Towards a New Past… (Restoration for the Nation)
By Ian Blake 02 May 2023
As we approach a celebratory weekend for the coronation of King Charles III, and whether you are a full-on rococo royalist or a staunch republican, I have been pondering how the New Carolean Era might be represented by the built environment and what the legacy for architecture could be, given the original Carolean period, or Restoration style as it was also known, was said to be the last true English vernacular produced since the Tudor period.
The 70 year long, second Elizabethan Era ended late last year and will be remembered for the significant social and political changes in a post-industrialised Britain, one that saw unprecedented advances in technology that included space travel, mobile communication, and the birth of artificial intelligence.
Architecturally we were very much in the modern age, with everything from Brutalism, Post-modernism, and Hi-tech to showcase the best parts of what the 20th century produced. Many examples of which have since been listed, with the 20th Century Society campaigning for the protection of many others.
Despite a clear and rich evolution of public and commercial architecture it is difficult to pinpoint how housing is recognised as being of the Second Elizabethan era. Everybody can picture in their mind’s eye a timber frame image of an Elizabethan building from the 16th century, or could point to a Victorian terrace house in an identity parade of different aged houses, but I am not sure you could pinpoint one that defines the second Elizabethan era. Post-war houses of Britain have been dominated by a handful of national housebuilders, all of whom have attempted pastiche, nodding towards the regurgitation of preceding eras and resulting in a splurge of banality that does little to reflect the pioneering tenure of our previous sovereign.
It is no coincidence that the three highlighted eras above were reigned over by three female monarchs, all of whom served far longer than their male counterparts, and individually they are (and will be) remembered for key defining periods of exploration, engineering, and technology within our country’s history.
So, what do we think the New Carolean age should look like? Given the imminent coronation of King Charles III, it is too soon to know, however his 53 years as the Prince of Wales hold many clues and suggestions of what the era ought to reflect and the principles from which should become a key influence.
As architects we need to forget the stylistic battle / debate of modernism versus classicism that was sparked by his infamous 1984 National Gallery “monstrous carbuncle” speech, which was taken mostly out of context, and made a portion of the architectural profession rally blindly against his views. We should refer instead to his historic understanding of the environment, the sounding of the alarm about climate change, and the benefits of using organic, natural, and traditional agricultural practices, and industrial and construction techniques that are routed in locality, and tread more lightly on our planet’s resources than the globalised, disposable economy that has developed to date. These environmental issues and methods to reduce carbon production have since emerged as revolutionary thinking and practice in the early 21st century, but have been voiced by both Charles, and his late father before him, yet previously dismissed as out of touch prattle.
Thankfully, most of wider society now seem to be on board with the principles behind the need for decarbonisation, even if the process to get there looks difficult to achieve. And as architects we have seen glimpses of this New Carolean Era before. In his 2009 speech to the RIBA, the then Prince of Wales said that he had been calling for sustainability in construction for more than 20 years, saying "I pray that a new and developing relationship between this Institute and my Foundation can enable us to work together to create the kind of organic architecture for the 21st century that not only reflects the intuitive needs, aspirations and cultural identity of countless communities around the world, but also the innate patterns of nature."
In a previous post I highlighted the need to re-use more buildings, through their creative adaption and reconfiguration, with not just retrofit to improve energy performance of all existing buildings but also alternative uses found for old and redundant building types, or at least being very carefully appraised before blanket demolition.
With the current housing and cost of living crisis and a race towards net zero by 2050, there are already urgent issues that will shape this new age, and just maybe there are signs that the monarchy wishes to be in tune with the dilemmas – from King Charles recently declining the offer of Heathrow Airport renaming Terminal 5 in his honour, to the historic early calls for sustainability in architecture and the built environment.
Perhaps we will remember the Second Carolean Era of architecture as being one of reuse and change-of-use of existing buildings, constructed under the stewardship of his predecessors. And recognised for retrofit using locally sourced materials to develop a genuine carbon neutrality for all buildings, created within this reign. Our society’s exponential growth throughout the twentieth century gave us buildings that are already surplus to originally conceived requirements, which compounded by recent global events have placed different requirements on how they are occupied. As a society we must embrace these changes and enable our builders and craftspeople to design and adapt places that meet carbon emission targets and produce an architecture that is purposefully re-imagined, re-cycled and reconfigured, with a distinct identity that will be looked back on and seen as a “transitory style,” one of borrowed buildings that took us from the modern, post-industrial landscape to a zero-carbon future with homes for everyone. And that the Crown led the way.