Architects To Boycott Prince Charles Speech

It must have seemed a tempting prospect for RIBA president Sunand Prasad to invite Prince Charles to give a keynote speech, 25 years after his original broadside against modern architecture. The decision has surely become a headache now: following the Prince's attempted interference over the Chelsea Barracks development, architects including Will Alsop and Chris Wilkinson have joined a boycott of tomorrow night's address. Publishing a letter in the Guardian, the group, which already included Peter Ahrends, whose firm suffered from the slings and arrows of Charles' 1984 speech, exhorts the industry to resist "interventions" from the rabble-rousing Royal. Read the letter here.