Every time I walk past 88, Dean Street – I do so quite often, walking down from the Elizabeth Line – I am amazed by number 88, a newsagents, which has a remarkably well preserved late Georgian shop front.
It’s not in bad condition, but today it appeared to be propped up, as if it might be about to collapse.
There can’t be very many surviving Georgian shop fronts with perfectly preserved rococo detail, long after rococo was fashionable.
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I used to do posts about the Warburg Institute to keep in touch with Daphne Warburg Astor, who called the great art historian Aby Warburg ‘Uncle Aby’, although strictly he was her great-uncle; but this is no longer possible.
Last night Paul Taylor, the Curator of the Warburg’s Photographic Collection, gave a brilliant short account of the Warburg’s history, including a photograph of Ernst Gombrich which I had never seen. It is of him, his wife, Ilse (left), and Otto Kurz (far right), his friend and intellectual ally, and Trude Weiss, not long after the Gombrichs had married and arrived in England:-
I found it interesting because it shows him as he was before the war, an Austrian intellectual who always described himself as a historian, not an art historian. He was given a short contract by Fritz Saxl to order the papers of Warburg, a task he found boring, but led ultimately to the publication of his intellectual biography of Warburg in 1970. I also came across the illuminating short blog post by his son, Richard, which I hadn’t seen before (https://www.carlgombrich.org/post/memoir-of-ernst-gombrich-guest-post-by-richard-gombrich) and strongly recommend.
I called in on Leila’s today to buy some fruit – Kent-grown cherries – and find out how the campaign is going.
There is a sad irony in that Tower Hamlets Council was in the process of opening a ‘Community Hub’ in one of the shops up the street which it has failed to let at the new, much increased rent.
So, they drive out existing small businesses and then replace them with chain stores or council services, losing the character of the neighbourhood. But isn’t this very short-sighted, not least because the economy of Redchurch Street and Calvert Avenue has been based on small traders, who are essential to its success ?
How to shoot the community in both feet.
A group of patrons from the RA came to visit yesterday.
Romilly put out her jewellery on the new garden table, designed by Martin Edwards.
It looked magnificent, but then I’m prejudiced:-
For some reason, I was able to read the attached article about the renovation of Lambeth Palace, in spite of it being behind a pay wall.
It reminds me of my recent visit to see behing-the-scenes at Lambeth Palace.
I was impressed by how much had been done – a big cost, but it didn’t seem that great given the scale of the renovation.
I was also interested by the way young architects are now – rightly – as interested in renovation as in new build. We should surely have a system of architectural education which recognises this, as in Norway.
I forgot to ask the date of the doorway out of the Great Hall:-
The latest on the potential closure of Leila’s:-
It needs as many people as possible from Tower Hamlets to sign the petition (see below).
The new rent has been set based on the rents in Redchurch Street. But Redchurch Street is different from Calvert Avenue. Calvert Avenue has a community feel to it.
The council should not be punishing success. Leila has helped the regeneration of Arnold Circus and the surrounding neighbourhood. The Council should – at the very least – look at a strategy for Calvert Avenue, given its importance to the area, not farm it out to a rackrenting agency.
Actually, they should consult Leila about the strategy.
I went to see the exhibition celebrating 25 years of the Royal Drawing School, which is vastly much easier to appreciate in Charlotte Road than St. James’s Palace: an interesting mix of artists from recent graduates to David Hockney, with their thoughts on drawing and its importance.
It’s well worth seeing.
Also, the new corporate identity designed – beautifully – by Harry Pearce and Romilly Winter of Pentagram, with a specially designed typeface:-
I have been encouraged by Rupert Thomas, the Director of Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate Street, to post information about their Summer Fund-raising Party.
I know from experience that it is easy to let the years roll by without visiting it because you have to book. But now is your chance. All it requires is to become a Friend or make a donation. I always love going.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
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