I have been trying to figure out what really happened in the local elections now that political commentary feels so unreliable, so influenced by what the government wants the narrative to be, setting the agenda for the BBC and feeding it to the newspapers. But it is hard to see it as other than pretty disastrous for the government: losing its flagship councils – Wandsworth, Westminster and Barnet; losing Tunbridge Wells; losing Somerset; in other words, losing the bluest of its heartlands. I can see it’s not necessarily a great result for Labour – actually better for the Liberal Democrats which provides the opposition in the south west. The opposition is so fragmented. So, it remains to be seen whether enough MPs make the calculation that they will lose their seat at the next election under the current leadership. It only needs fifty four.
Mayor Rahman
I have been trying to figure out the big vote in favour of Mayor Rahman and against Mayor Biggs on Thursday and what part Biggs’s support for the redevelopment of Brick Lane played in his downfall. He certainly was pro-development and very hostile to conservation. One just hopes that Rahman might take a more strategic approach to the development of Spitalfields, looking at a better balance between new building and cultural heritage. He could make a start by asking his conservation officer what can be done to protect what remains of 113, Redchurch Street. Then find out why the Whitechapel Bell Foundry has not been preserved. And then commission a strategic plan for the redevelopment of Spitalfields from Assemble who have the right local knowledge.
Make destroys the National Theatre (7)
I am really glad that Simon Jenkins, a veteran warrior against ugly new developments – he has been a member of the committee of Save since 1976 and I first encountered his work as the author of The Companion Guide to Outer London published in 1981 – has now weighed in on the scandalous and monster proposed building on the south bank which is on a scale which may be tolerable next to Battersea Power Station, but not opposite Somerset House.
People seem to have completely forgotten that there was a big battle over this stretch of the river in the 1980s when instead of a big new development by Richard Rogers, Coin Street built a small park and clever new housing by Lifschutz Davidson. The river path is rightly and deservedly hugely popular because of the way it joins up interesting buildings south of the river. Now six councillors in a committee room in Brixton have decided to destroy what remains of Canaletto’s view from Westminster Bridge.
It’s a scandal, not least because, as Jenkins correctly implies, it is often lubricated by wining and dining. I have been told that the key to winning Sir Simon Milton’s approval was to serve him his favourite wine. One wonders why Lord Lister who has worked his life in local government is now so rich. It is because we now live in an old Etonian version of a banana state. The only solution is going to be be at the ballot box to vote these people into eternal perdition.
113, Redchurch Street
As someone who lives in one of a pair of eighteenth-century houses which somehow miraculously survived in spite of being unoccupied from the 1870s till 2000, I am distressed to read of what is happening to two weavers’ houses in Redchurch Street. The whole character – and indeed prosperity – of Spitalfields is thanks to the establishment of the Spitalfields Trust in 1977 which has had an amazing track record in restoring eighteenth-century houses whilst retaining as much as possible of their original character. It is really bad that Tower Hamlets has not involved them in the development of two weavers’ houses in Redchurch Street. Even now I would hope that the Zeloofs who own the houses might be encouraged to get their architect to seek the advice of Heloise Palin, who now runs the Trust, and Dan Cruickshank, who has such deep knowledge about how to care for the surviving fabric of such houses. It’s depressing that so little seems to have been learned from forty five years of conservation and that Tower Hamlets have become so supine about their conservation responsibilities.
https://spitalfieldslife.com/2022/05/07/how-to-demolish-a-listed-building/?s=09
Artist’s Studio, Stepney
This is a beautiful small project by Martin Edwards above what was an old pub near us which has rightly won an RIBA Award, as did his project for us in North Wales. It will be good if the Stirling Prize pays more attention to carefully considered small projects closer to what clients want than brand new megastructures by the big names.
Grow, Cook, Dye, Wear (1)
We have just got a copy of Grow, Cook, Dye, Wear, a lovely and beautifully designed, post-lockdown book, explaining, as far as possible, how to live the natural life, cultivating your own allotment, dye your own clothes and make them as well, with patterns included. There’s a picture of our rhubarb plant in Wales.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690810/grow-cook-dye-wear-by-bella-gonshorovitz/
Captain Ravilious
Some time during the later stages of the pandemic, I got a phone call from Margy Kinmonth, a friend and film-maker, to ask if I would mind impersonating Kenneth Clark for a film she was making about Eric Ravilious. Since I have spent so much of my life in his footsteps, I was more than happy to do so to alleviate the boredom of confinement, bicycling to be filmed in the board room of the Imperial War Museum (the National Gallery was not available).
The film is due to go on general release on July 1st. and I have just seen a preview which I thought was brilliant: deeply informative about his life; a bit tragic because I didn’t know about the affairs he had when he and his wife Tirzah – or Tush as he called her – were living at Furlongs on the South Downs, nor that she had had breast cancer and a mastectomy just before he died in a plane crash off the coast of Iceland in September 1942 (one of the many good things about the film is the way her role is properly recognised). Grayson Perry is particularly good in talking about Ravilious’s skills as a designer, as is Alan Bennett. I hadn’t realised the extent to which many of his paintings were stored under Edward Bawden’s bed until the 1970s which has led to a gradual reappraisal of his work not just as a wood engraver and designer, particularly his work for Wedgwood, but as an artist of such skill and imagination evident throughout the film.
https://www.foxtrotfilms.com/films/eric-ravilious-drawn-to-war/
Mayor Biggs
I went to the polling station this morning and was surrounded outside by people encouraging me to vote for Mayor Biggs, the man who is said to have encouraged the chairman of the planning committee to approve turning the Whitechapel Bell Foundry into a luxury hotel. It was approved by one vote – that of the chairman. Is this democracy, I ask myself ? No, it was fixing the outcome of a democratic process by exercising undue influence. I didn’t like the way I was being encouraged to vote for him and I hope he isn’t elected.
The Elizabeth Line (1)
I feel a completely childish sense of pleasure that at long last The Elizabeth Line is about to open, just in time for the Platinum Jubilee (TfL Press Release – Elizabeth line to open on 24 May 2022 (prgloo.com)). New lines have only opened twice in my lifetime: the Victoria Line, which opened up parts of London which were previously off the map, from Brixton to Walthamstow, and it seemed at the time so sleek and fast; and then the Jubilee Line with its stations which still give a frisson of pleasure, particularly the incredibly futuristic grandiosity of Canary Wharf and the more complex geometry of Westminster (at least those are the two which I think of as the best). Now it will be possible to get from Whitechapel to Liverpool Street in three minutes; to Farringdon in five minutes, to Bond Street when it opens in eleven; and it’s disabled accessible. We can go for walks in Abbey Wood.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
You must be logged in to post a comment.