Royal interventions: Prince Charles's architecture battles

'Carbuncle' speech, 1984: The prince launches his unprecedented, and unexpected, attack on the architectural profession in this Hampton Court Palace speech. 'Why has everything got to be vertical, straight, unbending, only at right angles – and functional?' But it wasn't for long as Zaha Hadid (her funicular railway station at Innsbruck, as pictured), Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and others were soon to prove. Modern architecture developed in ways the prince couldn't have imagined, and became more popular in the process Photograph: David Levene

Perspectives magazine, 1994: Launched at a party for 700 guests in the regal splendour of St James's Palace, Perspectives was the prince's architectural mouthpiece. It was meant to have sold up to 75,000 copies a month. The magazine has long since folded Photograph: Public domain

National Gallery extension, Trafalgar Square, 1991: Charles wins the battle of Trafalgar Square with a postmodern classical design by the American husband-and-wife team Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. This proved to be the zenith of the prince's direct influence on architectural projects Photograph: Peter Cook/Rex Features

Paternoster Square, 1996: The prince loses his battle to flank Wren's St Paul's cathedral with a curious mix of American postmodern and home-spun neo-Georgian shops, offices and restaurants. The replacement scheme, however, turned out to be a less-than-regal breakfast, although the layout of the streets and squares, essentially by John Simpson, is well done Photograph: Ethel Davies/Robert Harding /Rex Features

Poundbury, United Kingdom: Planned from the late 1980s with Luxembourgian architect Leon Krier, Poundbury was intended to be a model of the prince's thinking on town planning (or 'new urbanism') and architecture. Much liked by residents – and much derided for its Quality Street chocolate-box style by critics – Poundbury was designed as a pleasant place to live that was not dependent on the car. In practice, it doesn't always work (gloomy rooms, modern building materials, a need for cars after all), but it is here that Prince Charles put his – and developers' – money where his Hampton Court mouth was Photograph: Tim Graham/Getty Images

Ivor Crewe lecture theatre, University of Essex, Colchester, 2008: The Prince of Wales was up to his old tricks again when he likened this new, steel-clad theatre, designed by Patel Taylor, to 'a dustbin on the outside'. He had been asked to address 1,700 soldiers packed inside, all of whom were about to set off for a tour of duty in Afghanistan Photograph: Anwar Hussein /PA Photos

The Prince Charles-approved design, by Quinlan Terry, for the Chelsea Barracks site in west London, which kicked off the latest furore ... Photograph: Public Domain

View of One New Change from St Pauls Church Yard, a £500m office and shopping complex commissioned to Paris-based Jean Nouvel. The developer has revealed that the Prince lobbied for an alternative architect to be considered for the sensitive site, yards from St Paul's Cathedral Photograph: Graham Turner

In a private letter to Land Securities, one of Britain's largest commercial developers, the prince made clear he felt the design approach wrong and offered his own architectural advisors to help Photograph: Graham Turner

Richard Madelin, chief executive of the developers Argent, has also consulted the prince's aides on the £2bn plan to regenerate 67 acres of disused rail land at Kings Cross, London Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

The prince told English Heritage's chairman to urge cabinet ministers to block a £200m development at Smithfields Market in London. It was rejected and his aides have now been asked to endorse plans Photograph: David Sillitoe

The prince's architecture charity is involved in plans for more than 17,000 homes across Britain – more than Persimmon, one of the country's largest house builders – built last year. Above are proposed plans for 'Coed Darcy', a new devleopment of homes sanctioned by the prince in near Port Talbot Photograph: Public Domain