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Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Anna Minton on Four Thought

Anna makes a brilliant comparison between secured by design and resistance to 'shared space' by road designers in the UK in her 'Four thought' piece on Radio 4.  A classic case of looking and not thinking on my part - both pedestrian railings and gated residences offend me in the same way, but it had never before occurred to me as a manifestation of the same process; trying to make people safe inevitably results in less safe places.  

I'm looking forward to Anna joining us on the MAASD course at UEL this Friday

Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Coventry station, 29th October

Made from a standardised aluminium walling system, with glass, timber and brick infill panels, the station has a prosaic feel to it.  Internal and external spaces are bare and simple and the materials are hardly extravagant.  It doesn't feel either like an airport nor a living room.  The usual accretions of ad-hoc signage, CCTV, advertising and general shouty branding don't manage to smother the straightforward dignity of the platforms.   The trick to this building is not the materials themselves, but the way they are applied.  Each and every utilitarian element is aligned in a clean and simple way making it feel legible and appropriate.  At the same time, its not that noticeable, like most good design.

Completed in 1962, it certainly doesn't feel 50 years old, though it does have a '50s feel to it.  Coventry of course being much maligned contains both the best and the worst of our strained relationship with , Modernism, but for me, this building simply feels more accommodating and humane than the postmodern, , westfield-cum-airport-itecture of the new St. Pancras and King's Cross stations in London.  Coventry station is Grade II listed, thereby resisting the seemingly attention-deficit process of rebranding that is the most noticeable aspect of our dis-integrated railway system.


The brass plaque contains a poem by Coventrian Philip Larkin:
I Remember, I Remember
Coming up England by a different line
for once, early in the cold new year,
we stopped, and, watching men with number-plates
sprint down the platform to familiar gates,
'Why, Coventry!' I exclaimed.  'I was born here'.

The poem fits well with the architecture of the station as with Coventry itself, speaking of a time when our relationship with manufacture, buildings, places and making was surely different than today.  


Monday, 29 October 2012

the separate acts of looking and thinking

Taking John Locke's concepts of the two related, but independent modes of engaging with the world, sensation and reflection seriously requires discipline.  What we see is always so prejudiced by what we think that it becomes almost impossible only to see what is in front of us.  Having small children helps, though it is frightening how quickly this blurring affects them too.  In a world that prioritises objectivity over subjectivity and action over thought, one would expect that just seeing would be more commonplace, but the human mind is complex and good at fooling itself, so what we find is more subjectivity masquerading as objectivity and hidden motives guiding actions.
RSA Animate: the divided brain