work matters: new project

what little boy wouldn't want to go check out behind the scenes of a rollercoaster?

we're appointed to the redevelopment of dreamland in margate - it is actually a pretty cool job but the old roller coaster got burnt down.

today i spent the day at great yarmouth checking out theirs. these trains actually date from 1926 - still in service (like my grandad's axe)

Photos bellow of the actual site at margate, fairly misserable!

holiday

i have just returned from an epic circumnavigation of the treacherous island of Menorca. more sun than wind meant for a fairly chilled out tour popping into every inlet, fishing village and local bar we could find. it really was good fun, if not the most histrionic sailing.

hero: dylan thomas

Written by the 19 year old Thomas who even then was not sure if he wanted it published:

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

work matters: new project

this isn't actually my job - it is being looked after by a colleague but as it goes into phase 2 i am looking at some aspects. it is the first time i have worked with james gorst architects but i really like their approach. the lead architect from james' team is william smalley who is actually in the process of striking out in his own direction whilst completing this project with james.

another day in devon with C.S. and this time, after cream tea or second-breakfast we walked from heddon's mouth to woody bay. i've been here several times and every time it is a new place - it is truly beautiful and these photos can't do it justice.

i am currently in north devon staying with my good friend C.S.

since being at university in the county and at the time falling for a girl from it's north its been important to me.

the north devon coast is possibly my favorite place in england. these photos are from the coast path near bucks mills/clovelly and saunton sands.

this morning we're heading to dartmoore - preparation = cup of tea.

work matters: new project

to broach controversy i really really struggle with all things victoriana. in england we seem to have an obsessive compulsion that the victorian era was our greatest aesthetic age. why? probably because it is reflected in our shared history with the US and industrial/geopolitical glory.

my thinking follows that the US is our current cultural hegemony. It shares a memory of the victorian period. it's hard for the US to enter an exchange on tudor england because there is no such thing as tudor america. I'm willing to stand corrected but I suspect we like victorian england because the US likes victorian england because it reminds them of an america that shared that period in history. It also reminds us of when britain was great. notwithstanding i struggle - gothic revival just doesn't sound appetising and lots of macabre and fussy architecture later celebrated as victoriana.

that may have to change as we are currently appointed to the redevelopment of the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow - London. i get to be instantly excited because the morris' house was Georgian - and a modest outpost of when England really was in an aesthetic movement to remeber. secondly morris was a craftsman and believed in design, materials and the people who made things. that was embedded in his own work, his writing and his special brand of socialism.

I look forward to learning a lot more and bringing the museum up to a standard that best makes use of an internationally significant collection of arts-and-crafts materials. however i doubt the wallpaper itself is making it beyond christmas wrapping paper in my house.