Wrench Speaker Event – King Charles III: 40 Years of Architecture
October 5 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
As Prince of Wales, King Charles III had a profound effect on the way architecture was viewed, not just in the UK but around the world. By championing Classicism and traditional styles, he gave heart to architects who had felt ostracized from their profession due to the ideological dominance of the Modern Movement.
The King first entered the fray with his famous “Carbuncle” speech. Not content merely to criticize what other people were doing, Charles first persuaded the Duchy of Cornwall to create the model urban developments of Poundbury and Nansledan. Then, in the 1990s, a school for architecture and the crafts. All the aspects of the King’s personality can be seen in the intensely personal Arcadia he has created at Highgrove House in the Cotswolds, with its famous garden. A different kind of Arcadia exists in parts of Transylvania, where he owns homes amid prelapsarian beauty.
As King, Charles is no longer head of the Duchy of Cornwall and cannot freely express his opinions. It is therefore time to assess the legacy of his 41 years of engagement with architecture. This lecture will show that it is astonishingly rich.
Clive Aslet is a writer, publisher, podcaster and visiting Professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge.
He is now the publisher of Triglyph Books, the publishing house that he founded with photographer Dylan Thomas in 2019. His most recent book is King Charles III: 40 Years of Architecture, a tribute to the King’s long-standing passion for architecture, seen in the numerous causes he has championed as well as the model development undertaken by the Duchy of Cornwall while he was Prince of Wales.
In 2025, Clive was honoured to receive the Board of Directors’ Award from the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art at the Arthur Ross Awards in New York. He divides his time between Pimlico, in central London, and Ramsgate, on the Kent coast.