I was really disgusted by the plans to put an office block, not just alongside, but on top of Liverpool Street station. It feels like a strangely dystopian project, as if buildings of the nineteenth century can simply be ignored as tower blocks colonise the space above.

In opposing new developments, I have come to the reluctant view that public campaigns get nowhere and could even be counter-productive, because the authorities who make planning decisions are programmed to ignore them. So, the key is to lobby the two most powerful people involved: Chris Hayward who runs the City’s Policy Committee and wields great, if invisible power; and Michael Gove who is ostensibly on the side of building beautifully.

I hope the heritage authorities win.

https://thecritic.co.uk/Defend-Liverpool-Street-Station/?s=09

I have realised that one thing got left out of my brother’s obituary, which may have seemed insignificant, but to me was: that was his interest in the east end, long before mine. When he was at school, he spent a summer in St. Katharine’s Foundation and wrote an essay about the east end which won him a Shell Scholarship at Cambridge which made him rich by the standards of undergraduates in the 1960s. I don’t know what the essay was about, but I remember him talking about Cable Street as it was in 1963. I don’t know if the essay survives, but it would be interesting if it did. And I realise, in thinking about it, it must have been partly what made him interested in anthropology, alongside the influence of Edmund Leach, and perhaps what led to him to living later in Quilter Street. He knew all the restaurants in New Road and he must have known Raphael Samuel because he gave me a copy of East End Underworld when it came out in 1981.

Then, in 1964, he went to Vienna to learn the violin. But his violin was stolen from the boot of a car in Rome and he never played again. He learned the mouth organ instead and played Bach on the mouth organ, which he took with him to the Amazon in 1965. To a kid, as I was, this was impressive.

Very beautiful winter light as I walked past Christ Church today:-

Following my brother’s recent, unexpected death, I wrote a short obituary of him for the Guardian as a way of documenting his life. The odd thing was that it got longer as they asked me to fill in the gaps in my account. As follows.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/07/richard-saumarez-smith-obituary

I spent a fascinating morning being shown Tornagrain, a new town being built east of Inverness. It looks deliberately as if it has been there for 150 years, using a form of early nineteenth-century vernacular. But it only started being built in 2018:-

We went to the Hispanic exhibition at the R – a great experience. I have been to the Hispanic Society several times over the years – the first time making the mistake of changing subways lines in Haarlem – but have never properly registered how rich and systematic the collection is, including wonderful ceramics.

My reference photographs are a bit idiosyncratic, more for Romilly than me:-

Andrea de Mena, Mater Dolorosa:-

Andrea de Mena, Ecce Homo:-

Eagle Pendant (c.1600):-

Pendant with the Virgin of Trapani in in Niche:-

A Black Book of Hours:-

I have just read that the developers of Liverpool Street Station think that the Victorian station no longer exists. I would urge everyone, including the developers, to go to Liverpool Street Station, and go onto the Platform – I think it is Platform 17 – which allows you to look up at the original roof decoration. It looks to me pretty well preserved, although I’m sure it could benefit from a bit of refurbishment:-

It always seems to take quite a bit of time for heritage campaign to get going, but the announcement this morning of the revival of the Liverpool Street Station Campaign, which managed to save the station in the 1970s, suggests the campaign is now properly underway, uniting all the various heritage bodies, including Historic England. I hope they can blow the proposals out of the water.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/feb/03/griff-rhys-jones-rails-against-plans-to-smother-liverpool-street-station?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

More on Liverpool Street Station from the Gentle Author, who alerted me to what’s proposed:-

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/liverpool-street-proposals-sellar-herzog-de-meuron-gentle-author/?s=09

I have been sent an image of the linocut done by Edward Bawden in 1962 of Liverpool Street Station:-

It was in the dying days of steam trains, but shows the cathedral-like magnificence of the railway sheds, which can still be seen if you go beyond the unattractive 1960s shopping mall which blocks the view. It remains one of the better preserved great railway stations of London. The plan to plonk a monster tower block on top of it and another next door will block out all the daylight and destroy the whole sense of scale of the building. Betjeman campaigned in the 1970s to stop Liverpool Street Station being replaced by the ‘slabs and cubes of high finance’. Poor Betjeman must be turning in his grave.