Clare Taylor writes:
On the page, it is Spring. In the room, the reader opposite me is wearing a bobble hat and I’m not sure it’s only a fashion statement. We are in the Bodleian Library’s Special Collections reading room and outside, above the ground, it’s grey and cold in Oxford. But on the page it’s 17th May 1943 and Stephen Tennant is writing to his friend Sybil Colefax , inscribing his letter ‘Spring has invaded this letter like a torrent’, urging her to visit to help decide where to place urns and vases at the end of walks and vistas at his home, Wilsford Manor in Wiltshire. Continue reading →
Posted in Modern
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Tagged design, Interiors
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Focus: Charles Harrison as Curator
Tate Britain: Display 21 May 2012 – 10 March 2013
Part of the series BP British Art Displays
‘Art historian, editor, curator and member of the artist collective Art & Language, Charles Harrison (1942–2009) was one of the leading figures of the British art world in the late 1960s and 1970s.’ So opens the online text of this recent exhibition at Tate Britain. What it doesn’t have time to talk about is Charles’s career as an academic, at The Open University, from the first years of its foundation. Continue reading →
Why do people create and engage with things? What do specific material objects mean to different individuals in distinct socio-historical contexts? What happens to artefacts when taken from one place to another in terms of their meaning, value and impact? Continue reading →
Susie West writes:
The historic King’s Manor in the centre of York hosted a two day conference by the Yorkshire Country House Partnership, 22-23 February 2013. This is a regional grouping of country houses, the University of York and the West Yorkshire Archive Service, who have come together to explore their combined history, collections and archives. Continue reading →
The last Plantagenet king of England, infamous Richard III (1452-85), died fighting for his crown at the Battle of Bosworth, near Leicester, in August 1485. The victor was Henry Tudor, crowned Henry VII. Henry was magnanimous, paying for a tomb for his dead rival that was erected in the church of the Grey Friars at Leicester. With the destruction of church furnishings that marked a different sort of regime change, namely one of religious allegiance during the English Reformation in the sixteenth century, Richard’s tomb and the monastic church that housed it disappeared. Continue reading →
December 2012 saw the death of the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012). Niemeyer was responsible for the buildings that populate the urban plan devised by Lucio Costa for the city of Brasilia. The monumental project began in the 1950s and the site became the official capital of Brazil in 1960. It is a remarkable achievement that the design led by these two men for a modern, and Modern Movement, city has been evaluated by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee as worthy of inscription as part of the global heritage of humanity: Brasilia became a World Heritage site in 1987. Continue reading →
The World Heritage Convention has reached 40 years since it was adopted by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee. The convention’s impact and future challenges have been marked with a year long international celebration of its success culminating in a UK conference on 1st December 2012, hosted by ICOMOS-UK, The Open University and University College, London. Continue reading →
Architectural heritage with Open House London
The annual Open House London took place over the weekend of the 22-23 September 2012. Hundreds of buildings open their doors to 225,000 visitors, for a chance to see normally private, inaccessible or hidden architectural spaces. Open House London has been running for 20 years, as part of the work that the charity Open City does towards promoting good urban design, including public artworks. Continue reading →
