Africa House

Posted on February 11, 2008 by Crompton

Africa House, Holborn, London.
High up on Africa House, Holborn, are armed Superheroes with elephants crocodiles and a camel, Jumanji on the roof one might say. If an African vignette was carved today what would it look like?

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The Dome of the Rock

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Aventinus

Continuity in Architecture are pleased to announce the recent publication of the paper “The Dome of the Rock: Origin of its Octagonal Plan” by our former colleague Dr. Anwarul Islam (and Zaid F. Al- Hamad). Published in Palestine Exploration Quarterly the paper has been described by the Islamic Art and Architecture authority Professor Emeritus Oleg Grabar of Princeton University as presenting ‘a very cogent and intelligent statement’ on the building’s origins. The paper is published in PEQ 139, 2 (2007), pages 109-128, and is produced by the Palestine Exploration Fund, founded in London in 1865.

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1968

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Sally Stone


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Something for transport/concrete enthusiasts: a set of discarded slides of Preston Bus Station during construction and soon after. The building is of course “about to be demolished” – perhaps the architects (BDP Preston) expected a forty year lifespan? What an extraordinary building though, photographed with extras borrowed from Get Carter. Thanks to Richard Brook for the tip-off.

See also: Love it or hate it… and Analogue & Digital

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France v Britain: Who has the best ironmongery?

Posted on January 30, 2008 by Crompton

Locks in Musée Marmaton, Paris and a Northamptonshire cottage compared: precision gilded case and too cheap to have a case.

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Loxford Disembowelment

Posted on January 27, 2008 by Sally Stone

A former student writes: “Loxford was a strange building in which to study architecture, its staggered brick residential tower sat above the 3 storey podium that contained the studios. There was never a connection between the students that lived in the tower and those that worked beneath. The stairwells were deliberately separated and the two groups would only meet in the latterly re-modified refectory; architecture students strung out from ‘all-nighters’, caning espressos to get them through the pending crit and 1st year sociology students arriving for breakfast at 9.55am, still sporting their pyjamas.

The studio space (pictured) holds one lasting memory, of the first day of my final year of undergraduate study. My peers had not seen each other for a year and there was the inevitable hubbub and babbling of one hundred conversations. Suddenly we were interrupted by a resonant bark of ‘shut the **** up’, in an alien tone. Our new head of year was new to us and us to him, there was to be no messing about; his first utterance had seen to that. In the coming year we all got down to business.”

Anon. Former Student.

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Card No.6

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Crompton

Loxodromic line. Infinity going inwards.

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ÅÖÄ

Posted on January 18, 2008 by Sally Stone

The Holden Gallery at the Manchester School of Art is exhibiting the work of a group of MA students from the Academy of Fine Art in Helsinki and although the flyer states that the work is “…characterised as much by the attention to the sense of trace, the index of the artists mark, as by the deployment of sentiment via popular imagery”, it is a very funny and most enjoyable show.

Among the works on show is a collection of hilarious photographs by Eeva-Maija Priha of a young lady kissing the lips of notable European statues, a group of carved wooden rockets each with a pediment, attached by Panu Rytkönen, (very reminiscent of the Manchester Central Library) and a series of brown paper bags with grotesque cartoon faces cut from them by Janne Kiiskilä.

The show continues until the 1st February

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Vincent Harris Vigilantes Awake!

Posted on January 16, 2008 by Aventinus

Rumours reach CiA of changes afoot in one of Manchester’s most significant pieces of urban design, Library Walk, which mediates between Vincent Harris’s pantheon-inspired Central Library and his rather more Scandinavian-classical Town Hall Extension. All potential VHV should be concerned because of

a) The crassness of the City Council’s stewardship of the city’s patrimony – as evidenced by the laughable application of No Parking signs to Harris’s gracefully austere elevations.

and

b) The previous vandalism visited on Harris’s Rates Hall in the Town Hall Extension “with the introduction of a burolandschaft office plan attemting to ‘humanise’ a previously clearly hierarchical space” (Canniffe & Jefferies 1998).

One might hope this robust but vulnerable example of municipal pride will receive the same sensitive treatment and restoration as Harris’s Sheffield City Hall, reinvigorated by Penoyre & Prasad, but one fears the worst…perhaps a Starbucks … or yet another branch of Kro?

So crucial is the ensemble of Harris’s buildings on St. Peter’s Square that it features in the central section of this film of the digital model of the city produced by Arup.

I feel a campaign coming on…

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Pseudo-Wood Demolished

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Crompton

13th January 2008

The First Church of Christ Scientist, Castlemere Street, Rochdale is being demolished. Built between 1911-14 the architect was Thomas Butterworth of 78 King Street Manchester, the same address as the office of Wood and Sellers. It is obviously based Wood’s Daisy Bank Road Church. Is this School of Wood or did the Master himself lend a hand?

Most recently used by Jehovah’s Witnesses the building was in a pathetic state with windows bricked up, walls pasted with render, and a suspended ceiling inside. Possibly the walls were too insubstantial for the thrust of
the huge open trussed roof. Following the destruction of Durnford School in 2002 our stock of Wood is going down fast.

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Pour your own Ionic

Posted on January 11, 2008 by Crompton

Its a tree, a waterfall, a long dress.

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EMBT Housing, Barcelona

Posted on January 8, 2008 by Sally Stone

The slightly warped orthogonal form of the housing next to the Santa Caterina market contrasts strongly with the flowing roof canopy of the market building. The contextual deformations of the housing appear responsive and natural in the tight urban landscape. The walls are sheer and pale with an apparently arbitrary splattering of windows arranged on them. This simplicity is reinforced by the manner in which the openings are treated. Each window is covered with an austere and unpretentious wooden louvered panel, mounted on runners. When necessary, these can slide in front of the openings to stop direct sunlight from overheating the interior, while still encouraging air movement through the gaps between the individual blades.

Enric Miralles – Benedetta Tagliabu

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Star Bricks

Posted on January 6, 2008 by Crompton

This delightful detail is made with a single brick special.

(Parsonage Road, Withington, Manchester)

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