Brush With Royalty for Calvin Professor

March 4, 2004

For Calvin professor Lee Hardy an interest in urban design and a connection
made on the internet led to a dinner with Prince Charles.

Just another day in the life of a liberal arts professor!

Hardy says the brush with royalty has its roots in the American New Urbanist
movement - an attempt on the part of a growing number of architects, urban
designers, environmentalists and social justice people to retrieve and
creatively apply the principles of traditional urban design.

Although a philosophy professor, Hardy became interested in this design
movement a few years ago and since has taught a course at Calvin during the
interim on urban design issues. He also spends a fair amount of time
interacting with local planners and developers.

Via the internet he made contact with Matthew Hardy, the director of a
fledgling organization called the International Network for Traditional
Building, Architecture, and Urbanism (INTBAU).

Says Hardy: "That contact soon developed into a friendship and several
transatlantic visits. INTBAU operates out of the Prince's Foundation in east
London. In fact, its chief patron is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
This past December Prince Charles decided to hold a dinner at Clarence House in
support of INTBAU. And I found myself on the invite list. Of course, I
accepted."

Hardy notes that his trip to London was very generously sponsored by the
January Series at Calvin and included a visit to Lambeth Palace, the London
residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

He arrived in London on Sunday, December 14. The dinner was scheduled for the
next evening.

"After unpacking my rented tux and reviewing my notes from Amy Vanderbilt's
book on etiquette for formal dinners," he says with a smile, "I tried to get a
good night's rest."

The dinner included about 25 guests, including a German princess, a mutual
fund manager from Chicago, an heiress from Monaco, an Australian land
developer, several Norwegian industrialists, a German architect and Miss
Croatia. And of course a U.S. philosophy professor.

Says Hardy with some understatement: "An interesting group."

The dinner itself, says Hardy, was a somewhat surreal experience.

"I was talking to an architect from India," he says, "now practicing in
Germany, when Camilla Parker Bowles suddenly appeared before me. We had a nice
chat, in which, unfortunately, I spent most of my time trying to explain where
Grand Rapids was. She was very down to earth, with a sly sense of humor. I
then found myself being organized by some photographers. The next thing I knew
I was being introduced to Prince Charles. We talked about several encouraging
developments in the urban condition of Grand Rapids, and about the New Urbanist
movement in the States generally."

Soon thereafter the dinner began - a three-course meal and three speeches, the
last of which was given by the Prince.

It was, Hardy says, a fascinating speech.

"He spoke at length," Hardy recalls, "of his concerns about the materialism
and secularity of our age and about a culture that had lost touch with its
spiritual center and was now spinning out of control. He referred to what's
happening in our built environment as one manifestation of this form of
cultural disintegration. He also spoke of his traditional town development in
Dorset (Poundbury) as his attempt to build in line with the Golden Rule. He
wanted to build a place that he himself would be happy to live in, or, at
least, next to."

For a pic see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2003_04/hardy.htm

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Received on Thu Mar 4 13:21:10 2004