MESSAGE FROM HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES
TO THE OPENING SESSION OF
“A VISION OF EUROPE”,
BOLOGNA, 9th MARCH 2000.
I am sorry not to be able to be with you in person at this, the third exhibition and conference organised by “A Vision of Europe” – and the first of a new century. I remember with pleasure my earlier visits to Bologna, in 1992 and 1996, when I was able to meet, and to see the work of, so many people who think about building as I do. So I was determined to be with you in some fashion this year also, and I trust you will forgive the fact that I can only be with you on video.
“A Vision of Europe” began at the same time as I set out my own thoughts about architecture and urbanism in “A Vision of Britain”, and in the eight years since it was founded a remarkable amount has been achieved. “A Vision of Europe” now regularly brings together, at gatherings like this one, like-minded people from all over the world. It is encouraging to know that there are now some hundreds of architects and town planners around the world seeking to recover and reapply the principles which guided the creation of traditional environments. Of course, these are still small numbers compared with the many thousands for whom the past remains at worst an irrelevancy, or at best the source for a “pick-and-mix” approach to design, but the more that can be built – the more concrete alternatives you can offer – the more influential these few will become.
On another level, “A Vision of Europe” has also shown itself to be effective at spreading the word, with a version of the exhibition I opened in 1996 having been continually on the road since then, travelling to Norway, Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Portugal. And there are even higher ambitions for this current exhibition, which it is hoped, after making a start in Berlin, will go through Central Europe, beginning with Prague. And then there is the new, and growing, website, which has the potential of making information about traditional environments, and about the professionals able to deliver such environments, accessible to many millions of people.
At present I am bringing together various of my organisations concerned with the built environment in a new Foundation, which is about to open in a converted warehouse in the East end of London. My new Foundation will, I hope, learn a great deal from what you are doing.
It was just a century ago that a great English Man of Letters died, a man who did an enormous amount to foster understanding between England and Italy, and for whom I have always had the most profound admiration. The man in question was the art and social critic John Ruskin, and it seems appropriate to mention him here because he once argued that Italy had a unique role to play in modern Europe – in his view it had to be the guardian of thememory of this great continent. When industrialisation and commercialism had done their worst, he believed, weary souls – who by then would only half-remember the great things of which their culture was capable - would return to Italy with gladness, to rediscover all they had lost. I think he recognised a truth, and he would certainly rejoice to see so many of you coming to Bologna to remember what the city is, after a century of its dismemberment.
Bologna itself is, of course, an object lesson in what a city should be, and not only because of its impressive medieval and renaissance fabric. It is the epitome of the city as a collective work of art in which, seemingly miraculously to our eyes, manifold building projects of all shapes and sizes, initiated over long periods of time, by all classes of people, under the most rudimentary of building codes, produced something living, a distinct organism, the wholeness of which is readily apparent to us, as well as the beauty of its separate parts. The beginning of the last millennium was marked by a wave of such collective works of art – not only the city, but also the cathedral that stood at its heart.
I would say above all to the members of “A Vision of Europe”, “keep alert to what people are saying to you”. I wouldn’t like to think that your passion for the traditional will ossify, and lead to a fixation on form at the expense of those manifold processes which go on at a grassroots level, and which make and remake cities day after day. We should have the utmost respect for these, and work with them as far as we are able. I believe that tradition is not something that belongs to the past, but rather something that should be continually renewed.
What “A Vision of Europe” has managed to put on the walls of its exhibition shows clearly that there is another way, and that that way is a viable one, one which is being practiced in increasing quantities. It is evidently possible to construct new cities which are founded on timeless principles of harmony and beauty. I am happy that I have been able to play some part myself in bringing about this state of affairs, I look forward to doing more to sustain it, and I am pleased to be able to send my good wishes for a project, like “A Vision of Europe”, which is doing so much to offer an alternative view of the future.
Thank you.