My Lord Rogers of Rackrent, one of the Very Venerable and Great Panjandrums of The London Mediocracy who hold all, apart from themselves, in utter disdain, has let it be known that he is peeved with the Prince of Wales. He has demanded from the Prime Minister, one of his office juniors, the Secretaries of State, his office cleaners, and others that the Prince be subject to discipline, nay extirpation (that will cause a run on Wikipedia). The grounds for this are that the Prince has behaved like a common Nimby (not in my back yard) factionalist in expressing dislike for Lord Rogers concept of a huge heap of metal and glass piled up at random on a disused military site in London, that overlooks a Royal Park, central Royal properties, and one of the few attractive patches of central London.
Oddly, these Royal places, despite occupying a fair amount of space do not intrude on, nor dominate the sky line. Lord Rogers wants to do just that, and in line with past and future plans wishes to ensure that for the next century or more it is his buildings or those put up with his imprimatur that will define London as it enters its period of terminal decline. Yet he calls the Prince arrogant. I have called His Royal Highness a few things in my time, but that word is not amongst them.
Even more strangely, Lord Rogers is amongst the most active and intent of the political wheeler dealers within the London elite. His pursuit of authority and influence is relentless. Much of it is unseen and unreported, understandably, the wrath of Lord Rogers is to be feared. So when the Prince, faced with a major development in his patch which he dislikes and fears, decides to have a quiet word with an old contact, Lord Rogers goes into transports of rage, plays the anti-royal card at the highest levels in the media, demands that he be silenced forever, and hurls jibes and insults at a chap only trying to keep the DIY obsessive next door from wrecking the view and the value of his property.
The trouble is that it is not just HRH The Prince of Wales that Lord Rogers wants to silence, it is anyone and everyone who either questions or wishes to debate what he and some of his closest cronies are doing, and for their own profit. My interest is more simple. One way or another I am one of the poor mugs who at the end of the line have to pay for Lord Rogers, and for that matter the Prince of Wales, flights of fancy.
If Lord Rogers cannot stand the heat he should get out of the kitchen, but then does any architect really understand kitchens?
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones - for Rogers to suggest the PofW is 'arrogant' is beyond ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteTrue arrogance is dismissing the public's opinion of the buildings in which they live and work as beneath contempt, while contemplating ever more impractical structures ad maioram gloriam Rogersi.
For the past year, I have worked in a building where the multi-storey glass atrium becomes a suffocating oven on sunny days, where the staircase soars majestically - to nowhere, the top one-and-a-half flights connected to a blank wall - and where pieces of the roof fly off whenever the wind exceeds force 4.
You will not be surprised to hear that it has won several awards for design.