Britain's Prince Charles, whose passion for architecture won him a $25,000 prize Thursday, said he planned to donate the money to help rebuild communities in hurricane-ravaged Mississippi.
WASHINGTON — Britain's Prince Charles, whose passion for architecture won him a $25,000 prize Thursday, said he planned to donate the money to help rebuild communities in hurricane-ravaged Mississippi.
"My wife and I were utterly horrified to see the terrible scenes of destruction wrought by the hurricane across New Orleans and the surrounding area," Charles told a gathering at the National Building Museum, where he was accompanied by his wife, Camilla.
"Tomorrow we will have the opportunity to meet the brave and resilient people trying to rebuild their lives and to pay tribute to the astonishing efforts of the emergency workers," Charles said. "I only hope that my foundation can play a small part in the work that is now under way to begin reconstruction."
The prince said the prize money would go to his Foundation for the Built Environment. He said the foundation sent a design team to Mississippi last month and had produced designs to help rebuild nine towns on the Gulf Coast.
Officials at the building museum, a cavernous space built in 1881 as a place to administer Civil War pensions, gave the prince the Vincent Scully Prize, recognizing his contributions to architecture and urban design.
!ADVERTISEMENT!
Charles has been a vocal critic of architecture built after World War Two and an advocate for a return to traditionalism and buildings that fit in with their context. Two exhibits at the museum -- one on traditionalist architecture and another celebrating the prince's School of Traditional Arts in London -- open this week.
Charles and Camilla, married last April but lovers for three decades, were on their first formal U.S. visit as a married couple.
Washington has traditionally been warm to British royalty, but particularly took to Diana, the prince's ex-wife, who was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Charles and Camilla engaged in a round-table discussion of osteoporosis earlier Thursday at the National Institutes of Health. Camilla's mother and grandmother died from the disease.
Later, the two headed for Georgetown University for a seminar on religious faith, followed by a reception at the British ambassador's residence.
On Friday, the royal schedule includes a wreath-laying ceremony at the Second World War memorial, a stop at the Folger Shakespeare Library and visits to New Orleans and San Francisco.
Source: Reuters
Contact Info:
