Threads Through Sheffield

Nathan ColeyPigeon Lofts, Glasgow(1997, Slide Installation with audio)Nathan Coley

Shed Men by Gareth Jones (2004)If you can forgive him for the slightly sexist title, this book I discovered in the local Oxfam bookshop in South Manchester is worth a look. If only to see photographs and read accounts of the eccentric male lifestyles that do exist in the back gardens of the most ordinary and mundane places in Britain.I wholely agreed with one male shed owner described in the book when he says: “how they [sheds] still present a Romantic opposition to uniformity and conformity, an opposition to Modernist edifices like skyscrapers. “Sheds are temporary structures, the kind of things people put up at crossroads, before villages and towns”. And he loves the element of imperfection and contradiction, the fact that sheds are ramshackle, beautiful things.”If I was to pick out one architect who seems to revel in this “element of imperfection and contradiction” it would be the French Architect Patrick Bouchain. His most recent work: Le Channel (2005-2007) a cross-disciplinary arts centre in Calais, France shows the ‘Shed-concept’ on a larger scale, although still possessing all the intricacies and personality that the humble garden shed has in abundance. I am sure the ‘architecture’ that has resulted is certainly not to everyone’s taste, although what it does very well is relinquishing some of the Architect’s control through collaboration, which allows for the unexpected to occur. Bouchain’s long affair with the Circus in France is one such partnership which is resulting in some unforeseen ‘beautiful’ (whatever that is) ‘architecture’ (whatever that is).Images from: www.lechannel.org

Over a year ago now I was cycling around the outskirts of Berlin (Studio six research of course) and I passed an abandoned theme park called Spreepark. Along with life-size dinosaurs and rusty, motionless roller-coasters, the Evacuated Field is shown in this German Youtube video.The land that time forgot…

I have just found a scrap of paper in my pocket with the words: “Full Circle, Natalie Taylor” scribbled on it. Not remembering why or when I wrote this note to myself, I did what any other 21st Century person would do…. and googled. And it all came back to me. 

A visit to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh this weekend, introduced me to a piece of work by the British artist Tom Phillips; started back in the late 1960’s, Phillips work uses the obscure Victorian novel ‘A Human Document’ by W.H. Mallock (1892) as his ‘raw-material’. Re-named by Phillips as ‘A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel’ his work since the late sixties has been to alter and manipulate Mallock’s original book into an entirely new artist’s book.What I found particularly poignant was how he wasn’t starting from scratch, in fact he wasn’t even starting with something half finished, he started with a completed and fully published book or ‘product’. Using an existing narrative, Phillips draws, paints, scratches out printed words to reveal new narratives within the existing pages of text.My thoughts turned to Architecture and what Phillips work could possibly mean for the discipline and for the profession. Firstly a valuing of process could be transferable, by how the project demonstrates the advantages of a ‘work in progress’ that is constantly evolving and attempts to replace itself by updated revisions. And secondly, developing an ability to craft something interesting and of value out of the mundane. Both characteristics which are of course “easier said than done” but non-the-less, I believe will become ever more important in developing an Interdependent Architecture.

“Life is right, and the architect is wrong”Le Corbusier (toward the end of his life)A statement that often falls on deaf ears in my very short experience to date. I don’t know what is more interesting/surprising, the honesty of the statement or the fact that Le Corbusier himself said it. Either way its relevance to the debate on Interdependence and Architecture is important to acknowledge. I personally read it as a kind of warning sign rather than a mantra to be chanted or preached (Corbusier was very good at preaching!)If the architect is wrong, then what aspects of ‘life’ do we need to unearth or start to appreciate more in Architecture? hmmm… I may be sometime….could you put some money in the meter?