Buckingham Palace redesigned: a radical new approach to London's royal parks

ISBN 1901092402

Buckingham Palace Redesigned: a radical new approach to London's royal parks

Sir Terry Farrell, Papadakis, 2003.

In exploring ways in which the structure of Buckingham Palace, that symbol of tradition and monarchy, could be made more accessible to the public, architect Terry Farrell conveys some very engaging ideas about the importance of space and place, ceremony and memory in the life of cities and nations. Farrell's proposals to puncture the imposing façade of the palace with arches have raised the eyebrows of some in the establishment, but his approach is far from republican in spirit. It is, in fact, a search for ways to connect and refocus the concept monarchy in democratic twentieth-century urban context.

London's royal palaces and parks started as country mansions set in rural parkland. Built in the West End as "anti-urban set pieces" they have become enmeshed and assimilated into the city's dense urban fabric. "The Royal palaces and their parklands are the only public realm we have in London," writes Farrell. "Far from being something that we are ashamed of, they present an opportunity for a glorious public realm."

Farrell believes the failure to synthesise the parks into the city is due to a lack of pedestrian access and a neglect to fully think through past changes, especially the plans by Regency century architect John Nash to weave Regents, Green, St James and Hyde parks more fully into the existing city. A member of the Royal Parks Review Group in the 1990s, Farrell maps out how
Nash's concept of linking Primrose Hill to the centre of London could be realised and enhanced by cutting through Regent's Park, private gardens in Portland Place and on to the river. "Cities are about linkages, connections." he argues. "People come together in cities because they interact, they meet there. Vistas and visual connections are a very critical part of that experience."

The book outlines ways in which Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Hampton Court and Greenwich Park could all be transformed into accessible urban realms.The book's focus on Buckingham Palace grows out of a programme Farrell made for Channel 4 during the Jubilee year. Both the book and the TV programme Farrell shows how after 300 years of change and evolution, in the early twentieth century Buckingham Palace stopped changing as a building, and is now frozen at a stage of development when it became its most inscrutable.

The current façade was designed by Ashton Webb in 1912 and has been described as "The White Cliffs of Windsor". The screen wall is designed to hide the life of the building, while the traffic roundabout in front of the palace was deliberately designed to keep the masses at a distance at a time when Britain was at its Imperial height. "Whatever the monarchy is doing behind there you cannot see anymore," says Farrell. "And in that sense it is a cliff, a screen; it is anti-communication; it is selling us something, selling us a story, selling us a concept; and it is not the right concept for today, if it ever it was the right concept."

However, despite its inadequacies as a building, Buckingham Palace is one of the city's three iconic spaces, argues Farrell. Parliament Square, which lies in front of Westminster Abbey, is the nation's political and religious space, and is balanced by Trafalgar Square as the space for controlled protest and gatherings. "The third space in front Buckingham Palace is where we gather to celebrate events of national importance: marriages, deaths, wartime victories and great national successes.

"The palace is a great piece of urban theatre, but: "The whole set piece needs re-arranging; it has evolved into a traffic interchange, giving more importance to cars than to pedestrians. Compared to Europe's wonderful paved squares and open spaces it is bleak and uninviting.

"The palace's impermeable screen wall should be opened up by the creation of new arches, while a new square should be created in front of the building. "The façade of the palace would become a gateway, a transitional element that would take the visitor from the front space to the courtyard beyond." The high brick walls around the palace gardens would be replaced with perforated walls and gates, which could be secure without being exclusive, says Farrell.

While it is perhaps unlikely that he will ever actually be allowed to realise his ideas, Farrell's ambitions for Buckingham Palace to have a more intimate rapport with the British people were momentarily realised after the screening of the programme when the building became the focus of a major concert and firework display with hundreds of thousands of people gathered in The Mall. For one night, at least, the usually blank face of the palace was transformed by a son et lumieré lightshow into a vividly coloured, animated screen."

It might sound something of a contradiction but in this world of media communications we are discovering the importance of a public realm more and more," says Farrell. The televising of iconic images of sporting and other events in Newcastle, Edinburgh and other cities underline the fact that cities are places for more than just working and living. London is very much a capital city, a stage for events such as Royal weddings and funerals which create shared memories. "And we share these public spaces as part of our shared living rooms, out in the streets, and parks, and squares. They are what unite us."

A minor flaw in the book is that an appendix of interviews with various commentators does not explain who the interviewees are - Simon Jenkins, Charles Jenks, and Lord St John of Fawsley are journalist, champion of post-modern architecture and constitutional historian respectively.