the ostrich stance toward the present ("Many architets and developers believe that architecture should reflect the spirit of the age-- whatever that might be!"), and the utterly charming loopiness ("Have you noticed how unfinished so many new housing developments seem nowadays without chimneys?").
There's nothing specifically English about the most egregious of Charles's rhetorical devices. It is the "silent majority" tactic cherished by demagogues everywhere. There would be more substance to Charles's "personal view of architecture," as his subtitle describes it, if he didn't feel the need to prop himself up with populist crutches on every other page. But in a way that's the real subject of this book: not architecture, but the contract between a Postmodern prince and his subjects. He wants us to know that "99 percent [of the letters he received after his BBC broadcast] agreed with my feelings," that "although I'll be criticized for myy ideas [by 'porcupine-like professionals and cantankerous critics'] I'm sure there is general agreement" among the good folks. No doubt Charles does feel deeply for Madge Atkins, the resident of a Modern high-rise building that has developed such serious structural problems that water pours in through the cracks and the window frames keep falling out. But, like silent majoritarians everywhere, Charles exploits the plight of the poor Madges of the world to hide the cracks in his own privileged position. It's Madge's job to wrap the populist veneer over a sagging structure of privilege.
As for the Ten Principles themselves, they are intellectually closer to Hints from Heloise than to Ruskin's Seven Lamps, but they are reasonable enough. Buildings, Charles advises, should enhance the landscape (The Place); their size, and the proportions of their constituent elements, should match their cultural and functional significance (Hierarchy); they should respect the proportions of the human form and that of the existing physical context (Scale); their exteriors should also relate visually to their surroundings (Harmony); they should provide a sense of shelter from the world (Enclosure); utilize the physical resources of the region (Materials); offer pleasure to the eye (Decoration); incorporate paintings and sculptures (Art); remain undisturbed by visual distractions (Signs and Lights); reflect the needs and desires of the public (Community).
These are all useful things to keep in mind when we're looking at architecture. The problem is not with the Principles, but rather with the thesis they have been constructed to support. These ideas, Charles believes, are "a simple extension" of the rules and patterns that have guided architects and builders for centuries"-- until, that is, the postwar period, when suddenly Things Went Wrong. Suddenlv, in the 19.50s and 1960s, architects abandoned the time-honored lessons of the forefathers and set out across the land on an orgy of destruction. tearing down beloved landmarks. herding the populace into bleak boxes, trampling on all the values the English have held dear since the dawn of time. Suddenly there was Modernism: concrete bunkers on the Thames to house, of all things, the performing arts; blocks of functionalist council flats scarring the countryside, spoiling the view.
There’s only one solution: send the architects back to school for a classical education. Let them relearn “the true and ancient art of architecture.” Let them reclaim the heritage of the traditional styles. And Charles makes quite clear that the matter of style takes precedence over even the best of his Principles, the advocacy of community involvement. “I feel if architects are not thoroughly versed in an architectural tradition, Gothic or Classical, no amount of community consultation can produce really good buildings.”
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