Royals issue delightful update on memorial for monarch after King’s clash

The Royal Household and the U.K. government had been planning a national memorial for its beloved monarch for months and now a final decision has been made.

After St James’s Park in London was approved as the official site for the memorial in September, the winning design and its makers were revealed in a fresh announcement, with a history of some contention with King Charles.

Reports revealed on Tuesday that Foster + Partners were chosen from a shortlist of five concepts and their final plans for the national memorial for Queen Elizabeth II. The work is still in progress as the structure will be unveiled in 2026 for the hundredth birthday year of King Charles’s late mother.

It was also revealed that the design will also feature the late Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, alongside a traditional statue of the late Queen.

The Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee, the body responsible for the project, is a joint body set up to advise the Government and the Royal Household. Hence, the King is aware of the decision.

The announcement brings to surface an old feud of Charles when he was the Prince of Wales. The founder of the winning company, Lord Norman Foster, had “clashed with Charles over the years, particularly over his repugnance for modern architecture,” per DailyMail’s royal editor Rebecca English.

Norman accused Charles of using his “privileged position” to intervene over controversial designs for Richard Rogers’ Chelsea Barracks scheme in London in 2009. The case even went to court as Norman made claims of “behind-the-scenes lobbying”.

However, Rebecca shared, Norman extended an olive branch to Charles after his ascension that he would “would very much like to discuss the ‘benefits of change’ in architecture” with the new monarch.