AFP – “You either love it or hate it,” local Jane Adkins said of King Charles III’s experimental community of Poundbury in southwest England, where the monarch’s vision of modern living is made concrete.
Not that concrete is much in evidence at the suburb of some 3,500 people, given the king’s outspoken opposition to post-war architecture.
Traditional stone was used to construct the grand townhouses and civic buildings, giving the sense that an upmarket London neighbourhood has been bolted on to the historic city of Dorchester.
“Prince Charles was very, very keen that it was developed in line with his passionately held ideas about architecture,” Chairman of the Poundbury Residents’ Association Blake Holt told AFP.
“So it was going to be high-quality buildings,” he said inside the Duchess of Cornwall Inn, named in honour of the queen consort.
“And it was going to provide people with housing that looked good — that was easy on the eye — and create a pleasant place to live.”
That architectural style gives the most visible insight into the king’s philosophy, demonstrating an aversion to modernism that he articulated in his 1989 book Vision of Britain.
Five years earlier, Charles had condemned a planned extension to the National Gallery in London’s Trafalgar Square as “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”.
The steel-and-glass extension was scrapped, and Poundbury was seen as his riposte to modernist buildings when work began on the site in 1993.
The community’s critics deride it as twee and artificial – calling it a “feudal Disneyland”.
“Over the years he has certainly made some enemies in the architecture profession,” said professor of planning and urban design at University College London Matthew Carmona.
Carmona said that Charles’ views were “probably more on the side” of the general public, “but that’s not to say that we should dismiss architects’ perspectives”.
“Many styles when they were first introduced were not necessarily universally loved, but we came to love them over time.”
However, Charles’ long-held focus on sustainable development now appears to have been ahead of its time, and has won over some critics.
“It is increasingly important now, with the evolution of more sustainable products and materials, through to provision for electric vehicle recharging, provision of solar tiles on roofs,” Poundbury’s estate development manager Jason Bowerman said.
Carmona accepted that the usually sceptical architecture profession “has embraced messages about the need to be building more sustainably, and to be building places that are walkable and have a mix of uses”.
For his supporters, Charles’ encouragement of the hi-tech sector in Poundbury proves he is not living in the past.
One company based there is Loop Technologies, which manufactures robotic equipment for use in making aeroplane wings.
“It’s a good, well-thought through environment for our employees,” said its managing director Alun Reece. “He is very much for progress, but it’s got to be the right progress.”
So what is it actually like to live inside the king’s brainchild?
“Originally I vowed I’d never move up here,” explained teaching assistant Heather Fosdike, 60, while walking her dog. “But then being single after a divorce, I found it very safe being on your own.”
It is not just older residents. Poundbury has its own primary school. “It’s a very good place to bring up a child,” said former Londoner Jennie Janthe, 28, after picking up her seven-year-old son.
But despite regular communal events, some complain that a deep sense of community spirit has yet to take hold, including church pastor Glynn Barrow, who helps run a food bank for poorer residents.
He called it a “privilege” to be in Poundbury, but noted “you’ve got an interesting gap, because it’s very expensive to live here, and then you’ve got the social housing. There’s not the in-between.”
Poundbury was developed on land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, a royal estate run under the stewardship of the Prince of Wales.
Responsibility now lies with Charles’ elder son Prince William, but the king’s influence still looms large. “He’s taken a keen interest from the very start,” Bowerman said.
“And very rarely would a plan not come back with some suggestions as to how it could actually be adapted and modified and improved. I’ve no doubt at all that he will continue to take a very keen interest.”
