Not really as pretty as a picture

There's an interesting debate about the quality of housing design going on in the United Kingdom – and an even more interesting debate about the same subject that is not going on.

You may have heard about it.

Lord Richard Rogers, a celebrity architect whose work includes the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Barajas Airport in Madrid, claims Prince Charles has "singlehandedly destroyed" a major development of homes in central London.

Rogers' glass and steel concept for the former army barracks in Chelsea – financially supported by Qatari Diar, the Gulf state's property investment arm – was withdrawn last week and Rogers is now being reconfigured by his team.

The prince, who has a 40-year record of opposition to many forms of modern architecture, had apparently written to Qatari Diar's chairman expressing his opposition to the project and urging him to think again. That letter led to the Qatari withdrawal and has provoked a debate along these lines – Who runs architecture? Is a non-professional like the prince competent to comment? Should only professionals, such as Rogers, determine what is acceptable? Are architects out of touch (as the prince suggests) with what the public want?

In a democratic country, that sounds like a healthy debate. Whatever side you come down on (or even if, as appears to be the case for many in the UK, you don't care) a debate of
that kind seems to epitomise a mature approach.

So why on earth does it not happen about 'ordinary' housing design?

This prince debate has been provoked by a scheme for 548 apartments in one of the world's most expensive and important capital cities.

The site is now valued at about £75 million (Dh448m) per acre – a record in the UK, and one of the dearest anywhere in the world. When fully redeveloped, the site could be worth several billions of pounds and most of its residents will be millionaires with other homes around the world.

There is nothing wrong with any of that, but let us be crystal clear about one thing. If no one had heard of the Chelsea Barracks area and instead this was an ordinary site, of which there are tens of thousands around the UK, there would be no interest from a celebrity architect and no interest from a member of the British royal family.

Last week I visited Newquay, a small seaside resort in north Cornwall which, until recently, was a town with low-level development using colours and designs that were appropriate to the local area. Now it is sadly different with large numbers of high-rise apartment blocks that are, to be honest, utterly dismal in their design.

They appear out of place with the town they sit in, with the properties around them, and with the water they look over. They are urban (that is big-city urban, not seaside-town urban) in their design because they have been imported without significant modification from the serve-all-purposes form that has been used by dozens of unimaginative developers across the UK's residential industry for the past decade.

Go to Milton Keynes, a modernist town in the Midlands, and you will see the same – the design looks fine there, because much of the town has been built in the past 40 years. Then go to Manchester, where alongside Victorian canals you will see more of them. Then try regenerated Glasgow. The designs are almost identical, wherever they are and whatever the setting.

Don't get me wrong. I am an enthusiast of new buildings. There are plenty of examples of good modern architecture in many cities, towns and seaside places too, but the best are not exactly the same in hundreds of different locations. They are sympathetic to their localities.

The other day I saw homes built in a former train shed in a small Midlands town called Wolverton and was impressed at the ingenuity of the architects to combine old and new in a pleasing manner – so it is perfectly possible to get it right. But that is rare. For many people who are not wealthy enough to even consider living in an area of London that is of interest to Prince Charles, or too poor to buy a building designed by Richard Rogers, there is no one to champion their 'design cause'.

There will be no public debate about those dismal Newquay apartments and the endless number of uninspiring identikit flats lining the waterside in Greater Manchester will not get headlines in national newspapers.

That's a shame for the people who have to live in or near them, and a shame for a country that discusses only top-end schemes such as Chelsea Barracks and then pretends it really cares about architecture.



- The writer is a property correspondent with the London Observer