Classic architects back Prince Charles over barracks

THE row over the Chelsea Barracks scheme deepened today as an influential group of architects broke ranks to back Prince Charles.

The Traditional Architecture Group supports the Prince's intervention into the scheme designed by Richard Rogers.

It comes two weeks after president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Sunand Prasad, called on the heir to the throne to stop meddling in the £1billion scheme and allow the "properly constituted and conducted" planning process to proceed.

In a letter to the Sunday Times last weekend high profile peers of Lord Rogers including Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid said the Prince of Wales was skewing a democratic planning system.

But today TAG - which represents about 50 firms and is affiliated to the Royal Institute of British Architects - leapt to the defence of the Prince who proposed an alternative plan by neo-classical architect Quinlan Terry.

Charles, a regular critic of modern architectural trends, argued that Lord Rogers's glass and steel building would look inappropriate next to Christopher Wren's Royal Hospital.

Reports that he had been successful in persuading the owners of the Chelsea Barracks site - the Qatari royal family - to consider ditching the plans in favour of a more traditional brick and stone structure caused outrage in the architectural community.

TAG today insisted the Prince was speaking on behalf of unrepresented locals who are "excluded" from the planning.

The group has also hit out at government design watchdog Cabe - which supports the Rogers proposal - and announced a campaign against what it claims is the modernist domination of the architectural establishment.

In an interview with Building Design Magazine, published tomorrow, TAG's chairman Ali Sagharchi said: "We would like to see major schemes submitted to local public vote that will inform planning committees about local opinion." He added: "We recognise that this idea would need to be developed but believe that specialist design reviews and the increased complications in the planning system have diminished democratic accountability.

"Cabe has no public input and is, in effect, an architectural closed shop dominated by modernists."

Architect Robert Adam, a favourite of Prince Charles and member of TAG, said the public's favourable reaction to the intervention of the Prince showed a resurgence in traditional design.

Cabe declined to comment but Mr Prasad noted he and TAG were calling for more democracy in deciding major applications.