But you can't take media too seriously. On the one hand, one source (BD Online) quotes Prince Charles as saying:
“I think a lot of people think the only reason I set up the Foundation is because I have an obsession with classical architecture. That drives me insane. It is very easy to accuse people of that but at the end of the day, architecture matters.”
It's a peculiar statement as somewhat off point since there is in fact other than classical architecture. Oh well, it's easy to misquote someone in extermperaneous talk.
Then again the London Times accuses of being against The Enlighenment, which if anything would suggest an anti-Classicist stance:
Its seminal figures included the likes of Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Voltaire and Rousseau. To Prince Charles, however, it is old hat. “I was accused once of being the enemy of the Enlightenment,” he told a conference at St James’s Palace. “I felt proud of that.”
The Prince, who was talking at the annual conference of The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment , went on: “I thought, ‘Hang on a moment’. The Enlightenment started over 200 years ago.
“It might be time to think again and review it and question whether it is really effective in today’s conditions, faced as we are with huge challenges all over the world. It must be apparent to people deep down that we have to do something about it.
“We cannot go on like this, just imagining that the principles of the Enlightenment still apply now. I don’t believe they do. But if you challenge people who hold the Enlightenment as the ultimate answer to everything, you do really upset them.”
Who knows what the Prince actually said, much less meant, but my advice to him (not that he cares) is to avoid The Enlightenment and stick with something simple like "reality-based thinking."
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