Three notes - from one child. Given to me in this order. Architects and planners take note, this is the mind of a 3 year old and perhaps representative for the greater London population.
I was in London for three days so the text below is a work in progress, hopefully all the threads of thought will connect up by the time I finish in the next couple of days.
I have been reading a book called BLDGBLOG by Geoff Manaugh (http://bldgblog.blogspot.com) whom apparently many people have been reading for years, but my recent discovery of his writing has really opened my eyes to the role of architecture in a city. So it was with interest that I went on Thursday night to a screening of an archive about the building of the South Bank and the public buildings along it. It surprised me that it was only made in the mid 70s since the whole area has a very strong sense of establishment about it. In fact the weekend was an interesting observation in itself about how people use public space. But to get back to BLDGBLOG, the general sense I get from this book is that the spaces around us, whether real, virtual, imagined or transformed through scale or time or even by the experience of people around you, all have a significant impact on the way we think about ourselves and how we relate to each other. Manaugh's definition of architecture not only challenges the traditional definition, it opens you right up to think about what ISN'T architecture (to steal the sentiment of Laurence Olivier was asked in an interview for the above mentioned film 'can we afford such a grand theatre complex on the south bank?', replied "can we afford NOT to have a theatre building of this scale", spoken like a politician).
On the face of it, if my only view of the world was through the front window of my miniature house, you might think architecture was a description for smiling faces through the picture frame of a victorian window.
Perhaps that was the idea behind the picture frame window of the Victorians in the first place, certainly it was the idea in terms of looking in. But take another look...
What seems more significant is that the faces of all these people have an easy familiarity about them because we have just had an intimate conversation (intimate in the sense that we sat very close).
And warm perhaps because the scale has transformed this part of them for a moment so sit and look.
The architecture that they encounter has transformed them, physically and through their imagination, be a different version of themself.
I was speaking with a young woman (Laura) and her mother?? perhaps, and at the end of the conversation she gave me this book, to write things into. It's very nice to receive a gift, but it's especially nice when it's from someone you have only just met.
I was thinking about a theatre performance I saw in a Vietnamese temple once where the audience came up and put money and gifts into the hands of the performers in the last scene of the play, but this is slightly different because
I also spoke with a woman called Lesley, who saw my house in Singapore in 2008 and went so far as to send me some of her photos then and again now (pictured below),
Singapore 2008 London 2010
(Spot the difference? The roof is a different colour and the London house has a new roof. The handmade epoxy resin roof I made originally just wasn't cutting it)
Singapore 2008 London 2010
...and she asked me whether I got bored with cute kids in the window. I have never been particularly fond of 'cute', I have no pictures of kittens in my diary and I don't look up internet videos of puppies playing with string, but I do enjoy these photos because they have an openness that I don't come across very often in the standing world.
Is it Wimbledon? No it's Watch This Space summer festival of events at the National Theatre in London. A gigantic green astroturf that drinking Londoners and open-minded kids call home for an afternoon or evening.
Tell you what though, I read recently that in the 1880s red and pink were strong masculine colours and blue was thought to be a feminine colour - just shows how culturally susceptible to suggestion we are (particularly market driven ones)
These guys (below) stuck around long enough for us to have a good discussion about what art might be able to offer the world, that is to say, if you can define something as art. I enjoy the rhetoric that word brings up, it allows people to stop trying to think there is an answer or an absolute reason for doing something. I think art should be a word that gets applied to everyday life, getting to work, going on buses. Actually, last week in Brussels I saw a sign for 'the art of carwashing' hanging over a driveway.
And here they are from the outside, enjoying the art of conversation in their own private way.
Jerome and friend (I'm sorry I forgot her name but she is from Brasil) who met in China last year. Today they were meeting again for the first time and meeting me in my house was somehow mixed up in all of that. Distance isn't what it used to be, that's for sure.
And here is some videos from Nathan who had a wazzy little video camera that fits in the palm of your hand - Click Here and Click Here
And this is the half face of the very charming Russian woman who has moved to London recently to study acting. Perhaps she has a future in writing too, we played a word game together that spawned a few good turn of phrases.
And this is the half face of the very charming Russian woman who has moved to London recently to study acting. Perhaps she has a future in writing too, we played a word game together that spawned a few good turn of phrases.
More text to come
