I got a tweet last night from Petra van der Ree letting me know that Architizer had featured the Architecture Pastebook as one of their 20 best Tumblr blogs to follow.
It’s great to be featured although the way they described my posts is ever so slightly odd. But I don’t really mind as they push a lot of traffic around. It’s also worth saying why I started it and I wrote a post about that when I started.
Architect and photographer Andy Matthews from Peckham, England, fills this Tumblr with images that he finds in his research or on design sites. It is a high-quality batch of fairly straightforward building documentation.
I guess they could have said something about my love of brutalism and concrete but it’s still nice to be featured. I woke this morning with a lot more followers on Tumblr which no doubt means I’d better make a bit more effort with it and post some original content (with attribution) and up the quality a bit.
I was saddened to hear of Colin’s passing last night. I have very fond memories of working with him and John Pardey in my final degree year at Portsmouth School of Architecture in 2001. There’s a fantastic image of the two of them together over at Building Magazine, although I’m unable to find a larger copy of it. I really enjoyed both of their contributions and it was my most successful time at the University. He was a great tutor and professor and I loved his insight and wisdom, his comments were often leftfield but always made you reconsider what you were working on. He was a larger than life character and a real presence in the school that was well balanced by Wendy Potts the then Head. He made a massive contribution to the school and he, and the building, were the reasons I initially chose Portsmouth.
I will always remember his effusive introductions to guest lecturers who came down to speak, usually on a train from London. The names he managed to bring down were incredible and he always described their work in such a wonderful way that the speaker was almost dumbstruck, they then had the task of trying to live up to it with their presentation they had brought. I will also always remember his towering presence and large handshake that was intimidating at first but he was always interested in what I had been doing and had advice for my project and also what I should be doing with my career. And who could forget his blue Williams Renault Cleo with the gold alloy wheels! He would arrive in this pimped up sports car which was completely incongruous for his status as Professor, but if you love fast cars then why not.
John wrote a thoughtful and touching obituary in the AJ which is well worth reading. There’s also some familiar names commenting on a BD article including Wendy who had this to say:
Colin and I became friends when we worked together at the University of Portsmouth from 1993 to 2006. I was a young unknown female Head of School and he became a loyal and supportive Professor of Design. He designed us a very special school in which to teach Architecture and together with my late husband, Jay Potts, we worked together to create new ‘shapes’ of architectural education that would enhance the teaching of Architecture in a climate of economic change. (What is new?)
The special thing that Colin contributed was optimism, fun and happiness. He made a special contribution to architectural education, partly by a building but also because he listened and responded with great thought to every (sometimes crazy) opinion a student put forward. He could transport himself to when he was their age and would treat any opinion with respect. It takes a humble and great man to do that. I know all students at Portsmouth School of Architecture will always carry that with them, as will I and my family. We will all miss his loyalty, support and passion.
He was also a successful cricketer back in the 50s and according to the Wikipedia page also had some success with a brief acting career. His work at Hampshire County Council Architects was legendary and was doing fantastic schools work before it was fashionable. I’d love to go back and revisit some of his work in the context of more modern school design. I’ve no doubt it’s stood the test of time.
And here’s a final quote from Colin himself in 1985.
Architects are the rightful custodians of the public estate because they have the capacity to introduce joy, imagination and wit into our environments.
I think that sums it up quite nicely. Rest in peace Colin.
I recently got hold of a copy of – John Pawson – A visual inventory – which is incredibly cheap at around £20 on Amazon. After reading a Guardian article about the book I was intrigued as to the quality of the content of the book, essentially a series of snaps and observations from one of the most minimal Architects working in the UK. His last book, which I bought whilst I was still at University, was called Minimum and, as per it’s title, was about as minimal as you could get. If I was entirely honest it wasn’t my thing at the time.
When I got the book I was struck by the richness of the imagery and the sheer variety of images from his travels around the world. In some ways the words and captions as well as his opening text were equally as powerful. The excerpt below from the introduction is for me a great description of the power of imagery as an Architect.
Part of the daily compulsion of photography is that it allows me to see what I saw over and over again. A camera is essentially and eye with a memory and I would be the first to admit that I am obsessive where this facility for recall is concerned. Since first acquiring a digital camera, I have accumulated over a quarter if a million image files. On the one hand, there is an attraction to photography’s speed and immediacy. Where the process of making a building is usually measured in years, an image can be captured in a fraction of a second. But more pressing for me is the sense that if you don’t record everything, moments slip away and are lost forever. Maybe I am particularly sensitive to this because architecture is a relatively permanent medium, involving enduring arrangements of stone, glass, timber and metal. My instinct is to translate things into a form I can hold onto and come back to – even letters and odd lines from books. You never know when a picture capturing the texture of a wall in Syria in the midday sun might be just what you ned as a reference to convey and idea to a client or colleague. When a member of a team returns from a site visit full of enthusiasm for a building or detail they have seen, my reflex response is always, ‘show me the photograph’.
I’m intrigued by the idea of a daily compulsion to photograph, to record, to capture or to retain or even amplify a memory. It’s a theme I have started to become more and more interested in after seeing family albums from my childhood as well as images of my Grandparents as young adults. The recording of images has massive significance in this context for later generations and I’m hoping won’t die. I’ve also tried to engage in this following my 365 project in 2009 and more recently by starting to collate prints of each year in boxes and maybe albums going forward. I like the idea of snaps also and that not too much artistic or overt meaning is overlaid in the first instance which could otherwise stop you taking that photo. Surely better to snap some friends, that interesting light, or that texture on the pavement that would otherwise be missed and entirely forgotten than to hold back as it’s ‘not good enough’. The message I get from this book is almost certainly – take more pictures!
Pawson seems to summarise a unique way of seeing through his book that in some ways I feel only an Architect could do. He’s not a photographer as such but he is using the medium to his advantage and again that medium is informing how he sees, his compulsion makes him see so much more and he has seemingly become acutely aware of his surroundings. He clearly has a real intrigue, eagerness and passion for seeing which is so well described here. It’s incredibly inspiring to read through and delve into the image captions. The work also has all sorts of meaning for an Architect reading and is incredibly thought provoking. I read the book in two sittings to process the first series of images before going back for more. I think I’ll be dipping in again and again in the future.
The smallness of human life is graphically expressed in this graveyard, in the low stubs of the headstones dwarfed by the towering tree trunks. Perhaps unexpectedly, the effect of this monumental contrast of scales is a feeling of comfort – the secure tranquility of the final resting place overseen by these massive forms, whose benign nature seems to be underlined by the little wooden nesting box on the central tree.
An example of one of the short captions that accompanies each image. They’re short enough to not get bogged down in, but long enough to give some background and context to each image and describe what Pawson saw that fascinated him so much. In summary, a beautiful book to own. I think mine will be very tattered before too long. A must purchase for any Architect with even the slightest interest in visual representation or photography.
A lovely little find from my mate Nat. A series of photos which appear to show multiple exposures of buildings before, during and after demolition. The EXIF says a Sony DSLR so I’d imagine they’re blended but still, they have a strange ethereal quality to them and incredibly beautiful. Wonder how they did them from the same spot without having to leave the camera there? Well worth popping over to Flickr to check out the whole set. A few of the best below.
I started my current job almost four years ago. I was fortunate to find the job just before the recession hit in early 2008, which seemed to strike almost overnight. I left my last job in a bit of a hurry, an interim step between two great employers if you like. When I started I was even luckier to be able to run two phases of a planning application. The first went in smoothly and was consented surprisingly easily after 3 months, the second less so and took another few years of negotiations and hard work to get sorted. Finally it did get consent, including planning, listed building and various other statutory approvals, but then nothing, there was no money to take the scheme forward. I enjoyed both parts of the job which were interspersed with other projects in the office. The best thing about working on these jobs was dealing day to day with a client, understanding their needs, relating to them, engaging with them and speaking to them almost daily at times, guiding them forward and reassuring them and aiming to achieve more than they ever thought possible. At many times you’re abstracted from that process of engagement but here I was seeing how it all worked and thriving on it. It really flicked a light on in me and made me want me realise why I had trained to be an Architect – I was made for it if you like.
Fast forward to last Monday and I find out that one of the phases is going ahead – with me as project Architect. Words cannot express how happy I am to be able to realise a project that I designed (with the input and guidance of my boss of course). There’s something so good about seeing something from start to finish and, fingers crossed, seeing a beautiful building and happy client at the end of that process. I’m so looking forward to solving some really tricky detailing problems and spending some time on site engaging with all the parties that go into making a brilliant building happen. That should keep me busy for the next few years.
A beautiful set of images of Sanaa’s Rolex Learning Centre in Lausanne being used as an area for skiing and generally mucking about. Love it. Probably not what the Architect intended but lots of fun regardless.
The Ashmolean has made the shortlist for this years Sterling Prize! Fantastic news. There’s some interesting projects on there especially the DSDHA school as well as the incredibly beautiful Theis & Khan studio and apartment.
The coverage in the national press has been huge! I’m definitely a big believer that normal press is far more useful than the journals. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a few of my images published on the BBC, Guardian, Independent and RIBA Journal amongst others. What I’m also really pleased about is that the image below seems to have become a signature image with most publications choosing to go with this one. Great exposure for Rick and of course Andy Matthews Photography!
The bad news? Well some people aren’t very good at crediting the Photographers. BBC & RIBA Journal I’m looking in your direction!
Finally got round to shooting a few shots of the Heygate Estate at Elephant & Castle with Aaron from Part 3. A little colder than I had hoped at around -2 so spent a lot less time going around setting up shots. Anyway, below are a few of my favourites. I shot a few more on the Olympus but will have to wait until I process the film for those.
Well I’ve been up all night and I am about to go an get something to eat and then go and hand in my final 10,000 word career appraisal and PEDR log sheets recording all my professional experience to date. It’s quite a milestone for me so it seems like a good time to reflect on the cost of getting to this stage. So the vital stats are as follows.
11 years overall. Sept 98 – Sept 2009
5 years full time in University.
2 years part time at University.
7 practices worked for.
15,500 hours of professional experience recorded in PEDR sheets.
£45,000 debt (give or take a few k)
And a bit of a belly…
Fingers crossed they let me in. Just got to wait for the interview in September now.
