Diana's memorial in jeopardy

It was conceived at a time of grief as a lasting memorial to a beloved princess. The Diana fountain in Hyde Park was to be an enduring symbol of the sense of reverence and loss caused by the death of the Princess of Wales and - after a hesitant start - the Government, the great and the good moved as one to make it a reality.

That was how it began. Now, within a few weeks of the fifth anniversary of Diana's death, the memorial project has become mired in a quarrel that threatens to drag in the royal family, the Government and the art world.

In the eye of this storm - which has raged out of public view for months - is Rosa Monckton, the close friend and confidante of Princess Diana.

An Evening Standard investigation into the memorial affair has revealed allegations that the extremely well-connected and glamorous Ms Monckton used her considerable personal influence to try to force through a scheme she was convinced Diana would have wanted.

Ms Monckton, who has been valiantly organising a tribute to her close friend, is further accused of engineering a vote among the bickering design competition judges to ensure that her choice was declared the winner.

Now the row has spilled over into Whitehall, forcing Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell to make a personal intervention into something her officials fear could explode into a public embarrassment. It has already added yet more delay to a project dogged by slow progress.

So far, it has all happened behind closed doors. The design judges have been working in secret because the memorial was considered dangerously sensitive and potentially controversial.

An early suggestion to commemorate the princess with a statue was thrown out because it was thought an attempt to re-create her likeness would prove too risky.

It was ultimately decided to build a fountain on the south bank of the Serpentine in Hyde Park, a spot the late princess knew well, located within walking distance of her former home at Kensington Palace.

A regime of strict confidentiality was imposed from the moment Prime Minister Tony Blair gave the go-ahead two years ago and the secrecy was at its most stringent on the committee appointed to choose a design from more than 100 submitted from all over the world. But, the Standard can reveal, this committee is now split and at war over an issue many will interpret as yet another clash between the avant garde and the rest of the art world.

The question at the heart of the row is this: should the memorial be an up-to-date but classically elegant work or a daring and provocative piece of ultramodern art?

The point is at issue because the two designs that finally emerged as frontrunners from a shortlist of 11 have been judged to fall into these two separate and, perhaps, conflicting categories.

The less avant-garde work was submitted by Kathryn Gustafson, an American who is a partner in an architectural practice based in the City. Ms Gustafson comes from Seattle and has created an international reputation with her evocative work with landscapes.

The other design is by Anish Kapoor, darling of the modernists. Mr Kapoor, 48, a British artist born in Bombay, won the Turner Prize with a sculpture in 1991.

He is celebrated for creating pieces on a huge scale and his submission for the memorial has been done in partnership with a group called Future Systems.

No one outside the Diana memorial competition has seen any of the proposed fountain designs, and they have been kept under lock and key, not least for commercial reasons.

An informed source described Mr Kapoor's submission as "very striking but stark - possibly shocking". Ms Gustafson's was "modern but more restrained". A sum of £3 million has been set aside for the winning scheme. These were the designs placed before the judges at a crucial meeting on 11 February. It was a tense gathering.

Eight individuals make up the Memorial Fountain Committee. Rosa Monckton, the formidable chairwoman, commands respect on any matter touching upon the late princess.

The women were extremely close and Ms Monckton's seven-year-old daughter Domenica is Diana's goddaughter. Two years ago Domenica opened a children's playground built in Diana's memory.

Ms Monckton had been tireless in her efforts to honour her late friend and, in her view, and ultimately the public's, she believes, Ms Gustafson's gentle landscape design was the right choice.

She was supported in this by fellow committee member Kim Wilkie, the eminent British landscape architect, and two other members of the committee. The other four favoured Anish Kapoor.

The members of the committee - about whom more later - had been carefully chosen but officials at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport knew that putting together a group of people passionate about art and expecting them to agree was unlikely.

So they ordered a system of voting, in which each entry would be scored on the basis of five separate criteria: design quality; flair and innovation; relation to a historic landscape; relevance to the late princess; quality of personnel and ability to deliver.

It was hoped that the scoring would produce a clear winner. Ms Monckton and her supporters say it did - Kathryn Gustafson. The other half of her committee disagreed. The informed source described the debate as "vigorous".

That may be an understatement, given that Ms Monckton found herself in direct conflict with some formidable figures from the world of art and architecture.

Witness James Lingwood, one of the most enthusiastic backers of the Kapoor design. Mr Lingwood, 42, is co-director of a London-based company called Artangel that helps artists produce their work. He was behind Rachel Whiteread's controversial House, a concrete cast of an East End terraced home. The sculpture won £60,000 in prize money nine years ago - the £20,000 Turner Prize and, conversely £40,000 from the K Foundation, which voted Whiteread the worst artist of the year in a protest against the Turner Prize.

Such faint praise does not deter Mr Lingwood. He has been associated with projects such as the serenading of the North Sea by eight grandmothers, singing Bulgarian folk songs; a scheme to build a huge wooden head over Blackfriars Bridge; and a man breaking up his possessions in the front window of an Oxford Street store. He has been dubbed an "art maestro", and is influential among the avant-garde.

Another serious player on the committee is the distinguished architect Edward Jones, whose projects include the Royal Opera House and the National Portrait Gallery. He is understood to favour the Kapoor design. Richard Cork, chief art critic of the Times, another member of the committee, is also believed to have wanted Kapoor.

After a long and heated debate the committee voted. The other members are: Sandra Percival, director of the Public Art development trust; William Weston, chief executive of the Royal Parks Agency; and Giles Worsley, architecture correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.

Their voting preferences have not, so far, emerged. But, when the votes were counted, the committee was deadlocked - four votes to four.

Mr Lingwood believed Kapoor had won. What happened next left him speechless. Ms Monckton said that, as chairwoman, she had a casting vote. With no decision likely, she broke the impasse and voted for Gustafson, having already done so as a committee member, following traditional committee practice. The committee's secretary was instructed to write to the DCMS and say that the committee had made its choice; they had selected Gustafson, the American landscape architect.

Within days Tessa Jowell's people found themselves facing a barrage of complaint and lobbying. It was alleged that Ms Monckton had acted beyond her powers in voting twice, and there were unfounded suggestions that she and her supporters were influenced by anxieties over how the royal family - and especially Prince Charles - would react to a possibly controversial, ultramodernist design.

"There was a view that Prince Charles has nothing to do with it, and what he may think or not think is irrelevant," an insider said. "Some people felt Rosa was too worried about offending the royal family." Another said: "Rosa seems to have chosen the design she believes Diana would have wanted."

Ms Monckton, the daughter of a viscount and non-executive chairman of royal jewellers Asprey and Garrard, rejected these criticisms.

She said: "As chair of the committee I delivered the casting vote when the committee was evenly split between two very good design teams. Side by side with the discussions was a scoring system based on wide-ranging criteria.

"The scores matched the committee's decision and, therefore, I had no reason not to put forward a recommendation to the DCMS."

The committee's spokesman said she had acted within the rules by casting a second vote.

While Rosa Monckton is convinced that Kathryn Gustafson has won the competition, Tessa Jowell is not yet persuaded. She has been concerned by the criticism over the voting, the lobbying made on Kapoor's behalf, and is anxious to show that the selection process is fair and transparent. It would be unthinkable, she has told her department, to launch the memorial on a tide of bitter wrangling.

Her officials have told the fountain committee that their decision-making has been "defective", and they should meet again soon to sort out their differences. Members have been told to adhere rigorously to the scoring procedure to produce a clear winner.

Can it happen? Those close to the process are pessimistic. Positions have become entrenched and there has been a souring of relations. James Lingwood shows no signs of conciliation, saying: "As far as I'm concerned the competition is still in progress."

Meanwhile, those who looked forward to seeing a worthwhile memorial to Princess Diana continue to wait. The Government promised on Monday that it would be built by August 2003. As the squabbling goes on, this seems less and less likely.