Architecture Update: Charles calls the shots at Windsor

THE COMPETITION to design a new state room at Windsor Castle to replace the Queen's private chapel destroyed by fire two years ago has been won by the classical architects Sidell Gibson. The new room will be used for displaying artefacts from the Royal Collection.

The architects, best known for a replica Victorian office block on the corner of Trafalgar Square, beat five other firms including Sir Colin Stansfield Smith, RIBA gold medallist and Hampshire County Architect, and Imre Makovecz, the Hungarian whose timber buildings the Prince of Wales admires. The judging committee, chaired by Prince Charles, is bound to provoke criticism among those who hoped that a new room would be designed in a contemporary idiom.

A second competition to redesign the State Dining Room and Octagon Room has been abandoned because the royals thought none of the ideas put forward were better than those already existing.