Be informed

So, a quarter of a million people turned out on a sunny bank holiday yesterday to pledge their support to their local hunts, for ten years now deprived, by law, of the right to hunt live foxes. This turnout is supposed to be a clear signal that the law should be overturned to allow the rich, again, to tyrannise the countryside in the name of fun. There are seemingly something like 60 million people in the UK. It is going to take more than 250 thousand rich people and their employees to overturn this law.

And then there is architecture. Charles Windsor (aka the Prince of Wales) has apparently come up with 10 principles of architecture that have traction only because he is rich, powerful and the heir to the throne. The principles all reflect his worldview – privilege, aesthetic, means, wealth, ownership, to name but a few. His principles have been put to the sword by architecture critic, Douglas Murphy, in the Guardian newspaper. I have to say that I enjoyed reading the demolition job which concludes with the following:

“[W]hen Charles blasts modern architecture, he is essentially blasting the historical processes set in motion by the industrial revolution, and lamenting the diminution of his royal power in the world that it brought about. His dreams of traditionally designed cities are dreams of a world where people forever know their place.”

There’s a lot of architecture that I do not like, but there is an awful lot of architecture that reflects my own origins, sense of place and aspirations. My former university, the University of East Anglia, is one big block of concrete. But I owe so much to that place and the people within it.

Pictures: Master of foxhounds leads the field from Powderham Castle in Devon, England: Owain.davies

Charles Windsor: Dan Marsh