| · Andres' Writings | Response to Paul Goldberger | |
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August 12, 1998 Mr. Paul Goldberger RE: The Prince of Wales Dear Paul,
This is a letter, not intended for publication (we have no time to write well). We were about to thank you for your nice words on Seaside, which we hope this letter still serves to do, when we came upon your article on the Prince of Wales. It seems to us that one of the advantages of writing for the New Yorker is that the readership accepts subtlety. We were therefore disappointed by the tendency of your piece to oversimplify the positions of the Prince. The Prince's advocacy is, in fact, not for a classical architecture, but for traditional building. This makes all the difference. His understanding of traditional building is not an indulgent Thatcherism, but a carefully argued combination of environmentalism, vernacular culture, urban contextualism, preservation, rural economics and public participation. If not the only responsible future for architecture, this position is at least a worthy contender, not one to be dismissed as lightly as you did. The Prince of Wales is very serious about these issues. He is one of the few political leaders willing to do enough homework to know what he is talking about. (You unfairly underestimate his discipline. I have seen him read through our codes, which is not exactly a picnic). Consider also that he is an activist, with superb polemical skills. He is also talented: he prepares his own books, scripts and speeches. . . and have you seen his drawings? Think about that, and let us know if you find another contemporary politician with such sensibilities. (Gore’s environmentalism is a one-liner in comparison.) Then there is your statement that he has, "no coherent plans for making things better?" How can you say that, when he has written focused books with how-to components, organized a model organic agricultural estate, started a radical new school of architecture, a magazine, an effective lobbying organization called The Urban Villages Institute, has founded and is in the process of developing a new town (market-rate, to boot) all the while making site visits, documentaries, and speeches? All this was done with consistent, interlocking intentionally that you disparage most unfairly as "stuck on the same idea for a decade." Perhaps we Americans understand social commitment only at the "Eureka!" level of Newman's Own Salad Dressing. And not all of this work has been entirely ineffective: His brave, underfunded school lasted many years, having a remarkably benevolent effect on its students. I know quite a few well-adjusted young architects (not rich kids) who are being truly useful to society as a result of their experience there. That much cannot be said for the alienated issue of the Ivy League architecture schools in the same years. Above all, you do an injustice to Poundbury by dismissing it out of hand in half a sentence. Poundbury is an utterly radical social, economic and technical proposition -- radical in the sense that it breaks convention. Hand-building a town of stone and slate with interspersed mixed-use and an extreme income range cheek-by-jowl, using for-profit developers is less likely in this day and age than the 19th C Brunnelian technology of the buildings you admire. Any person that takes such a risk, so visibly, is certainly not "retreating behind royal prerogative", he is accepting all challengers, and exposing himself to that criticism. When we read essays on urbanism that are as just plain wrong, we rarely respond in writing, saying to ourselves: let's just wait 15 years and see which of the projects really turns out to have been the important one. In this case, we will wager heavily on Poundbury over the whole pack of high-tech premadonnas. We hope to hear form you in 2013! Criticism aside, we continue to enjoy reading your work, and we have no doubt that you are one of the most reasonable and even handed critics of our generation. Sincerely,
Andres & Lizz P.S. Enclosed is a defense of Poundbury Andres wrote last year. |
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