A right royal row has blown up over plans to redevelop Chelsea Barracks in London, writes FRANK MCDONALD, Environment Editor

WEEKS AFTER delivering a conciliatory and wide-ranging address at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) that almost healed his rift with the profession, the Prince of Wales is being blamed for the withdrawal of plans by Richard Rogers for the redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks in London.

Lord Rogers, a distinguished architect now aged 75, has now called for an inquiry into Prince Charles's interventions in the public arena on architecture, medicine, farming and the environment. "This sort of situation is totally unconstitutional and should never happen again," an exasperated Rogers told the Guardianlast week.

Friends and supporters phoned saying, "it's you today, but who is next?", according to his wife, Ruth Rogers, who runs the River Café in Hammersmith. "The prince's actions are akin to calling up a publisher and saying 'I want all books to have happy endings' or saying to the Guardian'I don't like colour photography, let's go back to sepia'."

The calls followed developer Project Blue’s surprise decision to drop the controversial £1 billion (€1.187bn) Chelsea Barracks scheme by Rogers Stirk Harbour Partners – just before a decision was due from Westminster City Council.

Project Blue has its own royal connection through Quatari Diar, the sovereign wealth fund of Quatar that’s bankrolling it.

In April, it emerged that the prince had sent a letter to the Emir of Quatar describing the luxury housing development proposed for the site next to Chelsea’s Royal Hospital as “unsuitable” and “unsympathetic”.

It also became known, or was put about, that Charles would prefer his favourite neo-classicist architect Quinlan Terry.

RIBA president Sunand Prasad, who had invited the prince to address the institute in May, was dismayed: “I am all for the Prince of Wales setting out his principles as regards sustainability and an architecture that connects with nature, but for him to intervene in individual schemes going through the planning process is quite wrong.”

Of course, Chelsea Barracks is not the first case that Charles has put his oar in. Back in 1984, in a speech marking the RIBA’s 150th anniversary, the prince denounced plans by Ahrends Burton Koralek (ABK) for an extension to the National Gallery in London as “like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”. As a result, the selected scheme was dropped and the gallery commissioned trendy post-modern architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown to do the job instead; they produced the neo-classicist train crash that was eventually built. ABK’s work in Britain virtually dried up, as if they had been blackballed by a gentlemen’s club.

Richard Rogers also felt the royal lash. In 1987, with the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Lloyd’s building in the City of London under his belt, he was in line to redevelop Paternoster Square beside St Paul’s Cathedral when Charles publicly declared that at least the Luftwaffe hadn’t replaced buildings “with anything more offensive than rubble”.

In his interview with the Guardian, Rogers blamed the prince for scuppering his plans to rebuild the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. "We got a phone call from the people at the Royal Opera House one evening about 9pm saying 'good scheme, but you're too risky'," he said. "I was basically told: 'The prince does not like you'."

Clearly gutted by Project Blue’s decision to withdraw the scheme for Chelsea Barracks – out of the blue, as it were – Rogers said: “It knocked the stuffing out of me, and the design team even more ... We had hoped that Prince Charles had retreated from his position on modern architecture, but he single-handedly destroyed this project.”

Quatari Diar had pulled the plug, apparently because one royal (the Emir of Quatar) couldn’t offend another. It didn’t seem to matter that two-and-a-half years had been spent designing the scheme and consulting with the planners, local residents, English Heritage and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE).

Rogers had been convinced that it would be approved by Westminster City Council’s planning committee. “We enjoyed some of the strongest support I have ever had from Westminster and the Greater London Authority, including the great report we had only last week from the planners, which is why I thought we were home and dry.”

Rogers had been brought in by London developer Christian Candy after designing One Hyde Park, a Knightsbridge development of 80 super-luxury apartments in four pavilions with chic boutiques at street level; it was marketed as “the most exclusive address in London”. Indeed, there are elements of this scheme in Chelsea’s layout.

In their statement dumping him, Project Blue said it would be “inviting a broad selection of renowned urban planning practices to explore a diversity of design responses for the site” and discussing these plans with stakeholders, including the Prince’s Foundation, with a view to submitting a revised master- plan before the end of 2009.

The developers are faced with a conundrum. Guernsey-registered Project Blue is a joint venture by Quatari Diar and Christian Candy’s CPC group, which agreed to pay a staggering £900 million (€1,056 bn) for the 13-acre site in April 2007 – just as the property bubble was about to lose its fizz.

In order to make an economic return on this investment, the developers originally proposed 638 apartments in blocks up to 13 storeys. But this was subsequently pared back to 552, following criticisms from CABE, Belgravia Residents Assocation and Westminster planners relating to height, massing and public space.

Are they to turn now to Quinlan Terry and have the whole lot tricked out in neo-classical façades, with cornices, pediments, pilasters and porticoes?

All of these devices characterise Terry’s massive Richmond Riverside development, completed in 1988. But through the Georgian panes at night, you’ll see the suspended ceilings and strip lighting.

For British architectural historian David Watkin, Richmond Riverside marked “a turning point in the history of architecture” as it “shows us that there is another and nobler way to build offices so that they can be poetic, moving and lovely – and still contain all the modern technology required by the corporate clients that occupy them”.

Although popular, it has also been derided as shameless pastiche. As Financial Times columnist Peter Aspden wrote recently: “I have to drive past Quinlan Terry’s Richmond Riverside pastiche (to call it neo-classical is to belittle both newness and classicism) every week, and want to scream: Is this all there is? Can we really not move forward?”

In Britain, it seems not – at least with Prince Charles knocking about. Quinlan Terry is lining up to take over from Richard Rogers and has already produced sepia sketches of his design concept. Think Royal Hospital Kilmainham or Collins Barracks or Les Invalides in Paris, with ranges of neo-classical buildings laid out around cobbled courtyards.

Oh dear. We’re fortunate to have President Mary McAleese, who has given nothing but encouragement to architects – once she discovered their worth.