Category Archives: Uncategorized

Cardross Seminary Cardross Seminary, or to give it its correct title St Peter’s Seminary by Scottish architects Gillespie, Kid and Coia (or in reality Andy MacMillan and Isi Metzstein) was sadly doomed from the day it opened its doors to welcome trainee priests in 1966. Commissioned in 1958, by the summer of ’66, the numberContinue reading “Blog 38”

Artists and The Public I was re-reading Ernst Gombrich’s excellent “The Story of Art” recently and came across a fascinating and very insightful section on early 19th century painting. Gombrich refers to this period as ‘Permanent Revolution’ and describes the impact of artists exhibiting and selling their work directly to the public for the first timeContinue reading “Blog 37”

Brutalism I don’t know if anyone else saw the BBC News article on the redevelopment of the Broadmarsh Centre in Nottingham (above). This was a piece of typical 60/70’s comprehensive redevelopment in which a vast tract of historic Nottingham was demolished to make way for what architects might describe as an essay in Brutalism butContinue reading “Blog 36”

Masters and Pupils While architectural pupillage has been almost entirely replaced by full-time architectural education, most aspiring architects still aim to spend some time in the office of an acknowledged master of their craft. It’s a kind of post-graduate education in the practicalities and realities of architectural practice that the schools of architecture never quiteContinue reading “Blog 35”

The Albert Memorial The sad news of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh signals the approach of the end of an era. Despite being the longest-serving royal consort in British history, it seems unlikely that he will be commemorated in the same way as the last Prince Consort – Albert – the husband ofContinue reading “Blog 34”

The Chapel of the Resurrection Sigurd Lewerentz’s churches are rightly regarded as exemplary Modern sacred spaces. St Mark’s in Stockholm and St Peter’s in Klippan are much visited and photographed and their raw steel and almost primitive, rough, twisted and overburnt brickwork whose joints were simply wiped with sackcloth, give their interiors an almost primevalContinue reading “Blog 33”

Contemporary British Classicism Has anyone else noted a distinct uptick in the quality of contemporary British Classical architecture? I do realise that for those whose architectural education has inculcated them into the cult of Modernism, even discussing this topic is regarded not such much as irrelevant as sinful, but despite attempts to exorcise it, ClassicalContinue reading “Blog 32”

Aalto and the Gullichsens The brilliant Finnish Architect Alvar Aalto’s life and work has been spun with a web of myths and mystique, mostly created by Aalto himself. One of these is that he owed his success entirely to the Finnish architectural competition system, at which he excelled. This is partly true in that hisContinue reading “Blog 31”

Willem Marinus Dudok Dutch architect Willem Dudok’s Hilversum Town Hall, which he completed in 1931, is widely recognised not only as an extremely important example of modern architecture, but unusually within that genre, a finely judged and sublimely beautiful composition. Though not a member of the De Stijl group, Dudok was certainly influenced by them and theContinue reading “Blog 30”

Scandinavian Summer Houses In many countries owning a second home is something only for the rich but in the Scandinavian countries, the idea of a second home, or to be more accurate, a ‘summer home,’ has long been a tradition for many. Even today its estimated that 20% of Scandinavians own a summer home, (mostContinue reading “Blog 29”