It was on 30 May 1984 that Charles III, then Prince of Wales, delivered a speech attacking modern architecture. He did so at the 150th anniversary dinner of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and it is with this dramatic intervention that Clive Aslet begins his book. In this short and characteristically readable work, Aslet takes readers through the episodes that followed – the controversies over ‘community architecture’, the redevelopment of Paternoster Square next to St Paul’s Cathedral, the television documentary HRH Prince of Wales: A Vision of Britain and Charles’s setting up of the Institute of Architecture, a school for architects. Along the way, he touches on the demonstration town extension projects at Poundbury and elsewhere, and on the king’s architectural work at Highgrove House and Dumfries House, and in Romania.

Aslet calls the 1984 bombshell speech a David and Goliath moment. Each side in the conflict believed they were up against the Philistines. Although far from the first to raise doubts about modern architecture, the prince then seemed a lone voice. Nobody else could have caused the same commotion, and he seems to have enjoyed the fallout. At the beginning, what he didn’t like was clearer than what he did like. Aslet charts how, as his circle of advisers extended, Charles’s views developed to become a collection of positions based on the work and ideas of particular individuals. After making the speech, he was introduced to a handful of practitioners, most of them very old or very young, who were producing classical, Gothic and other traditional designs. They in turn were encouraged by his support.

When the Institute of Architecture opened in 1992, it was seen by many critics as a citadel of classicism. In reality, it was much more diverse, focusing on the development of hand-and-eye skills rather than on doctrine. No such institution had previously existed and the one-year foundation course, not set