on 9th september 2022 the queen of england queen elizabeth ii passed away she of course was the
longest living monarch of britain and has seen the monarchy go through some incredible changes
over the years now to be honest i am not a big fan of the monarchy being from india which was
one of the colonies of the british empire i know of the terrible terrible period in history that
india went through to help sustain the glory of the british empire and of the monarchy so when i
heard of her passing i was as sad as one could be about hearing that another human had passed away
but for me she was mostly a reminder of everything that had been taken from india
and from many other colonies to give her the privilege that she was just
born into the only good thing according to me that has come out of all of this nonsense is the show
the crown of which i am just waiting for the next season however another thought came to my mind as
soon as i heard of her passing and that was of the stark difference of opinion she and her successor
prince charles or i should say king charles now have of what constitutes good architecture
so in this video let's take a look at what styles of architecture do these two monarchs prefer
and exactly what we can expect to be the future of the built environment of britain
when she was sworn in as the queen elizabeth was quite young in the year 1952 the london skyline
looked like this it was dominated by churches cathedrals and palaces and the tallest building
in britain was the saint paul cathedral and today it looks like this oh i meant this
steel and glass towers now scale the heights of london the thing about queen elizabeth the second
is unlike her ancestors there is no one distinct architectural style that has emerged during her
reign the world has changed completely since when she first became queen and she has moved with
that world her time as the queen is filled with plurality of architectural styles from brutalism
to modernism to high-tech modernism of rogers and paramedicism of zaha and countless others
london today is a completely different city one that a young elizabeth would not even recognize
and yet over the years just like with political sides or with prime ministers the queen has never
shown favoritism she has inaugurated many buildings over time and has approved and
presented a lot of medals and awards to architects who are quite distinct in style from one another
for example the royal gold medal which is awarded by the royal institute of british architects
on behalf of the british monarch has been presented to both charles korea and richard
rogers both of these were within elizabeth's reign both are widely different from each other
but this inclusive nature and acceptance of plurality has never been shared by her son prince
charles or king charles now has been very vocal about his preference in the style of architecture
and it is to go back to the classical elements a style that focuses on locally sourced materials
on people and their scales and not one that is focused on exploration and strength of materials
perhaps the time he made the biggest waves was in 1984 when the riba invited him to give a
speech to mark its 150th anniversary in that speech he went full kanye west and criticized
modern and postmodern architecture the speech was filled with attacks but probably the most famous
line from the speech was this you have ladies and gentlemen to give this much to the luftwaffe when
it knocked down our buildings it didn't replace them with anything more offensive than rubble
luftwaffe for those of you do not know was the german air force branch during the world war two
so basically he said at least they destroyed buildings but did not replace them with structures
that he found to be deplorable that speech created shock waves caused some architects their projects
and even drew criticism from a lot of people ever since he has taken a lot of opportunities
to condemn the new modern style of building he even had a very public feud over the years
with the pritzker winning architect richard rogers richard once even challenged the prince to debate
him publicly but of course that never happened you might think who is he to be that vocal about
architecture and design and might dismiss it as a privileged man meddling in affairs he knows
nothing about but that would be a wrong assumption yes he is a privileged person whose privilege came
from looting my country for 200 years sorry i could not resist but he is quite well read
on architecture and design he even has a design school called the princess foundation school of
traditional arts as described on the website the princess foundation school of traditional arts
is a part of a group of charities which reflect the prince of wales's profound interest
in some of the most relevant and pressing challenges facing the world we live in today
if you guys remember last year i even interviewed chantal who shared her experiences of working as a
senior architect in the princess foundation over the years the prince or the king now has created
documentaries published books and articles about design architecture and its place in the future of
britain but the things he believes in are not just random colonial glory of the past era nonsense
he talks about architecture today and its future in 2014 he gave his 10 principles of architecture
in an article published in the architectural review and to be honest a lot of what he talks
about is something a majority of architects talk about and believe in the article was
actually a great read and i'll leave a link in the description below so you can check it out
he has even created an experimental city called poundbury to test and demonstrate his theories
on space making and honestly the man has become more mellow as the years have passed
in 2009 charles returned to speak at the riba to mark the institute's 175th anniversary
in a more softened speech and addressing the ramifications of his previous appearance he
said and that is that i'm sorry if i somehow left the faintest impression that i wish to kickstart
some kind of um style war between classicists and modernists or that i somehow wanted to drag
the world back to the 18th century all i asked for was room for room to be given to traditional
approaches to architecture and urbanism now when all is said and done one question still remains
that now he is the king will he be able to meddle in the affairs of britain and how it
is shaping up because there were times when he used his influence and privileged to cost some
architects their commissions well in 2018 charles answered this very question he told the bbc i'm
not that stupid i do realize that it is a separate exercise being sovereign so of course i understand
entirely how that should operate the idea somehow that i'm going to go on in exactly the same way
if i have to succeed is complete nonsense because the two situations are completely different
and this probably also gives us insight into maybe why the queen never spoke of her interests
as a monarch maybe her role was that to encourage to champion whatever the people champion maybe she
didn't let her personal opinions guide her and was happy with the way the profession of architecture
was evolving because maybe that is what the people wanted if there is one thing i've learned
from the show the crown it is this not having a voice is something all of us have to live with
we have all made sacrifices and suppressed who we are some portion of our natural selves is always
lost of course i realize it is a fictional show but maybe there is some truth to this fiction
so maybe just maybe now that he is king charles will follow in her steps
now what will be the future of this profession and how much sway a king has on a built environment
only time will tell only one thing is for certain that the whole system of
monarchy is a facade to all the horrible things the british empire did in the past
and also the kohinoor which sits in the crown was from india and a lot of people would like it back
yeah that is the only certain thing anyway what do you think about this attachment to
classical architectural style and what do you think will happen now that there is a new king
what will be the impact on the built environment if any let's discuss below as always before
leaving don't forget to give this video a thumbs up to share it and to subscribe to Blessedarch if
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and that was it you guys i will see you guys soon with more such content until then bye bye
you