Tuesday 16 June 2009

Richard Rogers, architect and arrogant fool

"Lord Rogers is in a sweat, sweat, SWEAT!" Thus are chanting architects at the red-faced and angry peer, who is swinging round in a playground in west London, trying to find the heir to the throne to knee him in the balls.

Christ but little Richard's in a tizzy over Charles' alleged intervention over his typically modernist mess of a scheme for the Chelsea Barracks site. And while he's banging on about whether Charles' intervention was constitutionally proper or not, you can see that what really winds him up is that Charles has the temerity to have an opinion while not being an expert. He hasn't had any training, he doesn't understand you see; he's not one of us. (His wife is Ruth Rogers of the oh so Fulham River Cafe; I have no doubt that she thinks Charles and Camilla really rather vulgar.) The arrogance (and rudeness) in his comments is breathtaking. "Charles knows little about architecture...I think he pursues these topics because he is looking for a job..." And so on.

The bottom line is that Charles has every right to have a view about architecture and to share it with the Qatar Royal family if he wishes, and they in turn have every right to sack Rogers if they want to. And what makes reading Rogers' whining against the Prince even more irksome is the fact that he happily accepted a peerage and all that comes with it, which seems to me to add a tad of hypocrisy to his already manifold failings.

So Dick, shuddup, there's a dear. 

2 comments:

Macheath said...

Spot on, JM!

It always amazes me that architects arrogantly assume none of us has a right to an opinion about architecture - despite the fact that we all have to live and work in it.

My favourite folly of the moment is the 'Onion' City Hall - aka the 'Glass Gonad' - with its circular feature staircase that only serves the second and ninth floor; the architectural equivalent of the amplifier that goes up to 11.

Hadwin said...

Maybe we should all go down to the cafe in Fulham, and loudly diss Rodger's buildings, without mentioning his name.