Prince Philip Designers Prize
Interview transcript:
Kevin McCloud
You may not recognise this building. It’s the back of Buckingham Palace, and I’m here today to assist in the judging of the Prince Philip Design Awards in their 50th year, that’s 50 years of the Prince celebrating, championing British design. And these awards were organised, at first, by the Design Centre which then became the Design Council, who still organise the thing. But for 50 years the Prince has chaired these awards and taken a really passionate interest in them. I’m very interested to see just what he’s input is going to be. Afterwards, we’re going to chat also about his passion for design and his belief in these rather exceptional awards.
So, Your Royal Highness, we’re fresh out of the judging of this year’s awards in the 50th year since their inception in 1959, so tell me what was it that got you sparked up, that got you fired up about them in the first place? Why did you start them?”
H.R.H. Prince Philip
Well, I became interested for various reasons. If you remember there was the Festival of Britain and I got to know various people there who’d done things for it - and you looked to see the new generation of design of all sorts in the Festival. And then soon after that Britannia was built and so we had to find people to do the interior design and everything else for it. Eventually Hugh Casson was recommended, and so you suddenly got involved in what do you put in the bathroom? What do you put in a bedroom? What sort of door handles? What sort of cups and saucers? What sort of furniture? And so it brought home to me that people were sitting there designing these things.
Kevin McCloud
You mentioned that it was a period of functionality and then brutality and yet the award was given for elegant design.
H.R.H. Prince Philip
Well, that was the point, exactly that - to try and get back to design plus, functionalism plus, if you know what I mean.
Kevin McCloud
There was initially, if I’m right, a suspicion that it would be given for almost historic design, but actually that wasn’t to be the case. These were for very, very engineered and, some of them, quite functional objects.
H.R.H. Prince Philip
Yes, I mean... the pack-away refrigerator, for instance. It’s all very well now you look back and say, well, that’s... you know, it’s... but what you didn’t know is what it was competing against in other refrigerators, which were hideous beyond words. I mean, they were round and bulging and offensive, you know. This was, you know, a functional, clean, competent design, so you’ve got to look at it in comparison to what else there was going on.
Kevin McCloud
So, when we say elegant, we mean elegance in terms of the resolution of the design, an elegant solution?
H.R.H. Prince Philip
Yeah. Elegant solution, but also something which is just a bit better than the ordinary, you know? Yes, it’s easy enough to do a functional design, but you’ve got to add something to it. You’ve got to... it’s got to be... it doesn’t have to be gothic, do you know what I mean, but it doesn’t necessarily... it needs to be more classical, which is a function, but a nicely proportioned function.
Kevin McCloud
And do you see, then, the importance of designers as being something central to our existence? Is it that fundamental?
H.R.H. Prince Philip
No, but it makes existence a lot better, doesn’t it? I mean, it makes it worthwhile. It makes it a positive experience rather than just having, you know, a struggle through it. I mean, I think that street furniture, for instance. I mean, why should attractive things only be in the home? Why can’t they be outside where you see them, where everybody can enjoy them?
Kevin McCloud
What’s your feeling about the designers, and you’ve probably met many I’m sure. Are they a breed? Designers, do you find them a breed apart?
H.R.H. Prince Philip
Well, I think designers and architects... yes, I think all original thinkers have got a sort of quality which you could probably recognise. All architects wear ties with horizontal stripes, for instance!
Kevin McCloud
Or no tie at all?
H.R.H. Prince Philip
(laughs) Well, that’s true.
Kevin McCloud
Over the last 50 years, have you seen any big changes in the design landscape?
H.R.H. Prince Philip
I think what obviously has changed is that it’s really corporate decision now, it’s corporate taste, as opposed to individual taste. I mean, if you go back to the 18th century, for instance, or the 19th century, all the design advances were really created by individual taste – I mean, a wealthy man decided to his own thing and... whereas now, it’s the corporate... it’s either a corporation or it’s government or it’s local government that does it. So the chances of really producing something exceptional are much less because, I think, it’s the interaction between a patron and a designer or an architect that produces the great things. I think corporate relationships are quite different. I mean, the end product is different. You go back to the Great Exhibition where what the Prince Consort was trying to do was to try and say, look, you’ve got to have a marriage of art and manufacturing and engineering in order to produce good stuff. And I think that they then split again and I think they’re gradually coming together. And I think one of the factors was that companies used to employ a designer or stylist or whatever you like to call it, but curiously enough if you employ somebody, he wants to do what you want him to do and I came to the conclusion that it was much better for companies who want to really do well with their design to contract with somebody to design for them. I think, because it then gives a designer much greater authority because he can argue and say, well, okay, you said I’m going to design this. If you don’t like my design, I’m off.
Kevin McCloud
The quandry, of course, of craftsmanship is value. How we value the made world. Do you see a deterioration in that as we're buying more and more consumables?
H.R.H. Prince Philip
No, no, I think people are very tolerant, the way they go on tolerating these ghastly things. I mean, as I say, your whole relationship between the television set and the… I mean, you used to put it on the floor, do you remember? And then they put the controls on the bottom so you had to lie on the floor, and then if you wanted to record something the recorder was underneath, so you ended up lying on the floor with a torch in your teeth, a magnifying glass and an instruction book. Either that or you had to employ a grandson of age ten to do it for you. When you think how… if you look at the fascia panel in a car and just think, from a user’s point of view. A: you can’t see most of them because they reflect or they… there’s a dial with a bright aluminium circle so that it blinds you and you can’t see what’s inside the dial. You have a fuel gauge, for instance, which tells you how much fuel you’ve got left. Well, if you stop and think for a minute, if you think you’re running out and you go into a garage, you want to know how much to put in, don’t you? Yeah. Well, that’s what I call design! (laughs)
Kevin McCloud
Why should we celebrate these people and why we should continue doing so?
H.R.H. Prince Philip
Well, I would hope that the fact that there is an award for designers and they... and if you’re a young designer, you then associate the designer with what he’s designed, might have the effect of thinking 'well, this is something worth doing, you know. Here’s a chap who is a designer, who’s been recognised in public, is lionised, is a huge success – I want to be one of those!'
Kevin McCloud
I thought that was a really interesting discussion because here is a man, Prince Philip, who is clearly excited, still, by what he sees. And we’ve seen extraordinary change over the last 50 years in society, in our culture, in technology. But at the same time he’s been able to identify these lasting values in good quality design. Beauty even. Certainly fitness for purpose, practicality, ergonomics – one of his big passions. And the sort of sense of value of the made world that underscores the quality in our built environment. It’s really exciting to see… to see a man at his age still absolutely engaged with stuff - with the built world around us.
Watch the interview at www.designcouncil.org.uk/ppdp