A Monument To Architectural Folly

My love of a rusticated pilaster is documented.  I can dig a dog-tooth and ogle an ogee.  There is a wealth of obscure words for different shaped bits of stone and each one makes me feel that I should store it mentally in case it comes up in a crossword.

For my final day, for a while, of supervising the art school print room, I made a jolly three-colour screenprint that came out of some happy hours looking through books of architectural details and terminology.  It all came together this afternoon and this evening and all twenty copies came out pretty well.

Drawn and printed today!  A preposterous erection.

The books in question include works by Matthew Rice and Osbert Lancaster, Peter Ashley's "Preposterous Erections" and a King Penguin on the English Tradition In Design.

Here you will find:

Doric columns, interlacing arches, quoins, Venetian windows, consoles, crockets, a lucarne window, Elizabethan chimneys, egg and dart, shield-bearing lions, triglyphs, staddle stones and a crinkle-crankle wall.

That's just the main feature.  The border brings you trefoils, cinquefoils, linenfold, trumpet moulding, ball-flower, volutes and label termination.

Of course, an antefixa would have been a step too far.

Southampton Planning

Here's an artefact from the background work for my degree show, back in May of last year.  I was researching critical appraisal of the city's architecture, particularly addressing modernism.  Owen Hatherley's "The New Ruins Of Great Britain" was a big influence on the content of the project.  Another was Jones The Planner's two blog posts about Southampton - "Southampton Dreams" (July 2011) and "Oi Southampton Masterplanners!" (April 2012).

Mainly for my own reference and development of ideas, I drew the second of the two, copying the photos and writing snippets of the text.  It takes in the legacy of historical styles, the effects of the twentieth century, recent attempts at regeneration and the city council's master plan.

My drawing / Jones The Planner's blog post.

The blog is still turning out long and rewarding pieces, about Exeter, Bristol, London...  and Stockholm and Copenhagen!

Sketches from Stockholm

Following my post of drawings from Copenhagen, here are a few from the couple of days that I spent in Stockholm before getting the train to Denmark.

Sergels Torg office blocks

First, the domino-row of office blocks between Sergelgatan and Sveavägen, seen from the window of  Coppola Caffé, on Sergels Torg.  We spent a lot of time there, making the most of the free refills, which seem to be fairly standard in Copenhagen and Stockholm.  The café is in on of the big shopping centres overlooking Sergels Torg, which a big junction and plaza, and one of the hubs of the city.  There is street entertainment and stalls, surrounded by modern blocks and grand department stores.

Karlaplan

Karlaplan is a round park at the head of a smart boulevard, with a fountain at the centre.  It was quietly busy on a Sunday morning.  Here is the view, in slices, from the pinnacles of buildings above the ring of trees to the benches around the water.

The boats around Skeppsholmen

There's a completely different impression of the city from the waterfront - and there's a lot of waterfront, as Stockholm spreads over a number of islands.  We crossed the bridge to Skeppsholmen and walked right around, looking at the boats in their berths and watching ferries zip back and forth, interspersed with a few Baltic cruise ships.

Coppola Caffé

Finally some café sketches.  I enjoyed sitting still at the centre of a busy city - but with more time in Stockholm I could have kept myself very busy.

Winchester Cathedral

Winchester has a thing called the 10 Days Festival.

Badger Press, in Bishop's Waltham, set a brief for artists to make prints to go on display in Winchester, including the number 10, all ten inches square and in editions of ten.

Count the Tens - my print for Badger Press.

I had fun putting together a hotch-potch of Winchester Cathedral - the tiles, the Norman and gothic arches, the carved heads, the ancient graffiti and so on.  I had a demo sketch, but on Tuesday I made a research trip for a few more ideas.  This lead on to lunch (for my birthday) at Loch Fyne

Today I drew the final image, in two layers, and screenprinted it - with technical backup from the wonderful Omid and Clari.

Demo for the Winchester 10 Days print.

The deadline is this Sunday and the festival is from 25th October to 3rd November.

Too Many Tall Buildings

My Boris Johnson
Weathervane plan
for the Shard.

I've given some attention to tall buildings in the past few weeks and months, from serene campaniles to Sixties campuses.

Today Simon Jenkins, chairman of the National Trust, wrote in the Guardian about the colossal towers soon to spring up in developments all over London; what they will be for; who says yes or no; and why anyone wants them.  As you might guess, he is largely in the "against" position.

Here is the piece:  Who let this Gulf on Thames scar London?  Mayor Boris.

In the last decade, mayor Ken Livingstone was all about tall buildings and the futuristic lens-flare of prosperity that would bounce off their gleaming façades and all over London.  Now Jenkins is pointing the finger at Boris Johnson for opposing in principle and allowing in practice.

Otto's illustration for the Guardian. 

Jenkins writes:  "Towers imply civic leadership weak in the face of commercial pressure. They are not "vital" to the urban economy, least of all in a low-density city such as London. The last rash of speculative towers such as Centre Point in the 1970s mostly lay empty until rented for government offices. Today's are not built for people to use but as sleeping bank accounts for funk money. The Shard may well stay largely empty, like One Hyde Park and the palaces of Palm Island, Dubai. The rich may own them, but not inhabit them."

London in 2259, in Star Trek Into Darkness.

To me, the Shard, Heron Tower, the Walkie Talkie, the Cheesegrater and all the coming statements of bigness were referenced - almost satirised - in the new Star Trek, as the early phase of a monolithic sprouting all over the city (which, I admit, is hardly new).  What do you think?  Are your eyes set twinkling, or do you see a future of grand embarrassment over empty projects, or grim dystopia?