I normally like Jonathan Glancey's columns but this one (The Carbuncle Charles row is a gift to concrete mixers) perplexes as it starts off by casting Prince Charles as the bad guy who wants to narrow the debate to one of style. Glancey stacks the deck by characterizing the public debate as one which poses
an artificial divide between those who would turn the tide of progress back and those who believe in the notion of progress.That's not exactly a fair-handed ways to look at it. Glancey then calls for the discussion about contemporary architecture and planning to be
more earthy and everyday, and yet more profound than one about royalists v republicans, or faux-classicism v ruthlessly commercial modernism. It should be about what we build, for whom and why. It should be about working for the very best, whether in the design and planning of homes, schools, hospitals, town and city centres.That's exactly the sort of rhetoric that the Prince uses. The shallow characterization of the debate as one of classicism v. modernism can hardly be blamed on the Prince of Wales. He has attempted to frame the Chelsea Barracks brouhaha as a much larger issue of town planning and what sort of cities we want. So I think Glancey should not allow the impression to stand that it is Charles who wants to make the discussion about style. If anyone is in favor of that it would be the startchitects.

![[book cover]](http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/cities/cc-cover-100w.jpg)
