THE Prince of Wales yesterday called for architects to put beauty at the heart of building projects to create long-lasting communities.
He shared his thoughts with an audience – including the First Minister, Alex Salmond – at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on how nature should play a central role.
Evoking the World Heritage status of Scotland's capital, Prince Charles s
aid: "Beauty is surely, when you think about it carefully, at the heart of genuine sustainability.
"If something is beautiful you don't want to knock it down."
He said Scottish planners could take a leading role in the UK to build ecologically-sound communities – but warned that attitudes must change.
"We live on a very small island on which presumably many generations will want to live," he said.
"So apart from everything else, we need to work out where the water is going to come from in an increasingly uncertain world.
"We owe it to our children and our grandchildren not to wreck it all."
Prince Charles called for a return to "civil, courteous and well-mannered" architecture and added: "We must rediscover – rapidly – our respect for nature and her universal principles that can give us everlasting inspiration and environmental hope."
He delivered his speech following a presentation by Mr Salmond, MSP for Gordon and MP for Banff and Buchan, at the seminar hosted by the Prince's Foundation.
The foundation has contributed to the design of 50 developments during its ten-year history in the UK and overseas.
These include projects at Ballater in Aberdeenshire and Cumnock in Ayrshire.
The full article contains 264 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
