His royal highness Charles the Prince of Wales has always possessed his father's disdainful wit, not to mention particularly resolute views on the built environment (and climate change). His 1984 speech to the Royal Institute of British Architects, in which he described Peter Ahrends' planned extension to London's National Gallery as "a monstrous carbuncle" and Mies van der Rohe's planned skyscraper at One Poultry as "yet another giant glass stump, better suited to downtown Chicago", was a classic – pun intended – of the genre.
So we'd pay plenty more than just a penny for his thoughts on Surfers Paradise, where Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and he arrived on Wednesday for the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. Of Dubai, A.A. Gill once evoked "the skyline, in the dusty haze, looks like the cover of a dystopian science-fiction novella", but the shoe fits the Gold Coast. Comfortably.
The prince and this tasteless town are marvellously incongruous. Nobody in bespoke double-breasted Anderson & Sheppard will have ever laid eyes on so many Southern Cross tattoos or lowered Mitsubishi Lancers carrying MTX JackHammer Super Subwoofers.
Indeed, we understand the royal couple requested modifications to their original itinerary, which would've seen them bed down south of Stradbroke Island – preferring instead the hospitality of Queensland's Governor in Brisbane. Did nobody tell Charlie about all those epic bolt-ons by the pool at the Palazzo Versace? Was the Mantra still undergoing its annual post-schoolies refurbishment?
Mind you, relativism is the state capital's only salvation. BrizVegas ain't no Budapest or Brasilia! In the immortal words of Swiss philosopher Alain de Botton, "while most people find the centre of Paris wonderful and others will delight in the winding streets of Siena, no one on the planet responds deeply to the brutal cross-city expressway and chunky stained brown office blocks of" Brisbane. A monstrous carbuncle would be an improvement.
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Charles and Camilla snub the Gold Coast"
Post a Comment