All Things Considered

Hemingway

I'm not sure what sparked it off, but today I became nostalgic about my student days in Birmingham and in particular the shop Red or Dead that I liked to visit as regularly as my student borrowings would allow. It then got me thinking about the design conscious founders of the quirky fashion label and store, husband and wife team Wayne and Geraldine Hemingway and what they are now doing since selling up at the end of the 1990's.

Back in the Eighties, their first step into retail was with a stall at Camden and Kensington Markets.  Here Geraldine designed, made and sold her first collection of clothing. It took just a week for the New York store Macy's to put in an order - that was the beginning of Red or Dead. Then, in 1999, having won 3 consecutive British Fashion Council "Street Style" Designer of the Year Awards, the Hemingways' sold Red or Dead for a multi million pound cash deal.

These days they have become known for their design business Hemingway Design and their front against the appallingly designed, speed-built 'identikit' UK housing estates being built by the likes of Wimpey and Barratt.

"We’re not trying to make a big architectural statement.  We’re not trying to show off.  We’re just parents of a big family who came from nothing and just want to design thoughtful and interesting homes for ordinary families."

After Hemingway criticised Wimpey for their ugly housing estates, George Wimpey challenged him to design his vision of affordable housing. People’s desire for individuality has been one of the main concerns for Hemmingway, giving prospective occupants the freedom to choose internal layout, elevations and even the front door – tailoring their needs for their lifestyle.

The success of the unlikely collaboration with Wimpey on Staiths South Bank development in Gateshead has led to numerous other projects in the pipeline. For further information, links and  reading visit Art & Architecture and Building for Life.

David Mellor

We made a detour yesterday to David Mellor’s cutlery factory and new visitor centre in the Peak District National Park.

One of the greatest 20th century British designers, Mellor is perhaps best known for his cutlery designs from the 1950s to the present day. But the new visitor centre also acts as a small design museum - highlighting Mellor’s varied designs that include 1966’s controversial ‘square’ pillar box for the Post Office and his traffic light design - still in use today.

If you visit during the week you normally get the chance to see cutlery being made in The Round Building (designed by Sir Michael Hopkins). And in addition to the excellent shop, a café now forms part of the visitor centre.

Find out more at www.davidmellordesign.com

Sainsbury Centre

Just down the road from our Norwich home and set in the campus of the University of East Anglia is the acclaimed  Sainbury Centre for Visual Arts.

In 1973, Sir Norman Foster was approached by Sir Robert and Lady Lisa Sainsbury to build a centre for their growing collection of ancient and contemporary world art, primarily consisting of sculptures of living forms. The Sainsburys donated to the University of East Anglia (UEA) because of it's available space for building such a large gallery as they were insistent that all the work they were donating, stayed under the one roof.

Foster, with a host of notable projects under his belt including the Swiss Re HQ (aka the Gherkin) and the Millau Viaduct, was then an unknown architect. He set out to design a building on campus over looking the River Yare and in front of the existing, concrete accommodation block. The design Foster came up with was at the time very forward thinking. Made out of metal and with large glass panels in prefabricated modular structures, it combined open-planned galleries, offices, teaching area's and a restaurant. In the late 80's, due to the growing collections, provided both by the Sainsburys and the UEA, Foster was assigned to design an extension, he proposed a crescent shaped, partially underground design which was reopened as the Crescent Wing in 1991 giving the gallery valuable amounts of space for temporary exhibitions, studios, workshops and a conservation laboratory.

Spring 2006 saw the opening of yet another extension, this time funded by David Sainsbury, a gift to celebrate his mother Lisa's 90th birthday. This newest construction was built to link the original 1978 building with the 1990's Crescent Wing which now provides another gallery, studio space and a shop.

The latest temporary exhibition is called  After Shock and is due to open on the 14th July, for more details of the permanent collections held in the Centre, click here. For excellent images of some of Norman Fosters projects, visit Foster and Partners.

Smithfield Market

This recent gallery acquisition - Edward Bawden's "Smithfield Market" from his 'Six London Markets' series -  reminded of the plans to demolish this wonderful group of market buildings in London.

There's fair bit of information about the plan on the Save Britain's Heritage website but last year City of London granted planning permission to clear the site for a potential nine-storey office and retail development. It'll be interesting to hear the results of the public inquiry triggered by English Heritage.

Smithfield crops up on the Icons - A Portrait of England website. It's an interesting site, acting as an online index of cultural heritage. And you can make your own nominations. I was alarmed to see that Norman Wisdom hadn't already been nominated so have completed an online application.

If you'd like to enquire about the availability of Bawden's "Smithfield Market" print and other works, please contact me at the gallery.

Marsh Samphire

The tasty and obviously salty sea vegetable, samphire (pronounced ‘sam-fur’) is growing in abundance now and until early September. Along regional salt marshes, there will be patches of luminous green upright stalks, some bushy some spikey, depending on when and where you find it.

Samphire or glasswort as it’s also known was used in the past for making glassware. It was the high quantity of sodium carbonate from the ashes of the dried then burnt succulent that went into the glass making processes.

Every year, there will be new discussions about how it should be harvested; do you snip it or pull it by the roots? Invariably, when it is sold in fishmongers, the roots are in tact. I understand that to continue the growth of this wild coastal delicacy you should harvest it with some scissors, leaving the root for re-growth.

I've been picking and eating samphire for years. The annual trip to our favourite North Norfolk coastal campsite makes harvesting it a ritual and it's a perfect starter for our evening meals. Simply wash it, bring it back to the boil then drench with unsalted butter, a squeeze of lemon juice and cover with freshly ground black pepper. Delicious, especially eaten in the open air.

Green Roofs

If you have ever driven over to the smart seaside town of Southwold Suffolk, you will have passed the Adnams distribution centre but perhaps not noticed it.

Set low into the ground making it blend into the rural countryside, the building has a curved roof covered in meadow plants and sedum. This is one of the first ecological warehouses in the UK. Instead of environmentally damaging concrete blocks a chalk, lime and hemp alternative has been used for the wall construction. It has solar panels, a reed bed water purification system and captured rainwater from the roof to flush toilets and wash the distribution lorries, making this large building more sustainable than most.

The process of covering a roof with turf, succulents and other plants is not a new one. In the Northern Scottish Isles and parts of Scandinavian, Iceland and North America, early settlers used turf when building materials were scarce.

Over the past 5 years, turf roofing has become increasingly popular around the world. European countries, Japan and North America are embracing this ancient technique aware of the ecological advantages. Our growing awareness of global environmental issues is changing the way we think and therefore build our homes and industries.

A living roof will insulate, reduce noise, provide a natural habitat for insects and wildlife as well as being a great space for growing plants and where possible to use as a garden. A green roof will also help increase the life of a flat roof, absorb rainwater and prevent flash floods.

Whether it's a commercial or residential build or even your garden shed, a green roof is not only sustainable it looks beautiful too.

Lucienne Day

It was the Festival of Britain that launched Lucienne Day's career as a textile designer. Along with her husband and furniture designer Robin, they were heavily involved with the interior design of Festival Hall. This proved to be the springboard for this influential design duo whose style has lasted the test of time.

Just before the festival launch, Lucienne had designed a fabric she called Calyx (pictured) and had persuaded Heal's to produce it. Robin suggested that she used the same fabric to feature in the Homes and Garden pavilion of the Festival of Britain – it was an instant hit.

Back in the 1950’s, the Days' aim was to produce quality, mass-produced low cost furniture and textiles. Functionality, ease of manufacturing and low cost production was very important to them both.

In 1957 Lucienne reflected: “In the very few years since the end of the war, a new style of furnishing fabrics has emerged…. I suppose the most noticeable thing about it has been the reduction in popularity of patterns based on floral motifs and the replacement of these by non-representational patterns … probably everyone’s boredom with wartime dreariness and lack of variety helped the establishment of this new and gayer trend.”

Lucienne’s use of graphic lines, contrasting bright with earthy colours and abstract geometrical shapes proved incredibly popular. In the 20 years she designed textiles for Heals, she produced 70 fabrics as well as designing carpets, wallpapers, tea towels, table linen and ceramics for other companies requesting her involvement.

Today, Lucienne’s designs seem as fresh and appreciated as they were nearly 60 years ago. To view a selected range of her designs, visit Classic Textiles, where you can order a metre length of the digitally recreated prints.  To view further fabrics designed by Lucienne and other designers of the same era, visit this excellent textile resource from the University of Brighton.

Sandy Wilson

I've just finished listening to this week's "Point of View" on Radio 4 by Lisa Jardine.

It was a great piece covering the work of Sir Colin St. John (Sandy) Wilson who died recently, and the opening of the newly refurbished Festival Hall next weekend.

"Sandy Wilson's art collecting began, as did his career as an architect, around the time of the Festival of Britain in 1951, and its associated building projects - above all the iconic building of London's South Bank, the Festival Hall. Indeed, his first architectural job was in the office of Sir Leslie Martin, the Festival Hall's architect. Laying the foundation stone for the Festival Hall in 1949, the then prime minister Clement Attlee predicted that the exhibition and its festivities would pass into history, but that the concert hall would remain, and around it would rise "buildings worthy to take their place with the best of old London and form part of the replanned London of the future...

... Since 1951, London has indeed learned to love the Royal Festival Hall. I'd like to think that with its Gala reopening we will be celebrating more than just the building itself. We will also be celebrating the humanity and optimism of a generation of architects and artists - many of them directly inspired by Sandy Wilson - who came together in those critical post-war years, and whose work has been under-appreciated for so long."

The Pallant House Gallery in Chichester (pictured) was Sandy Wilson's last project. Designed in association with Long & Kentish, the gallery has won the prestigious 2007 Gulbenkian Prize for museums and galleries.

You can read Lisa Jardine's "Point of View" on the BBC Radio 4 website.