[Which reminds me, the following is from the Sept. 8 Telegraph.]
Prince seeks architects from racial minorities
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
The Prince of Wales announced a new scholarship yesterday, in memory of Stephen Lawrence, the murdered black teenager, in an attempt to increase the number of architects from ethnic minorities.
He also made a fresh assault on modern architecture, denouncing the "genetically modified" buildings that have blighted Britain's towns and cities. The Prince said the "thoughtlessness" behind many urban designs had led to "a tide of uglification that threatens to engulf us". He was delivering the inaugural Stephen Lawrence memorial lecture before an audience of about 200, gathered together in a renovated tram shed attached to the Prince's Foundation headquarters in east London.
Stephen had wanted to become an architect before he was stabbed to death in south-east London in a racist attack. The Prince hoped that a place on the architecture course at his foundation would inspire other young black and ethnic minority people to "design buildings and places of quality, interest and beauty".
Stephen's parents, Neville and Doreen Lawrence, were present for the first in what is intended to be a series of annual lectures on the theme of architecture. The emotion of the occasion was too much for Mr Lawrence, who cut short his address. He said: "It's too painful to think of my son's innocent life."
Mrs Lawrence said the trust set up in her son's name was working to help young architects from the ethnic minorities to fulfil the dream that was denied to Stephen. The Prince voiced his "deepest sympathy" for the bereaved parents. He said: "I can well imagine what they must have gone through in trying to cope with this tragedy in their lives."
The Prince said that despite his well-documented attacks on modernism in architecture, he was not seeking to sponsor "parody or pastiche. My foundation is certainly not an exercise in defending tradition for its own sake". He said: "Pastiche, I know, is the cardinal sin for the architect. However, far worse, is the careless and arrogant rejection of the legacy of many centuries and many societies."
The Prince lamented the passing of basic architectural skills. He said: "There has been a tragic loss of respect, often even of any acknowledgment, of the value of craftsmanship, artistry and tradition in the teaching and practice of architecture . . . [It] largely, and sometimes completely, ignores the value of a grounding in traditional techniques.
"Such basic skills as measured drawing, drawing from life and classical geometry now find no place in the courses of most schools of architecture. This is a short-sighted tragedy." The Prince said he wanted to see an "architecture of the heart" that respected the art of "place-making". He said: "Our lives are shaped by the towns and cities we inhabit and by the beauty or the ugliness of our surrounddings.
"Good architecture is all about working with the grain of a place, rather than against it, and humility in architecture in no way needs to imply sameness, blandness, nor poor design. It is depressing that so much architecture has become what I would describe as 'genetically modified' rather than 'organic'. In other words, much architecture is clinically functional rather than growing directly from the inner nature of people.
"I am not seeking a static and backward-looking architecture; rather a reassertion of the value of a living tradition as a vast reservoir of ideas and techniques to sustain a truly contemporary architecture that reflects the timeless nature of our human experience."
[end]
Carl
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