I went to Pugin's 200th birthday party tonight. It was fun - and quite interesting. The food was a bit odd - and everyone thought I'd been involved with it. I think that Suzy has taken my novel writing v. seriously and never asks me to do anything like that any more. I don't think it matters: I just want to be a consumer these days - not a producer, apart from the writing of course.
It was quite fun because although I ostensibly went with Alex and Anna we talked to a number of different people. The main aggro was that it was matter of sitting around tables and when we arrived (late) there was no obvious room - but we managed to find a spot between Tricia and Jamie who I met at the Festival Club last week - and Thomas Brown, one of the local journos, and his friend Sam who is another journalistic trainee.
All in all, quite a jolly evening - although I don't think I learned much. Clive's performance as MC was great - but I think "Seatof thePants Theatre" might be a good name for the group. He is trying to perform a play about Pugin - but this wasn't an evening for the preview - only a sketch... It's interesting that Robert P decided not to do anything about Pugin - he felt his life, while full of drama, somehow didn't seem theatrical in the "right way". On the whole I trust Robert's judgement - but that's because we have a lot in common. I also heard the Indigo Quartet for the first time (Jonathan F's mob)... lots of religious music. I found the Gregorian chant Dies Irae very touching - but I could see some of the audience getting restive. There was also a lovely setting of the Psalm about Jonathan - with the refrain How are the mighty fallen - appropriate for Richard Dawkins' funeral perhaps...
But Pugin, for goodness sake - I can't decide about Pugin - I think part of me is a bit contrarian about it all - I like St. A's abbey, which he designed, but I don't think it's proper medieval Gothic at all - he seems to have had no real historical sense. He claimed Gothic was a true English architecture - although in fact it was French/Continental. And to be honest, give me Sant Ivo alla Sapienze by Borromini against any building by Pugin. I've always liked real medieval architecture - and learned to distrust and dislike the lumpy Victorian substitutes. Pugin hated Wyatt's "restorations" - but looked at from the 20thC they don't seem much worse than his designs. Yes, he was a fascinating person - but a lot of his work seems lumpen compared with real Gothic. Great at doing tiles though - I like his tile designs quite a lot.
All architectural styles pre-19thC seem to have derived from the Continent. I guess Pugin was very influential - all those Victorian terraces owe something to him... their details, the terracotta tiles, the elaborate fretwork on the barge boards - cruciform bas-relief patterns on window mouldings etc. But is the Victorian terrace really that different from the Regency terrace - apart from the matter of mouldings and details? Discuss.
It was quite fun because although I ostensibly went with Alex and Anna we talked to a number of different people. The main aggro was that it was matter of sitting around tables and when we arrived (late) there was no obvious room - but we managed to find a spot between Tricia and Jamie who I met at the Festival Club last week - and Thomas Brown, one of the local journos, and his friend Sam who is another journalistic trainee.
All in all, quite a jolly evening - although I don't think I learned much. Clive's performance as MC was great - but I think "Seatof thePants Theatre" might be a good name for the group. He is trying to perform a play about Pugin - but this wasn't an evening for the preview - only a sketch... It's interesting that Robert P decided not to do anything about Pugin - he felt his life, while full of drama, somehow didn't seem theatrical in the "right way". On the whole I trust Robert's judgement - but that's because we have a lot in common. I also heard the Indigo Quartet for the first time (Jonathan F's mob)... lots of religious music. I found the Gregorian chant Dies Irae very touching - but I could see some of the audience getting restive. There was also a lovely setting of the Psalm about Jonathan - with the refrain How are the mighty fallen - appropriate for Richard Dawkins' funeral perhaps...
But Pugin, for goodness sake - I can't decide about Pugin - I think part of me is a bit contrarian about it all - I like St. A's abbey, which he designed, but I don't think it's proper medieval Gothic at all - he seems to have had no real historical sense. He claimed Gothic was a true English architecture - although in fact it was French/Continental. And to be honest, give me Sant Ivo alla Sapienze by Borromini against any building by Pugin. I've always liked real medieval architecture - and learned to distrust and dislike the lumpy Victorian substitutes. Pugin hated Wyatt's "restorations" - but looked at from the 20thC they don't seem much worse than his designs. Yes, he was a fascinating person - but a lot of his work seems lumpen compared with real Gothic. Great at doing tiles though - I like his tile designs quite a lot.
All architectural styles pre-19thC seem to have derived from the Continent. I guess Pugin was very influential - all those Victorian terraces owe something to him... their details, the terracotta tiles, the elaborate fretwork on the barge boards - cruciform bas-relief patterns on window mouldings etc. But is the Victorian terrace really that different from the Regency terrace - apart from the matter of mouldings and details? Discuss.
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