Category Archives: Internship

Tallulah Griffith: The Steiner Guide to Steiner – A Mini Waldorf Textbook for the Courtauld

Audio Version

Read by Gill Stoker

Text Version

 

Instructions for use:

If you are accessing this guide online, please note that it is intended to be printed, as Steiner education encourages first-hand engagement. Users of the Conway Library at the Courtauld Institute of Art can also find the printed guide in box CON_B04414; the corners have been rounded, in line with Steiner school practice, so that the student can approach from any angle.

THE GUIDE

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was an Austrian architect, clairvoyant, esotericist and social reformer. Among his projects, he set up the first Waldorf school in 1919, to teach his principles of anthroposophy, a spiritual movement founded on the belief in an observable spiritual realm which interpenetrates the material world. Waldorf schools use a kinaesthetic, action-loaded approach to intellectual subjects, focusing on art, music, and rhythm. No textbooks are used in Steiner’s philosophy; instead, students make their own educational materials, as I have endeavoured to do here.

Extrapolating from Steiner’s elementary school reforms, anthroposophy, and the initiatives of London’s Rudolf Steiner House, I have created a guide for studying the Steiner archive using his own pedagogy. The library box, ref: CON_B04414_F005 & F006, holds early photographs of both Goetheanum buildings, which cannot be understood without Steiner’s spiritual science.

This textbook is intended for students of the Institute, those involved in Courtauld outreach and public engagement programmes, and any prospective students of Steiner.

Steiner Textbook by Tallulah Griffith, p. 001.
Steiner Textbook by Tallulah Griffith, p. 002.
Steiner Textbook by Tallulah Griffith, p. 003.
Steiner Textbook by Tallulah Griffith, p. 004.
Steiner Textbook by Tallulah Griffith, p. 005.

Tallulah Griffith
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Oxford Micro-Internship Participant

Keelin Willis: The Creative City

Audio Version

Read by David Brown

 

Text Version

 

    “The city fosters art and is art; the city creates the theatre and is the theatre.”
    (Mumford, 1937: 185)

 

Devoid of the familiar bright bursts of graffiti and reliable clunks of skateboards hitting the floor, the Undercroft of Queen Elizabeth Hall pictured in the 1960s is almost unrecognisable. Standing on the site of a shot tower built as part of a lead works in 1826, this brutalist piece of architecture was retained for the Festival of Britain and was worked on by architects such as Bennett, Whittle, West and Horsefall before being opened by the Queen in 1967. As with other brutalist works of the 1960s, Queen Elizabeth Hall reflects the efforts of young designers looking for new ways to express their belief in the future. For example, this is demonstrated in their use of concrete, a traditional material, in original and experimental ways. Love it or hate it, the creativity enmeshed in the brutalist genre is incontrovertible.

Black and white image of Queen Elizabeth Hall mounted on card.
CON_B04286_F001_006. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.
Black and white image of Queen Elizabeth Hall mounted on card.
CON_B04286_F001_007. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

In light of this, a building as expressive as Queen Elizabeth Hall should surely stand as the pinnacle of creativity and innovation in the city. Yet, this is not necessarily the case. In the midst of exchanges between large organisations, authoritative bodies, renowned architects and other key public and private players, the individual city dweller can become disconnected from the city that rises around them. Rather, the dictation of how the city is structured from above works to pacify citizens. In this way, people are shaped by the city, or more accurately, the power relations that shape the city in the first place. While Mumford’s (1937) metaphorical description of the city as “theatre” suggests its inhabitants are granted endless freedom in their performance, in reality, this performance must comply with a particular set of restrictions imposed from above. Perhaps the city as “container”, or even “prison”, would be more appropriate.

However, the skate park found in the Undercroft of Queen Elizabeth Hall today suggests otherwise. Despite being intended as a pedestrian walk-way, the Undercroft’s interesting features drew skaters to adopt it as an undesignated skate park – “Southbank” – in 1973. In appropriating public space for their own use, Southbank’s skaters are performers in their own theatre, regardless of restrictions imposed from above. They are active agents shaping the city, just as the city shapes them. In a broader sense, subversive actions, such as skateboarding in undesignated areas or making graffiti art, speaks to the re-politicisation of public space through the agency of the everyday citizen. As contended by Hall (1998: 7), the city is “a unique crucible of creativity” and this creativity hands every person the potential to destabilise the supposed natural order orchestrated by those above.

That said, the potential for small-scale subversive activities to make a profound difference in the contemporary urban landscape may seem limited. Indeed, a skateboarder with a can of spray-paint in hand seems unlikely to win a hypothetical battle against the Greater London Council. Collectively, however, the power of communities must not be underestimated. In 2004, the Southbank Centre temporarily closed large sections of the Undercroft for exhibitions, but closures continued until plans for a commercial redevelopment of the Undercroft as a “Festival Wing” were uncovered in 2013. In response, the Long Live Southbank campaign was set up by the Undercroft Community to resist the proposal. Following an incredibly successful campaign which saw immense public support for the Undercroft community, Long Live Southbank and Southbank Centre signed an agreement guaranteeing the long-term future of the skate spot. Moreover, the Long Live Southbank and Southbank Centre have been in a partnership and joint project team to restore and renovate the Undercroft as a skate area since 2016. As demonstrated by the Long Live Southbank campaign, the collective action of everyday citizens has the potential to make huge institutional changes at all levels of authority and power.

To reflect the changes made to the Undercroft by the skate community, I have graphically imposed a representation of their graffiti artwork and skateboarding onto one of the photographs taken in the 1960s. Indeed, the very action of creating artwork on top of an original photograph seemed subversive in itself. Just as artists spray-paint city walls, I felt as though I was altering property that was not mine to alter. Surely photographs stored in archives were for “proper” research with books and essays to show for it? Yet these are exactly the kind of unspoken expectations creative art forms can challenge. In using the archive in such a manner, I was performing in a theatre of endless possibility myself.

This is a derivative work by the blog's author, Keelin Willis, superimposing a colour image of the skatepark on the original southbank structure.
An adaptation of CON_B04286_F001_006 – the skate park (that can be found today) has been graphically imposed onto the original photograph of the Undercroft using GIMP. Image by Keelin Willis.

Keelin Willis
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Oxford Micro-Internship Participant

 

References:

  • Hall P (1998) Cities in civilization: culture, innovation and the urban order. Weidenfield and Nicholson: London.
  • Mumford L (1937)What is a City? Architectural Record, LXXXII.

Mia Gainsford: Utopia or Incubator? Le Corbusier’s L’Unité d’Habitation as Photographed by Lucien Hervé

Audio Version

Read by Francesca Humi

Text Version

La maison du fada, or rather “the madman’s house”, is the colloquial name given to Le Corbusier’s L’Unité d’Habitation housing project in Marseilles. The name arouses intrigue and renders the project a diversion. It has a childish appeal, like the building itself, which jumps out of its surroundings and sings colour from its windows.

Image in colour of housing project
CON_B04326_F001_010. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

L’Unité d’Habitation was Le Corbusier’s attempt at a utopia. Completed in 1952, it was an architectural project which sought to heal the wounds of post-war Marseilles and incubate the next generation. In photographing Le Corbusier’s housing project, Lucien Hervé made children his focus. However, it is important to stress just how rare human subjects are, of any age, in architectural photography; if people are photographed, they are photographed with a purpose. Thus, in Hervé’s photography it is important to ask whether the focus of children intends to enhance the optimism of Le Corbusier’s architectural utopia, employing them as a symbol of hope, or if instead, they are chosen as subjects susceptible to the “madman’s” diverting.

Young girl pushing on the door
CON_B04326_F001_022. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

In discovering Hervé’s photographs amongst the Courtauld’s Conway archive and participating in the broader volunteering scheme, I could not help but reflect upon the act of labelling and giving something a name. Each image has its own code which refers to its box, folder and then place in a sequence. This act of labelling creates its own narrative; the code tells the wider story of the Courtauld’s efforts to organise and digitise the Conway photographs with the help of hundreds of volunteers, and in this, humanise the archive too.

Although this narrative is of a second order to the narrative of the photographs themselves, the Courtauld’s emphasis on retaining the physicality of the photographs, from the fibre of the brown paper they are mounted upon to the spidery annotations around an image, means that no narrative is prioritised over another. The Courtauld is striving to aggrandise the photograph’s status as object, rather than objectifying an image completely on the institute’s own terms and erasing its history. The Conway digitisation project honours how an image has been objectified in the past, and with this, creates a layering of meaning and proffers a plethora of stories which frustrates the idea that labelling is an industrial process and therefore a reductive or homogenising way to treat the photos.

In the Marseillaises’s nicknaming of Le Corbusier’s work “the madman’s house”, we see a similar supplementing and creation of narrative to that of the Courtauld. However, here the name personifies the housing project, rather than objectifying it by commenting on its physical form, like its other name “the Radiant City” does. This character of the “madman” disrupts Le Corbusier’s naïve, attempted narrative of L’Unité d’Habitation as utopia. The invocation of madness becomes confusingly human. We can imagine this mythologised figure in the same vein as Carroll’s Mad Hatter, dancing with joy and performing his hospitality, but if “madman” is to be taken more literally, he becomes a victim of the trauma of war too, a man haunted by the contemporaneous austerity, as well as the past, and still suffering below his colourful pretence. Le Corbusier saw L’Unité d’Habitation as a remedy to «les maladies de villes» but for the Marseillaises, the project, as a person, was still ill.

Black and white image mounted on card of the building's profile.
CON_B04326_F001_017. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

The two narratives of L’Unité d’Habitation as utopia, as well as a place of great instability and pretence, are in opposition. The full extent of the connotations which derive from naming a housing development “the madman’s house” unsettles Le Corbusier’s idealistic vision. The colloquial label is more understanding of the history before L’Unité d’Habitation; it is an interaction with the past, which acknowledges the preceding trauma rather than reacting to it like Le Corbusier’s project does. It is this idea of interacting over reacting, and subsequently overwriting a narrative, which founds the Courtauld’s sensitive approach to handling the Conway archive too.

Old Man staring out of window
CON_B04326_F001_028. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

Moreover, as subjects in Hervé’s photography, the children probe at the dual nature of L’Unité d’Habitation. The child’s indiscriminate and unassuming qualities mean that their interactions with the housing project are not marred by history like the adult’s. In Hervé’s work, adults are clearly preoccupied, turning away from the camera and staring listlessly at that which lies outside of the development. However, the children do not remember that which Le Corbusier is trying to forget with L’Unité d’Habitation. By consequence, they simultaneously complement the utopian idea of starting again, but also offer a vulnerability to the photographs, akin to believing that this so-called “unity of living” is the norm.

Children playing in light
CON_B04326_F001_026. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

Hervé’s photographs which comprise children chasing each other between shafts of light and shadow come to represent the housing project’s competing aspects of the hopeful and the haunted. To the children, contradiction becomes a game, the light and shade facilitate play, they are suspended in L’Unité d’Habitation’s utopian narrative, creating imagined stories of their own, only related to Le Corbusier’s project through location. Through play, the radiance of the housing project with its floor to ceiling windows is equated to shadows created by the sun overhead. Here, the implications of the two names are not in opposition for the children; the children’s presence in the photographs becomes rehabilitative of competition and divisions in all their forms and thus inform the most pertinent of all the post-war reflections to come from the housing project, that unity can be found anywhere.

In July 2016, Le Corbusier’s L’Unité d’Habitation project in Marseilles and its other iterations in major cities such as Berlin and Nantes were listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. This accolade adds yet another label to Le Corbusier’s work and develops the narrative further. It is Le Corbusier’s utopia which meets the criterion of “providing an outstanding response to certain fundamental architectural and social challenges of the 20th century”, rather than the public’s “madman”. However, again, through Hervé’s photography of children and L’Unité d’Habitation, we see a visual recalibration and simplification of this criterion, as for a child, the project has succeeded if it makes him or her feel safe and content.

Children playing on roof terrace
CON_B04326_F001_050. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

I was very moved by the happiness captured in this photograph by Hervé. The mother, who stares directly at the camera playing with her child, bypasses the adults’ preoccupation seen elsewhere in Hervé’s work; she is present in the moment, laughing and diverting the children herself. The skyline in the background creates a heavenly quality to the scene, the community of mothers and children are propelled above their surroundings, no longer contained by their apartments. Whilst the climbing frames themselves, with their abstract shapes and sloping angles, suggest another world entirely. The euphoria of this image becomes unearthly. The children and mothers are in a place together which supersedes the tangibility of Le Corbusier’s utopia and the “madman’s house”. They are genuinely happy and bolstered by a new-found sense of safety and longevity in this contentment. In this image, Hervé recognises that happiness alone is unchartered territory in the wake of the war, before we begin to consider the new spatial sensation of housing projects like Le Corbusier’s.

Ultimately then, Hervé’s work is no more about the children propagating an ideology of hope as it is about them being distracted from the outside world by an eccentric figure who himself, is somewhat afraid of the outside. Rather, I want to say that the photographs centre on a notion of individual transportation, a building of a habitat within above slotting oneself into a pre-packaged utopia. Whilst Le Corbusier’s architecture is certainly instrumental, and credited so in Hervé’s photography, to facilitating the contentment of the children, it only does so on a superficial basis. The children care for the light and shadows created by the huge windows and the paddling pool on the roof terrace, they do not care for, nor have need for the ideology behind their way of life. Children can make themselves happy through the living out of their own narratives, in both times of adversity and security. Furthermore, as with the Conway archive, narratives surpass labels in their power to evoke real emotion, and it is Hervé’s subversion of his own label, “architectural photographer”, which gave way to such touching and thought-provoking responses to Le Corbusier’s L’Unité d’Habitation.

Black and white image of children heading to the roof swimming pool.
CON_B04326_F001_042. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

Mia Gainsford
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Oxford Micro-Internship Participant

Ruixian Zhang: 18th Century China Under the Pen of William Alexander – an Amazing Journey Following the British Embassy

Audio version

Read by Gill Stoker

Text version

In 1792, William Alexander, a British artist born in Maidstone, Kent, was chosen to accompany Lord Macartney’s embassy to China as a junior draughtsman at the age of 25. Very few of his works dating from before this journey are known, so it is likely that this was Alexander’s first proper commission and it is known as the first ever British diplomatic mission to China.

The goal was to meet Qianlong Emperor to relax the restriction on British merchants’ trade port in China due to the growing demand for tea and other Chinese products like porcelain and silk and introduce new British products to Chinese market, further to get new ports and a small island. They also tried to promote a direct line of communication between the two governments by establishing a permanent embassy in Beijing. It can be seen that the embassy did an elaborate preparation by providing gifts with superior quality including clocks, telescopes, weapons, textiles, and other products of technology, intending to reflect Britain’s national character of ingenuity, exploration, and curiosity about the natural world.

 

May – June 1793, Vietnam

According to the Witt Library’s collection and online records, there are a couple of Alexander’s drawings of people he met at today’s Turon Bay in Vietnam, where the embassy resided during May – June 1793 before the landing in China.

“Mandarin with Pipe Bearer” in Tourane Bay.
“Natives of Cochinchina Playing a Shuttlecock”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19 – 23 June 1793, Macau

After a total of nearly 10-month voyage starting from Portsmouth, England, the full squadron finally arrived at Macau, China on 19 June 1793. There, the embassy disembarked to meet with officials of the East India Company. As they carried many large, precious items that might be damaged if taken overland, they got permission from the emperor to change route to the closest port of Tianjin instead of the official port of Guangdong. On June 23rd, the embassy got to continue by sea to the northeast to meet Emperor Qianlong – the goal of this journey.

“Portrait of the Purveyor to Lord Macartney’s Embassy”, Macau.
Map: Macau to Beijing to Chengde

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21 August 1793, Beijing

Through one of the western gates, the Ping-tze Gate, they entered Beijing on August 21st. “Our arrival was announced by the firing of guns and refreshments were made ready for all the gentlemen, at a resting place within the gate…” (Authentic Account, vol.2, p.116, Staunton).

Pingze Men

 

August 1793, Beijing

On August 25th, four days after their arrival in Beijing, Alexander seemed to be attracted by a building in front of him – the Audience Hall, main hall of the Old Summer Palace (Yuan-ming Yuan) – as his journal says: “Before this magnificent building is a platform of granite on which are four large urns of brass. They are handsomely ornamented and used for burning perfumes when the Emperor is present. The Cornice of the Hall on the outside is very rich being gilt and coloured red and green in a very splendid manner. The front and sides have narrow folding doors from bottom to the top any of which can be opened for the admission of air…”

“A Front View of the Audience Hall at Yuan-ming Yuan”
“A View in the Gardens of the Imperial Palace at Pekin”

 

It was there that the gifts brought by the embassy were stored amongst other tribute items. Two members of the embassy were responsible for assembling and arranging the gifts. The most important item, the planetarium, was so complex that it took 18 days to assemble.

The Old Summer Palace (Yuan-ming Yuan), widely perceived as the pinnacle work of Chinese imperial garden and palace design, was devastated by British and French troops during the Second Opium War in 1860 – it was so large that it took 4000 men three days of burning to destroy it. The reason for this destruction remains highly controversial today. What is known is that it consisted of extensive collection of gardens, numerous art and historical treasures of China, Europe, Tibet and Mongolia and its former splendour can be seen from the stolen sculptures, porcelain, jade, silk robes, elaborate textiles, gold objects now in 47 museums around the world and the ruins in Beijing.

 

2 September 1793, Departure from Beijing

Since it was autumn, Qianlong was leading a ritual hunting expedition north of the Great Wall at Jehol (today’s Chengde), an inherited tradition from his grandfather.

Great Wall of China

Having left behind the planetarium and other gifts at the Old Summer Palace, about seventy members of the mission, among them forty soldiers, departed Beijing on September 2nd, heading north towards Jehol. The group crossed the Great Wall of China, where they were greeted by ceremonial gunfire and several companies of troops of the Qing military. They made a survey of the Great Wall’s fortifications, thereby contributing to the intelligence-gathering aspect of the mission, though at the expense of arousing suspicion among their Chinese hosts. Some of the men, meanwhile, took bricks from the Wall as souvenirs.

 

14 September 1793, Chengde

The Emperor of China “Approaching His Tent in Tartary to Receive the British Ambassador, Lord Macartney”

This drawing above shows the meeting taking place on 14 September 1793, in the imperial park at Jehol. The ceremony was to be held in the imperial tent, a large yellow yurt which contained the emperor’s throne at the centre of a raised platform. Several thousand attendees were present, including other foreign visitors, the viceroy and the emperor’s son, the future Jiaqing Emperor. “The Emperor soon appeared from behind a high and perpendicular mountain, skirted with trees as if from a sacred grove, preceded by a number of persons busied in proclaiming aloud his virtues and his power…” (Authentic Account, vol. 2, p. 229, Staunton) Macartney entered the tent along with Sir George Staunton (Secretary to the Mission, and author of the Account), his 12-year-old son George Thomas Staunton, and their Chinese interpreter. The others waited outside.

“Ch’ien Lung Presenting a Purse to George Thomas Staunton Inside the Imperial Tent at Jehol”

Macartney stepped up to the platform first, kneeling once, exchanging gifts with Qianlong and presenting King George III’s letter. He was followed by Sir George Staunton, and finally by young George Thomas Staunton, who can be seen kneeling before the Emperor in Alexander’s depiction. As Thomas had been studying the Chinese language, the Emperor beckoned him to speak a few words. The British were followed by other envoys, about whom little is written. A banquet was then held to conclude the day’s events. The British were seated on the Emperor’s left, in the most prestigious position.

In my opinion, the Emperor, who appeared imposing and arrogant, was in fact fearful and worried and wanted to hide this from the embassy. In his early years, Qianlong was known for his attractive and affable personality, his long reign (he was one of the longest-reigning rulers in the history of the world) reached the most splendid and prosperous era in the Qing Empire, boasting an extremely large population and economy and having completed military campaigns which had expanded the dynastic territory to the largest extent. However, by 1793 he was spoiled with power and glory, disillusioned and complacent in his reign, the court was full of corruption and the civil society was stagnating. The outcome was that in the letter he gave Macartney for the British king he said “This also is a flagrant infringement of the usage of my Empire and cannot possibly be entertained.” And even used the word “barbarian” to foreign merchants. His old and crazy belief that China was still the “central kingdom” informed his refusal to take on the British advancements in science and technology, impeding China’s journey to modernization. However, under this arrogant appearance is his concern for the safety of his country, for the internal unrest and the transformations of Chinese society that might result from unrestricted foreign access. The huge ship of China was too large to change her heading.

The letter was an excuse and Qianlong had sensed an unavoidable conflict between the two nations. Even though later Qianlong placated the British with unspecified promises in order to avoid military conflicts, the big unbalanced trade difference then led to British traders’ smuggling large quantities of opium to southern China, causing a national addiction crisis and resulting in the Opium War, which compromised China’s sovereignty and economic power for almost a century. The huge but fragile ship dashed to pieces 50 years later.

It is surprising to me that there is a large number of people in Alexander’s drawing who are smoking tobacco with a long pipe which forms a clue for the popularity of the product of opium in China years later, thus the wars. The people depicted are of smoking regardless of their gender, class or even age. “I imagine smoking to be more practiced in China than any other part of the world…” Alexander said.

 

 

September 1793, The Journey Forward                

Though some contemporaries of Alexander were able to visit China, none could venture far inland due to the restriction to certain trading ports. After his return and the publishing of his work in the early 19th century, China became an extremely strong inspiration in British art and design, one particularly noteworthy example being the interior design of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. This fascination owes much to the new, reliable and exciting glimpses into Chinese landscape, architecture, people and art that Alexander provided like no artist before. Alexander shaped the West’s image of this far away country.

 

13 October 1793, Tianjin

“The Temporary Pavilion Erected for the Landing of the Embassador”
Map: Chengde to Tianjin

The building was constructed by order of the chief Mandarin of the city for the purpose of complimenting the ambassador and entertaining him and his suite with refreshments. “…The entertainment consisted of a profusion of poultry, confectionary, fresh fruits, preserves and jars of wine…”

 

4 November 1793, the Golden Island in the Yangtze River

“In crossing the river our attention was directed to an island situated in the middle of the river, called Chin-shan, or the Golden Mountain, which rose almost perpendicularly out of the river and is interspersed with gardens and pleasure houses. Art and nature seemed to have combined to give this spot the appearance of enchantment…” There was a beautiful legend which was transformed into a very popular Chinese opera “Legend of the White Snake”.

“The Golden Island in the Yang-tse-kiang”
Map: Tianjin to the GoldenIsland

 

7 November 1793,  Suzhou

On November 7th, the embassy reached Suzhou where the combination of boats and bustling figures stuck an immediate chord on Alexander’s mind: “At 2 pm arrived at the famous and flourishing city of Suzhou… many houses project over the canal reminding me of Canaletto’s views in Venice.” It was so crowded here that it took them 3 hours to pass before reaching the city, which perhaps left enough time for Alexander to depict everything in such detail. He had even included himself sketching (circled in blue). If you compare the small figure of himself to the whole picture you can better understand the vastness of the scene.

“On the River at Suchow”
Map: Suzhou

 

16 November 1793, Hangzhou

“Economy of Time and Labour Exemplified in a Chinese Waterman at Han-Choo-Foo”
Map: Hangzhou and departure

 

This drawing is particularly delightful to me. Alexander seems interested in how this waterman is sailing his boat: “The waterman was uncommonly expert, and it was not unusual to see a large boat entirely managed by one man, who rowed, sailed, steered and smoked his pipe at the same time.”

 

References:

《中国近代史》蒋廷黻

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macartney_Embassy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor#Macartney_Embassy

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2015-01/30/content_34686142.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2016/09/01/shaping-an-image-of-china-in-the-west-william-alexander-1767-1816/

 


Ruixian Zhang
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Placement

Shijin Wei: Looking at the Collection for Costume Design

During my research project in the photographic library of the Courtauld Institute of Art, I looked through a box of black-and-white photographic prints. In a collection of architectural images, it was amazing to observe images that featured people. These photos record moments of the real world within a past time; the people captured look and dress differently, the culture and atmosphere are different. I found celebrations, weddings, revelry, lonely climbers, busy markets and ports. In choosing the pictures to illustrate my process of creation, I looked specifically for lonely, quiet or peaceful moments, as I get more inspiration from characters who look into the distance in a photograph, or people’s figures seen from behind. I looked at these portraits against the background, at the fascinating relationship between the people and the environment. So I ‘cut’ these ‘characters’ from these moments and turned them into black and white watercolor illustrations, and then combined them with other elements to explore different effects and create an image of a wonderful parallel world. I study costume design for performance, so I often need to do a lot of research on context in my learning process. Different characters tell a different story depending on their surroundings. Looking at the charm of light and shadow was fascinating, I found it so interesting and I really enjoyed the process.

As a separate project, I made miniature versions of a costume, moving towards the project’s more technical aspect. When I finished the illustration series, I was thinking about how to gain more from my Courtauld placement, so I choose a photograph from the photographic library and ‘copied’ the costume in the image. This time, the process was more to do with practicing creating the costume pattern, sewing and doing texture research.

The key aspect, for me, is that all the characters in these photographs and drawings are authentically dressed for their time, which is very important; as my tutor said: costume design is to create dresses for story characters, the clothes help the actors get into character for the role, but they also let the audience believe the story more fully.

During my time at the Courtauld I gained a lot, people were very friendly and it was an unexpected pleasure to get to meet a lot of nice, interesting people who participate to the digitisation project as volunteers. As a foreign student, starting a placement experience in another country can initially induce a sense of tension and anxiety, I worried about my language communication skills and that my behavior might mean that I wouldn’t fit in or even be a nuisance to others. But throughout the whole process I received plenty of help, the communication was friendly and I even made new friends. This is my first internship, and I feel very lucky. This experience made me more confident and encouraged me to seek more opportunities in the future.

Hannah Wilson: Visions of London

Audio Version

Read by Anne Hutchings

Text Version

Over the last few centuries, London has inspired architects to imagine how they would reshape the city to their own distinct styles. After the fire of London in 1666, Sir Christopher Wren proposed a new street layout for London, with streets dividing building blocks into rectangles around St Paul’s Cathedral but branching out from central points in the areas east and west of this. This plan was never carried out and the majority of the old irregular street layouts were maintained. Since then architects, either as individuals or groups, have presented their visions of how they would alter the skyline, buildings and roads of London. Many of these designs were never built and now all that remains of these abandoned plans are the drawings the architects produced.

Some of these designs can be found in the Conway Library of the Courtauld Institute, alongside collections of photographs showing buildings and monuments across the globe. The collection’s three boxes on the architectural drawings of 20th-century British architects reveal three planned design projects for buildings and streets which were never fulfilled which show great variation in their visions of a reshaped city with differing architectural inspirations from classical and romantic to more futuristic.

Sir Christopher Wren’s plan of London
Sir Christopher Wren’s plan of London. CON_B04591_F005_016. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

Classical

 

Design for the Selfridges Tower
Design for the Selfridges Tower. CON_B04816_F006_021. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

Model of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus at the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus at the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology. Jona Lendering [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.
This monumental tower was intended to be built on the roof of the Selfridges store on Oxford Street and was designed by architect Philip Tilden in 1918. His other completed designs often included restorations and extensions of politicians’ houses although none of those quite matched the scale and ambition of this project. Not much is known about why Selfridge had commissioned this design or the exact reasons for why it was never built but it shows a vision of great grandeur and is reminiscent in some ways to the tombs for rulers and kings from the Classical period such as the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus which is believed to have had a similar large podium with colonnaded areas and sculpted figures but the proposed tower appears to be larger in scale than even these monumental tombs.

The proposed tower would have fitted stylistically with the pre-existing Selfridges building which features more Ionic columns along the shop front, conforming to the concepts of “Beaux-Arts” architecture which was particularly popular in the 19th century. This was achieved by including classical and neoclassical decoration while using more modern features such as steel frame interior.

The expense of such a construction may have contributed to it never being built but its existence would have also radically changed the skyline of London at the time. The drawing makes the tower appear to be around 4 to 5 times taller than the main building. Since Selfridges is already five storeys high, the tower would have equalled or potentially surpassed the 111m high St Paul’s Cathedral which would have been the tallest building in London in 1918 and had been since 1710. Even today, it would have probably ranked among the hundred tallest buildings in London.

Futuristic

 

Design of Bond Street
Design of Bond Street. CON_B04816_F006_004. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

20 years later, the Glass Age Town Planning Committee proposed their own vision of a changed London. This time, these architects were not limited to a single building but instead proposed plans for rebuilding the entirety of both Bond Street and the Strand. Luckily for the Courtauld, Maxwell Fry seems to have allowed Somerset House to remain intact in the upper right corner of his drawing. Alongside a reimagined Bond Street by Howard Robertson, these designs formed part of the February 1939 issue of Architectural Review. The two images in the Conway Library would have been among designs for several other parts of the country including Princes Street in Edinburgh and parts of Liverpool, all depicting buildings using glass as their main exterior material.

The large scale destruction of older buildings required for these plans to happen and a lack of any form of planning permission are both factors which prevented these designs from becoming a reality. But the purpose of the committee itself was initially mainly to be part of an advertising campaign by Pilkington Brothers Ltd., a glass production company, to both promote their product as a building material and also present concepts of how buildings in the 21st century could look with further developments in technology and modern architectural styling. These designs could subsequently be as radical and unrealistic as the architects wanted because they were so unlikely to ever be built. Yet it still presents an interesting insight into how architects in the 1930s may have thought architecture could develop and how they imagined a future London could look.

Design of the Strand
Design of the Strand. CON_B04814_F006_001. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.
Modern Strand (Google Earth)
Modern Strand (Google Earth)

The view of the Strand now is different to how the Glass Age Committee would have seen it but it may not have changed as much as they would have expected. The formation of tower blocks has never occurred in this area although the redevelopment of Charing Cross station later in the 20th century increased the amount of glass in its design. The skyline of London is also now dominated by glass skyscrapers, most prominently the Shard. In some ways, the Glass Age committee’s ambitions for greater use of glass in building came true, although not necessarily in the ways they had imagined or proposed in these drawings.

Romanticism

Less than a decade after the designs which aimed to promote modernist architecture and technology to 1930s Britain, the Royal Academy Planning Committee took a very different approach to how they would redesign London.

Drawing of St Paul’s Cathedral
Drawing of St Paul’s Cathedral. CON_B04816_F006_007. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.
Modern St Paul’s Cathedral
Modern St Paul’s Cathedral (Google Earth).

This picturesque drawing of St Paul’s Cathedral was published as part of a book, London Replanned, by the Royal Academy in 1942 in response to 1940 and 1941 bombings of London causing large scale damage. Unlike the clear and precise images of Bond Street and the Strand produced by the Glass Age Town Planning Committee, this pencil drawing is much more delicate with atmospheric clouds, a focus on more traditional architecture and featuring several small steamboats in the foreground. This image could depict a Victorian or Edwardian period London, a contrast to the emphasis on modernity proposed by other architects only a few years before and has much greater stylistic links to drawings and paintings by 18th and 19th century Romantic artists.

Although it is the only image from the Royal Academy’s book stored in the Conway Library, it would have been part of a building project even more extensive than that of the Pilkington commission. Among their plans for most of central London were a new road layout around St Paul’s, wide roads around Piccadilly Circus and a redevelopment of Hyde Park.

Royal Academy Hyde Park Corner drawing (www.royalacademy.org.uk)
Royal Academy Hyde Park Corner drawing (www.royalacademy.org.uk).
Modern Hyde Park Corner (Google Earth)
Modern Hyde Park Corner (Google Earth).

These drawings in the architectural drawing collection of the Conway Library give a snapshot into how different architects and groups thought London could be redesigned and how these views changed throughout the first half of the 20th century in response to the emergence of modernist architecture or the damage to London in the Second World War presenting the possibility of a significant redevelopment. The drawings of Bond Street, the Strand and St Paul’s also form parts of wider projects to redesign large proportions of London which were never fulfilled and little evidence remains of their ideas other than in these types of drawings. When considered together, these designs present interesting contrasts between a structure with links to classical features alongside more contemporary building materials, plans which imagined how the future London would look and a redesign of London combining traditional buildings with large expansions of roads and parks. If any of these plans had been carried out, they would have significantly reshaped the layout and design of London as it is today.


Hannah Wilson
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Intern

 

References:

    • Parnell S (2014) In praise of advertising. Architectural Review.
    • Pilkington Brothers Ltd. (1939) Architectural Review.
    • Royal Academy (1942) London Replanned. Royal Academy of Arts: London.