A long plane journey to Kristiansand in southern Norway meant that I was able to finish Sylvia Brownrigg’s remarkable memoir/detective story, The Whole Staggering Mystery: A Story of Fathers Lost and Found.  I remember her telling me the gist of it: that a package of papers addressed to her father by her grandmother had been found in the basement of her family’s house in Los Angeles, which enabled her to uncover elements of her father’s side of the family previously unknown, including the circumstances of her grandfather’s death – was it suicide ? – in Kenya.  It is about the complexities of family life.  Did it help that I know some of the people described ?  Not necessarily.  It’s about generational dinsinterment and the lost story of her father who scarcely knew or met his father and her rediscovery of it all from the package.

We went to the Eileen Agar/Emma Witter exhibition at Bosse & Baum in Peckham: a good and appropriate juxtaposition:-

I went yesterday to the new Tony Cragg exhibition at Castle Howard: many of his sculptures beautifully placed in the landscape, enhancing the vistas in unexpected ways; particularly a beautiful work on the empty basin in the middle of Ray Wood:-

There is an amazing assembly of glass vessels in the Temple of the Four Winds:-

And in the Great Hall, the work echoes and encourages one to look carefully at Giovanni Bagutti’s plasterwork overmantel:-

It is not the first time that I have seen and admired Giovanni Bagutti’s beautiful plasterwork chimneypiece in the Great Hall at Castle Howard, but it still repays close attention for the fluidity of its decoration – the shell work and scrolls.  It’s astonishing, particularly for its date:-

I hope I am allowed to advertise the work that Romilly is showing in Hauser and Wirth from next Friday. I have been admiring it over recent months:-

https://mailchi.mp/9fb8b4950a50/objects-of-contemplation-hauser-wirth-savile-row-10-may-to-2-june?e=9dc0f9b85b

On Monday 20th. May, I am giving a talk on the work of Vanbrugh and particularly his influence on later architects, in case you are interested (not sure about the drawing !):-

https://templebar.london/temple-bar-talks

I know I am not supposed to like the display of armour at the Wallace Collection, but I do.  It preserves so perfectly the idea of arcane knowledge.  I noticed that yesterday there were plenty of other people enjoying somewhere trapped in the past:-

For reasons too complicated to explain, we now get our car serviced in Brentford, which entailed an early morning drive out west and then a walk to Boston Manor underground station through a curious and unexpected piece of woodland directly under the Chiswick Flyover.  A bit of urban pastoral:-

Some time ago, I spotted that there was a scheme in Birmingham which was conceptually similar to what is planned at Liverpool Street Station (ie using the space directly on top of a listed building to build a tower block).

I am pleased to see that the Birmingham Planning Committee have rejected the suggestion nem. con. and have correctly derided it as ‘bonkers’.  Maybe the planning committee in London could take a similarly robust approach.

https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/bonkers-plans-to-build-42-storey-tower-above-listed-birmingham-building-flatly-refused/5129112.article?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Building%20Design%20%20Daily%20news&utm_content=Daily%20Building%20Design%20%20Daily%20news+CID_42b85880a91000a67a92735e8dc3c0c1&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor%20emails&utm_term=Bonkers%20plans%20to%20build%2042-storey%20tower%20above%20listed%20Birmingham%20building%20flatly%20refused

I have been waiting for my review of Gavin Stamp’s admirable and authoritative survey of 1920s and 1930s architecture, Interwar, to be posted online.  It has now been.  Meanwhile, I am pleased to see how many other people have reviewed it.

David Watkin thought that Stamp frittered his talents away on journalism and perhaps Stamp did too, but the book is a great, if posthumous, achievement:-

https://thecritic.co.uk/a-monumental-work-on-british-buildings/