Dulwich Picture Gallery

About a month ago we visited the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Anna Ancher exhibition (fascinating, if a little uneven) and had a wander through the permanent collection housed in the main gallery distinctively designed by Sir John Soane. Soane’s great innovation, the indirect lighting supplied by overhead lantern glazing became the model for a generation or more of subsequent museum designers. It was England’s first public art gallery when it opened in 1817. 

The painting collection had its origins in a project led by a London art dealer and philanthropist, Sir Francis Bourgeois, (whose name lives on in the form of the famous YouTube trainspotter) to assemble a group of Old Masters as the basis of a National Gallery for Poland on behalf of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (PLC). By 1795 the PLC had ceased to exist and on his death in 1811 Bourgeois bequeathed funding for Sir John Soane to design a new museum to display the collection. In his design Soane included a Mausoleum to house the remains of Bourgeois and his business partner, Desenfans (and the latter’s wife) that occupies the heart of the building. For those who notice it, it is a slightly unsettling presence but at the same time it’s a grand gesture on the part of Soane to honour an unfulfilled ambition of Bourgeois to create a mausoleum for himself and Desenfans in the grounds of the latter’s home.

These are some notes on the examples that caught my attention.  At the top of the post is a wonderful small portrait by Rubens as a family man. Sensitive and tender, from c. 1612, a painting of his 12 year old daughter, Clara Serena. A sense of immediacy underlines her fragility and, sadly, she only lived a few more years. A stark reminder of how often infant mortality haunted family lives. Next is a small scale version of an old favourite subject due to its potential for eroticism and gruesome violence, in which the Jewish heroine Judith brandishes the severed head of the inebriated Assyrian commander, Holofernes. Based on a much larger original work by Cristofani Aliori, more dramatic conceptions of this story feature the moment of decapitation, most memorably that by Artemisia Gentileschi.  Below is an enigmatic composition of female heads orientated in opposition. It turns out to be a surviving fragment of a Poussin painting from c. 1529, rescued from the remains of an Adoration of the Golden Calf, otherwise war damaged beyond repair. Then we have a close-up on the hands of a Locksmith, extracted from a portrait by an unidentified Neapolitan artist, the full painting can be seen here. Following this is another intimation of mortality - a deathbed portrait of “Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby”, painted by Anthony van Dyck. The story goes that she suddenly died in her sleep at the age of 32 whereupon her husband summoned Van Dyck to record her likeness within two days of her demise. Sidestepping any mawkish sentiment, the artist shows her asleep in peace while also conveying, via the cloudy turbulence of her nightdress that her sleep has no end to it. Finally we have an entire wall of Gainsborough portraits except for a single Hogarth (lower left). The centrepiece is a double portrait (c. 1772) of Elizabeth and Mary Linley, accomplished singers and performers from a well-connected Bath family, their willowy forms surrounded by wispy foliage. About 12 years later in 1785, Gainsborough was employed to update their apparel to reflect changing fashions, by which time their musical careers were over, thanks to their marital status. 

 

Kino International Berlin

Opened in what was then East Berlin in1963 and part of the final phase of the westward extension of Karl-Marx-Allee concluding at Alexanderplatz, in which the Soviet wedding cake style was supplanted by something more contemporary. The cinema is a concrete framed construction designed by Josef Kaiser with a first floor box that projects forward to give the appearance of floating. The mostly glazed façade is only broken by a full height poster for the current film which by tradition is always hand-painted. On the other three sides of the box are stylised relief carvings moulded in concrete and designed to celebrate world peace and healthy outdoor pursuits. When complete, the capacity was an audience of 600. Eight rows of seats with the best sightlines and extra legroom were reserved for the use of weary party apparatchiks who could relax and stretch out their legs after a hard day’s labour ordering arrests and enforcing party discipline. It was a prestige project for the DDR and has remained in business since reunification. A two year closure for refurbishment began in May 2024 and reopening could be as early as the end of this month if all goes to plan.

 

East Midland Arcades

The East Midlands cities of Nottingham and Derby both have vintage shopping arcades from very different eras. The Strand Arcade in Derby dates from 1881 and pre-dates the Council House Arcade (1928) in Nottingham by about 47 years. They also differ in scale - the Derby arcade is a conventional Victorian design, comparable with many other examples in cities such as Cardiff, Birmingham, Bournemouth and Hull with ground floor shops and first floor accommodation.  Unlike others in Norwich, Newcastle or Leeds that dazzle the eye with ceramic splendour, the internal decoration is modest and the walkway, which connects The Strand with Sadler Gate to the north, is relatively intimate in scale.  The Strand itself has a fine continuous Neo-classical 3 and 4 storey frontage and the entrance to the arcade is included in Historic England’s Grade II listing. Rescued from dilapidation in 2006, it seems in good shape with an eclectic range of shops, no empty premises and a decent footfall.

In Nottingham the grand and spacious shopping arcade is part of the city's Council House and dates from 1928. The Council House was designed by the City Architect (T Cecil Howitt) to meet the need for a city hall and council chamber with the addition of a T-shaped shopping arcade inspired by the spectacular  Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan. What came to be built was a much reduced version of the Galleria with clean lines and restrained decoration. Not without its own sense of grandeur, I suspect an association with the architecture of privilege has deterred major retailers. Footfall seems light - it offers only minor advantages to pedestrians in search of a short cut. Nonetheless it survives as a destination for patrons of specialist traders in high value goods and an art dealer.

 

Imperial Hotel Tokyo Brochures

A brief follow-up to last year’s post on the centenary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s legendary Tokyo hotel, now rapidly receding in first-hand recollection. Two brochures extolling the merits of a stay in the Imperial Hotel. No evidence to date them but the conservative graphic style suggests the immediate post-war decade before the hotel’s decline as the fabric decayed. The images, hand-drawn and photographic, indicate the grand scale of Wright’s public spaces and help to explain why the lost building still commands a retrospective glow in the collective consciousness of architectural fandom. A mark of its enduring reputation is its inclusion in the premium-priced Lego Architecture range. Now out of production but second-hand examples can be found online starting at about £150.

 

Castle Drogo

The story begins with a marriage between two biscuit empires - Meredith & Drew, and Peek Freans.  Julius Drew was a descendant of both the former and the latter, his bride, Frances Richardson was a descendant of the latter.  Aged 34 at the time of his wedding, Julius had recently retired from running the large and profitable grocery chain he had founded in 1878 - Home and Colonial Stores - and planning a life of country pursuits and genealogy research. Having no doubt been exposed to the condescension of the aristocracy, routinely directed towards those they considered to be nouveaux riches, Julius developed a passion for genealogy in his search for more illustrious and titled forebears.  One of his cousins was Rector in the Devon village of Drewsteignton and Julius paid several visits in search of any evidence that might connect him with the Norman family, Dru, that gave their name to the village. Julius began buying land in the neighbourhood of Drewsteignton and conceived the idea of building himself a modern Norman-style castle in the locality. His masterstroke was to engage the services of Edwin Lutyens as architect - though Lutyens was initially reluctant and would have preferred a more orthodox commission for a large scale country house, he eventually accepted the task of designing a home with all the features of a traditional castle fitted out with the best of modern comforts.

It turned out to be a protracted project that had to be juggled with many other demands on Lutyens’s attention over two decades.  A site was chosen in 1910 on the top of a granite outcrop high above the Teign Valley, perfectly placed for repelling intruders. Lutyens had to be persuaded to abandon his initial proposal for a Tudorbethan fantasy in favour of a more rugged medievalism and came up with a plan for a sprawling monumental design on such a grand scale that it had to be reduced by two thirds to be affordable.  Locally quarried Dartmoor granite was the basic construction material and the client rejected Lutyens’s plan for to go for cavity wall construction (two walls two foot thick with a gap between) and insisted on solid walls six feet in depth. A further round of economy measures was imposed in 1920 requiring the relocation of key features and demolition of several partially completed elements.  The project muddled along, not helped by Lutyens’s frequent and prolonged visits to New Delhi in the service of the Raj and it was 1925 before the family were able to partially occupy their home and another five years before it was finally complete by which time it was one third of what was initially envisaged and had cost three times its original estimate.  All this effort to somehow give credibility to Julius Drewe’s unsubstantiated claim to be a living descendant of an ancient Norman family.

Julius died in 1931 leaving his heirs with an ever expanding financial burden of maintaining the vast edifice in sound condition and watertight.  Later generations toiled away through the privations of wartime, giving up the struggle in 1974 when the castle was acquired by the National Trust (NT).  The NT had the funds to stabilise the condition of the building and conserve and curate it as a memorial to Julius Drewe and his campaign for acceptance by the nobility and Edwin Lutyens and his eccentric brilliance as an architect.  In the chapel there’s an architectural model of the Lutyens designed war memorial at Thiepval dedicated to the Missing of the Somme that intentionally or not seems to underline the point.

Dartmoor granite is the hardest to be found in the UK and the precision cut granite forms, steps and archways make a powerful expression.  Lutyens’s command of internal spaces, alternating the spacious and the confined, creating forward glimpses that lead us around the building all combine to make the corridors, stairwells and passageways the most interesting elements in his scheme. Together with a restrained sensibility and formal austerity the castle transcends its faintly absurd rationale by force of personality.  And it’s the lower ground level that offers the finest transitions and the delights of the kitchen and scullery where Lutyens-designed fixtures and furnishings are illuminated by natural light from overhead lunette and lantern windows.  In the family rooms most of the furnishings and wall hangings are drawn from Drewe’s enormous collection of Spanish furniture that came into his possession in 1898 when he bought the palatial Wadhurst Park in East Sussex along with the opulent contents that had been assembled by the previous owner, Spanish banker Adrian de Murietta. Despite their often ponderous forms, the high ceilings, massive windows and overall spatial grandeur of Lutyens’s rooms cuts them down to size and deprives them of any power to detract from the overall impression.  It is a tribute to Lutyens’s ability to orchestrate these complex and demanding spaces into a coherent whole that we often find ourselves overlooking the essential frivolity of the entire project. 

 

Bridges of 2024

This year’s choice of bridges (mostly) crossed and photographed would be very modest but for a visit to Newcastle, which it must be admitted has some fine specimens. From west to east along the Tyne, our first is the High Level Bridge designed by Robert Stephenson (1845-49), with T E Harrison - the rail deck is supported by cast-iron box columns while the road deck is suspended from the rail deck by wrought-iron hangers encased in the box sections. Grade I listed by Historic England. Next is the Swing Bridge of 1868-76, designed and built by W G Armstrong & Co. - a wrought-iron structure supported on cast-iron rollers to allow free movement of shipping, operated by the original Armstrong-built hydraulic engines and controlled from the cupola that spans the deck. Listed by Historic England as a Scheduled Monument and last opened in November 2019. The New Tyne Bridge (1925-28) comes next, built by Dorman & Long of Middlesbrough and designed by Mott, Hay & Anderson - the profile of its single span is often employed as a symbol of the city.  The design is a reduced version of the 1916 design produced for the Sydney Harbour Bridge - the four massive pylons, faced in Cornish granite were intended to house warehouses with freight and passenger lifts, none of which came to pass.  Grade II* listed by Historic England.  Finally to the only bridge over the Tyne designated for pedestrian and cyclist use - the Gateshead Millennium Bridge (1995-2001) designed by Wilkinson Eyre. The deck is suspended from an elegant parabola that can be rotated through 45 degrees to permit the movement of passing ships - a major element in the riverside regeneration project as an artistic and cultural quarter that in turn led to the conjoined coinage of Newcastle-Gateshead.

Finally, two views of the Scarborough Cliff Bridge, a pedestrian footbridge opened in 1827 when it was known as the Spa Bridge, it's an unusual example of a multiple-span cast iron bridge. Connecting the town centre with the Spa, it originally operated as a toll bridge. In the view from the deck the imposing bulk of Cuthbert Brodrick's Grand Hotel looms over the scene. Grade II listed structure.