While it is true that Nash incorporated parts of Buckingham House into the central section of the west wing and that this had some influence on the footprint of that bit of the building, none of this is visible above ground.
More importantly, the east front, the bit everyone sees, is a later addition and its dimensions are more influenced by what Nash had built than by what Nash had been replacing.
On the contrary, the present east facade is actually a rather sophisticated solution by Sir Aston Webb to what was a very difficult brief. Blore’s mid-nineteenth century east front really had been atrocious, but Webb was only allowed to apply a new facade. All the doors, windows and archways had to be retained. Remarkably, Webb still managed to come up with a design which is restrained, monumental and well-proportioned. I have always thought it Webb’s best building, admittedly against not very strong competition. It’s a better piece of architecture than most of the Nash interiors, which tend to be as uninspired as they are overblown.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think any of the castles/palaces in London are that impressive by British standards. In fact, they’re pretty boring, to be honest. Buckingham Palace looks a lot less regal than Blenheim Palace. The Tower of London is a joke of a castle by British standards; compare with Alnwick Castle or Bamburgh Castle (incidentally, they’re both very near each other).
I hate it when that thing is referred to as a castle. It was built in the 19th century, never designed to withstand any sort of bombardment. To me, unless it’s designed as a fortification for controlling an area, designed to hold out against cannon fire or the like, it isn’t a castle.
Some countries build their government buildings to look like palaces. Especially those without royalty to occupy actual palaces. The White House, now there’s a palace. Bet it hasn’t even got rising damp like buck house.
I’m sure WETA (the DC public broadcasting station) occasionally runs Rising Damp, so you can’t say the Obamas don’t have it at all. Lord knows American PBS stations are like TVLand for Britcoms.
Like all architecture, palaces are subject to fashion. For a long time, the fashion in palaces was fairly classical - symmetric, plain. However, palaces are also subject to royal whim: I give you the Royal Pavillion, Brighton:
Balmoral and Sandringham are family property, separate from the Crown. If the Republic of Great Britain and Northern Ireland were proclaimed tomorrow, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Holyrood would belong to the country. But Mr. and Mrs. Mountbatten-Windsor would still have their two homes in Norfolk and the Highlands.
Holyrood belongs to the Crown in right of Scotland – it’s the official residents of the Kings and Queens of Scots, which passed to Great Britain in 1707 and to the U.K in 1800.
Is there even much native enthusiasiam for Buckingham Palace? As per APB’s post, an argument can be made for Aston Webb’s solution as architecture, but it’s not as if even Londoners pay much attention to the building. Given the various Royal Parks and grounds, it sits in a bit of the city that nobody other than a tourist would have occasion to visit. For instance, I both live in London and frequent the centre, yet I really can’t claim to have seen the Palace in the last five years. Though I was even on Carlton Terrace this week. So near and yet so far.
And I suspect this is fairly typical. Why should Londoners particularly care about what it looks like? It’s only the tourists who bother going to see it.
More to the point, Neuschwanstein is a fantasy castle – what a castle ought to look like. Those ugly, blocky stone things in Monty Python and the Holy Grail were real Scottish castles.
I thought Balmoral was.
