It’s incomplete, but no less satisfying because of it

Westminster Abbey, like most large medieval churches, is unfinished business. Its original builders would have imagined towers and spires that were not built for centuries, or ever.

It is a work in progress spanning almost a millennium, with major additions from the 18th century (Nicholas Hawksmoor's twin towers) and the 19th. To propose a "corona" of the 21st century, which would complete the original builders' dream, might seem fitting and consistent with the Abbey's history.

From where, then, comes the sinking feeling I experience as I write? From here: Gothic architecture is something we just don't do any more. Some architect might be able to mug up on the detail, and studiously imitate medieval pinnacles and finials, but it would be senseless, like writing poems in a dead language.

In theory the corona might be in some modernised version of Gothic, but I can't imagine Prince Charles letting that through. Westminster Abbey is a Royal Peculiar, and our most peculiar royal will have an opinion on the subject.

Whatever the proposed corona looks like, I predict many months of outrage. People will call it kitsch, or crude, or too modern, or a pastiche. It will be one of those metropolitan controversies which this city so loves.

I also suspect that no living architect will be able to match Hawksmoor's brilliance at working between gothic and classical styles.

So, although there will be some entertaining aesthetic punch-ups, it's hard to see the point of this project. For most people the Abbey is satisfying and complete, even if it not quite as originally planned. It ain't broke, dear Dean, so don't fix it.