On Saturday Caroline and I visited St. Leonard's Park. It's another Decimus Burton Park which received Lottery Funding to restore it. Its an interesting case study as it's topography and views are similar to Calverley Grounds. Purely by chance we picked a beautiful winter day to do it, cameras at the ready.
The park feels a lot more unified than Calverley. This is mainly due to the purity and cohesion of the materials used. There are some lovely details too, the resin bonded aggregate is edged with sandstone. All the retaining walls are either original or restored sandstone. The restored has breeze block retaining walls behind the sandstone. The water in the centre of the park focuses the eye in and then out. It also offers some stunning reflections and impressive looking fish. |
Upon leaving the park I realised it was 2.30 and I still hadn't eaten that day (it doesn't often happen). On route home I decided to grab some lunch at the De La Warr Pavilion. While there I had a quick look through the Ian Breakwell 'keep things as they are' exhibition.
The lady at the entrance let me know the background bits of information and then I stumbled my way through the exhibition. Ian seemed (like lots of creatives) a soul who was very sensitive to life and people but had a marvellous creative spirit and observation running through him. In an age now where some artists can just be controversial for the sake of controversy maybe he seems to have really thought out the boundaries that he set out to break.
He was heavily involved in the restoration and reopening of the De La Warr in 2005 and then died the day of it's opening. I feel that there must be a very large part of his spirit that lives on within the Pavilion.
Two pieces that really stayed with me were 'The other side' in the second exhibition hall. The stillness and simplicity of the piece was very meditative.
Another piece was a piece of prose about waiting for something to die and gutting it. It was quite a visceral piece of writing and had the reader reacted to that they might have thought it was writing about a murder. I had a feeling it was something else though. The way he described the men carrying it out there wasn't any reference to aggression or malice, it was just procedure which got me to thinking that maybe it was about an animal. Having spoken to the lady I was confirmed correct.
Many years ago I would have reacted like the majority of the people, thought the worst and stopped reading. Developing a bit of critical thinking through my degree has been really affirming for me. The trouble with developing critical thinking is that it opens many more doors than it closes and it's therefore quite important to also try to tune into your gut and follow it.
To tie this back into Calverley Grounds I find it quite daunting at the beginning of master planning to be staring at a piece of blank A1 trace and looking for inspiration. There are so many different options and ideas and trying to whittle them down into something workable is tough. My old method of handling it was to run around like a blue arsed fly gathering far more information than I could digest.
Now I'm going to try a bit of calmness and trusting that the idea will come and when they do I will know which are viable.
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Life's such a comedy. While you're pondering on something, lots of people input with their five pennies.
In our final lecture from Tom he talked about the Post Modernist movement and how artists started to work from their subconscious (Kandinsky / Jellico). With this came more symbolism in their designs in contrast to their Modernist predecessors.
Tom talked about the High Line and the symbology behind it. The rail track used to take livestock to the abattoir in the meat packing district. Now from death comes life in the form of the garden. He talked about the lack of symbology within modern design and the need for it.
Then Jamie lectured us about the 5 why's. During your designs you keep asking why. This cements your justifications for your designs.
What I've taken from this is the trust in your gut/ subconscious/ creativity but then fully interrogating that idea so it contains the practicalities to deliver. (And save enough to go visit the High Line!)
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