In London, we have a very large but very local architectural problem:
In last weekend's Guardian, Madeleine Bunting basked in the early Summer sun and asked a simple question: why can't Londoners use Buckingham Palace - especially its gardens?
While Green Park is used by up to a million people a month in the summer, right next door a park of near-comparable size remains largely empty; pristine lawns behind 10ft brick walls, bristling with barbed wire and metal spikes....
Buckingham Palace Gardens is the largest private green space in central London. (It's all the area to the left of the picture above...)
Its forty acres of fine garden, lakes, two thousand animal species and flamingos were once common ground when the Palace was plain old Buckingham House in the early eighteenth century.
Today, surrounded by walls, wire, speakers and surveillance cameras, it is in the words of architect Sir Terry Farrell, an essay in
bad neighborliness...Either the monarchy is paternal and they share in a paternal way and we enjoy it; or they are behind walls, and it is us and them.
Several years ago, Terry and me made a documentary film arguing that it was time to turn the forecourt of the Palace in to a 'world square' and puncture its architectural front:
And replace the walls that surround the Palace grounds with railings and allow public access:
Architect and writer Charles Jencks fell in to our ranks, seeing the building as like a Hollywood stage set,
a very uptight facade that says nothing. The message is all to do with control...It is as if being a monarch was a real pain. And dangerous!...Being a monarch cannot always be a burden. It should be a celebration.
But royalist Lord St John of Fawsley lumped us in with an alternative aristocracy and gave us a terrifying glimpse of an ancient ax:
Along come these architects and intellectuals and others who really do not understand what people are like, with these mad crazy schemes. Well, away with them! In another age they would have been sent to the Tower!
I wasn't sent to the Tower.
And the idea hasn't developed.
The message:
We may be adapting physical and metaphorical landscapes throughout the world, de-commissoning and re-commissioning 'place' - but there are limits.
Politicians and designers may be busy re-defining the role of service providers and promoting inclusion - but there are limits.
And the monarchy is serving the nation in many ways other than exclusivity - but it has its limits.
Fact is that our idea of monarchy remains captive to the idea of magic and awe of the private landed upper class.
The Windsors find it difficult to link leadership, value and play.
And assets such as the Palace and its gardens are classified as a 'home' - i.e. a private, not a public asset.
I told you that it was a local problem.
Suffice it to say: God Save the Queen!
