Oh dear, no deer...

It is almost a year to the day that I reported on an extraordinary happenstance in the south of England. A group of angry people claimed that they were duped into handing over money to gain entrance to a “Lapland” theme park in Hampshire’s New Forest. When the punters arrived, they found themselves in a muddy field surrounded by wooden builders’ hustings, instead of the expected vista of Arctic snow. The only visible “reindeer” were ponies with antlers attached. According to one punter, the promised Christmas bazaar resembled a car-boot sale. At a level, these people had a grievance. All had young children and many had travelled a long way to the rather remote Lapland, believing it be an off-shoot of two other, more successful Laplands. To make a long story short, the angry punters were reputed to have “rioted” in frustration and Lapland was shut down only two days after it opened.

On reading all this I wondered: why do we go to theme parks, at all? Theme parks and themed events bring a dimension of fun and fantasy into our humdrum lives. We go to a theme park in the same spirit that we go on summer and winter vacations. When we return from afar we pour over our photographs and souvenirs, treasuring them as little pieces of the places we have left behind. The desire for pastiche is as profound as the need to keep possession of a lock of hair from the head of a loved one. Without artifice life would be unthinkable. Without our ability to create artefacts we would still be living in trees. Man has pushed this atavistic longing further and further. It brought the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the ancients, gothic cathedrals to medieval citizens and Stourhead to Gloucestershire. In more recent times it has brought us Las Vegas, every Disney park on the planet - and Palm Jumeirah.

Christmas is the ultimate pastiche. We all create it in our own way, every year; in our dwellings, shopping malls, streets, hospitals, schools and factories. Just take one plastic tree strung with baubles, a supply of wine and mince pies, add a few people and – hey presto! Wherever it’s at, it works. To pay a pile of money to travel many miles to find seasonal pastiche in a place that is a take-off of someplace else seems rather sad to me. Of course, it was novelty punters were seeking, rather than the place. – what will we do when the novelties run out, I wonder.

The Nature Of Modernism

Early last week it was reported that the roof of the London 2012 Aquatic Centre has been lowered into place at the Olympic site in Stratford. Designed by leading architect, Zaha Hadid, it is described as an iconic, wave-shaped structure. Indeed, one newsreader compared it to the sting-ray, a large, tropical fish.

The Aquatic Centre has been paralleled with the Birds’ Nest stadium in Beijing in that both structures have been inspired by nature. This has directed my mind towards other parallels between nature and modernism. The nose of an aeroplane reminds me of nothing so much as the head of a swan. Trains – when they’re not on strike – thread their way about the countryside like giant, speeding worms. And certain types of speedboats duck and dive through water like trusty dolphins. Architects like Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright took nature to heart.

Corbusier’s Villa Savoye built in 1929 offered the dweller an unparalleled view of the surrounding countryside. In summer, those famous strip windows were filled with the greenery that grew outside while on top of the building was the famous “natural” sun bed. Falling Water, built by Frank Lloyd is fused so completely into its environment, that it is impossible to separate one from the other.

The late JG Ballard famously said that modernism lacked mystery and emotion, but I always disagreed. Modernism won’t sweep you back to a twilit past but fly you to a heady and exciting present. Interestingly, while leafing through my copy of The International Style (Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, 1932), it struck me how dated much modernist architecture and furniture now seems. I’ll bet one day, in a few hundred years or so, some old coot will be waxing nostalgic over shiny surfaces, chrome trim and streamlined bodywork.

No modernism, please. We're British.

A recent newspaper report revealed how the organisers of the Stirling prize for architecture have been accused of harbouring a bias against traditional design, contrary to public preferences. Apparently, a YouGov survey published on October 16 showed that more than three-quarters of the public prefer traditional buildings. Robert Adam, described as a prominent traditional architect, champions the public. In the same newspaper (The Guardian, Saturday October 17) is a report People Say The Building Hugged Them by Aida Edemarian.
It concerns a charity called Maggie’s, named after the late Margaret Keswick Jencks, who died of cancer. Maggie’s is a countrywide chain of advice centres for people that have been diagnosed with the disease. Chain is perhaps the wrong word to use here because it denotes a string of tacky, poorly-designed hutches built as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The late Margaret Jencks was married to Charles Jencks and the Maggie’s buildings have been designed and built by the most prominent architects of the day; Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers, Piers Gough and others. The Maggie’s building that the feature is concerned with has been designed by the Richard Rogers’ firm, Rogers Sirk Harbour & Partner and is nominated for the Stirling prize.
The name of the article is a giveaway – the building hugged them - explaining the reactions of certain visitors to earlier Maggie’s centres.
My puzzlement with the ‘general public’ disdain of ‘modern’ architecture will continue as long as the general public continue to prefer so-called traditional buildings. This, I suspect, will last my lifetime.

The tyranny of the tie

Earlier this year, for the final weeks of The Apprentice television contest, the pretty features of contender Kate Walsh were underpinned by a tie, not a fashionably feminised one, but one that would not have looked out of place with a male ensemble of suit and shirt. Later on, during the summer’s hot spell, a City employee complained about his firm’s discriminatory policy, namely that men were bound to wear collars and ties at all times, whereas women did not have to.

In 2002, BBC newsreader Peter Sissons came in for censure when he didn’t wear a black tie to announce the death of the Queen Mum. Gordon Brown was accused of ‘bad manners’ in 1997, when as new Chancellor of the Exchequer, he failed to dress appropriately for a black tie affair at the Stock Exchange.

What is it about the neck and shoulder area of the male – equivalent to the leg zone in females – that causes so much contention and is it a coincidence that the hangman’s noose and the serfs’ collar attach themselves to the same area? In the nineteenth century, a middle-class male tied a large floppy bow about a stiff, white collar. By the twentieth century, this had morphed into the necktie that we know today. As well as adding the finishing touch to male dress, ties are often used as badges of identity. Attendees of exclusive schools hang onto their uniform ties and air them at formal reunions. Engendering this sense of belonging and subsequent networking, along with the wearing of ties, are seen as male traits. So, what was Kate Walsh trying to tell us?

In the early twentieth century, various ‘liberation’ movements gave rise to the new woman, a creature that had the right to work alongside a man, to go to school and be seen as his equal. To denote her male status, the new woman put on a tie. A century later, female school uniforms still incorporate ties – I actually wore one. By wearing a tie, the new woman was endowed with a capacity to think intellectually, and when at work to subsume her thoughts and ideas from individual pursuits into those of her corporation.

One century later, women have won the right to put their necks into the same noose that has ever been provided for men. And this brings me back to Kate Walsh. She didn’t win this year’s Apprentice. That honour went to non-tie wearing Yasmina Siadatthan. Kate is now pursuing a television career.

Leg zone or battle zone?

It is a commonly accepted thing that female fashion is always changing, and that women are obliged to go with the trend, or else be deemed second-class citizenry. I don’t know if this has anything to do with an extraordinary event involving me, a decade and a half, ago.

I had been made redundant and was dutifully doing the round of employment agencies. To mark the occasion and to counter the frightful weather at the time, I kitted me out in navy wool jacket and brand-new, ultra-conservative black Alexon trousers, teamed with flat, black shoes. I looked every inch – I thought – the creative professional hunting for the perfect position. One spring afternoon, during yet another agency interview, a chippy female recruitment consultant told me that I might increase my chances of employment if I was to wear a skirt.

When I had recovered my surprise, I pointed out the necessity of dressing for the weather, for serial pavement pounding, and the importance of not eroding one’s redundancy pile purchasing fripperies such as nylon tights. She waved my arguments away, insisting that the non-show of leg, from knee to ankle, greatly lessened a girl’s chances of worthwhile employment. When she had finished speaking, my interviewer stood up and moved from behind her desk to reveal her feet in slippers; not the elegant, heeled kind but the good, old carpet variety with fur about the rims – what was this? Comfort for her, and pain and suffering for me.

I stared pointedly at them, trying to cause her as much discomfort as possible, in return for the put-down she had thrown at me. I still gag at the surreality of the situation and of her argument, especially when I now see a tidal wave of women going to work in comfortable, sensible garments. I have lost touch with corporate employment and sincerely hope those days are over forever – but I’m not sexist. My next feature will be on the subject of that male manacle, the collar and tie. I promise.

Vital Vidal

Seven years ago, I bought a Vidal Sassoon hairdryer for the princely sum of £12.99; 1800 watts, folding handle, 2 heat/speed settings, worldwide dual voltage, cool shot button, 2-year guarantee. Seven years down the line, it is still in perfect running order. In all the time I have had it, it has never given any trouble; coughed, spluttered or conked out while in use. Indeed, its lack of temper and even temperament is in direct opposition to the hank of hair that it routinely grooms.

Compact and streamlined, the brand name emblazoned in plain, white lettering on its shiny black casing, using it is rather like being in the company of one of those maddeningly well-spoken, ex-public school kids who never err, whether by word, deed, or gesture. How you long to see these scions of the well-to-do betray emotion, sprout dishevelled hair and effect slurred speech, just for once.

I am certain that these people have vices. Indeed, I know it. Yet somehow, they keep their private personae just that, private. Maybe that is the essence of good breeding? Meanwhile I have my hairdryer for company – and example.

Brickbusting,,,

It is thirty-seven years since Tate Gallery acquired artist Carl André’s Equivalent VIII. This installation comprises one hundred and twenty fire bricks arranged in two layers in a six-by-ten rectangle. When first exhibited at Tate Gallery in 1976, now Tate Britain, the piece drew much criticism from the press because of the perception that taxpayers’ money had been spent on paying an inflated price for a collection of bricks. (Wikipedia)

Ah, what a genius is André, what a visionary! His installation went on display in a quiet interval in British history, that pause before the buying and selling of brick and mortar became the passion, the all-time obsession of the paying public. Interestingly, the media reaction to Equivalent VIII was also symptomatic of things to come. It is only taxpayers’ money that must never be spent on building and its raw materials, their own built patches never drawing quite enough cash from private buyers.

But who is Carl André? He was born in Massachusetts in 1935 and studied art at Phillips Academy, Andover. Later, he was to work with Constantin Brancusi and Frank Stella. From 1960 to 1964 André worked as freight brakeman and conductor in New Jersey, an experience that was to influence both his art and personality. For a number of years he concentrated on writing, most notably his concrete poetry, in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the elements of the poem; meaning of words, rhyme, rhythm, and so on.

In 1965 he had his first exhibition of minimalist sculpting; a term applied to various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. (Wikipedia) If any artist alive knows about fundamental features, it is certainly Carl André.