All The Live Long Day: Architecture

Showing posts with label Architecture. Show all posts

Wednesday, 19 February 2014

A very, very, very fine house.

Part of the Sensing Spaces exhibition I wrote about yesterday was a little movie featuring interviews with all the architects, including Pezo Von Ellrichshausen. Their segment of the film included footage of a house that made me feel all flustery.
If you'd let me, I would move into Casa Poli in the blink of an eye. It is my dream house. High above the ocean, build out of concrete and glass, it still blends perfectly with the nature that surrounds it. From the outside, you see a grey cube. From the inside, you see the ocean, the sky, the cliff-face. There are different textures of light and shade all around you, and the many viewing angles make the stark structure come to life.
Seeing this building made me quite emotional, actually. If you gave me the space and the guts, this is exactly what I would want to build and exactly the kind of land I would want to build it onto. I am looking at this at a time when Marco and I have been trying to make our minds up about where we want to live and what kind of place would make us happy. I wish I could find a place that would give me the same sense of joy and serenity that looking at the below pictures gives me. I wish I could feel so in tune with myself that I could close my eyes and be sure in my mind about where this place is and how I can get to it.

[via]

Tuesday, 18 February 2014

Sensing Spaces

I am very lucky to have a three-day weekend. I do not work on Mondays, and that third day off has been very successful in curbing the back-to-work blues that I used to experience every Sunday afternoon.
When I first started working part-time, I enthusiastically vowed that Mondays would be fun-days: filled with outings, crafts and awesome dates with myself. I was going to use those 24 hours wisely. Never happened. My typical Monday sees me in sweat-wear, lounging around the house, maybe doing some laundry and having an afternoon nap. Hm.
This Monday, mind you, I did go out! My friend Christina smartly shipped her two girl-kids off to Germany for half-term and was looking to fill her free time. She asked me if I wanted to do something in town together, and I surprised myself by saying yes! So we ended up having a fantastic day filled with culture, tea and shopping.
I suggested we go see the current architecture exhibition at the Royal Academy. I had read about it a little while ago and it looked and sounded interesting. It's called Sensing Spaces, and consists of 7 large-scale installations by different architects trying to convey the essence of their design beliefs. It felt like we were visiting a big playground, as you were able to walk through, touch and interact with the structures. If you are near London and interested in architecture, I can really not recommend this exhibition enough. And I am pretty sure that even if you don't give a rat's bum about architecture, but love to be inspired and to explore, you'd like it, too.

After all the art and a stop-over in Anthropology, we went somewhere secret: a tea room hidden above a Soho pub. You tell the pub staff that you're there for tea, and they will phone up and then invite you to step behind the bar to ascend a flight of stairs into a room that looks like you've made a trip back in time to 1940s London. Vintage jazz was playing, and we were served our tea on mismatched china at small tables with fresh flowers on them. I liked!

After tea, I proceeded to drag poor Christina all over Chinatown to track down ingredients for some Vietnamese cooking I have planned. She was a good sport about it and helped me hold baskets, look through bags of dried mushrooms and even lined up in one of the long check-out queues while I was still searching for an elusive oil. Thanks, Friend!

I enjoyed my London day. I can say I will probably not go straight away and do something again next Monday, but being out in town during the day and not having to hurry anywhere has reminded me that I once used to love this city and all it has to offer very much, and that I should try and keep that love alive.

Sunday, 18 August 2013

Coventry Cathedral

I do not often edit my photos in black and white, but for these shots of the Coventry Cathedral ruins in the rain, monochrome just fit the mood.

Thursday, 13 June 2013

The Shell Grotto

Earlier this month, I promised you shells. Now I'm making good of that. With pictures of one of the coolest tourist attractions you could possibly imagine. A mysterious grotto of shells. Also known as The Shell Grotto.
You can find The Shell Grotto in Margate. It was discovered by accident in the 19th century. Nobody knows the exact history and who the people were who lined these underground tunnels with millions of shells. All I can say is that they did a darn good job!

Before you enter the grotto itself, you can browse through a small exhibition, explaining a bit about the history of the place and the restoration measures that have been taken over the years. There are numerous exhibits of other things that have been made with shells, from bowls across picture frames to religious altars.

When you're ready, you descend a small staircase into a dimly lit tunnel with roughly made walls. And then you see the shells. And you marvel at the patience and artistic virtue of whoever decided to create this underground mosaic. There are shell roses, and shell hearts, and shell stars and they are all really, really beautiful. There's even a little cupola lined with shells, opening up to a skylight.

At the end of the tunnel, there is something like an altar chamber, where secret meetings, seances and Halloween parties have taken place across the years.

As the grotto was lit by gas lamps through most of its existence, the mosaics are covered with carbon residue and are a monochrome scheme of greys and blacks. But in the exhibition room you can see how colourful the shells would have looked in the early days of the grotto. They would have been all different hues of white and yellow and blue.

If you are interested in seeing the grotto for yourself or finding out more about it, you should have a look at the Shell Grotto website, which will give you a wealth of additional information