I went for a haircut – the first at my usual barber for many moons – which allowed for a spot of exploration of West London, including my first visit to Sally Clarke’s new shop at the corner of Westbourne Grove and Portobello Road, one of the few good things that has emerged from COVID. Such a pleasure to see the rows of macaroons !

And I walked through the Hallfield Estate, a surprisingly intact post-war development, designed by Berthold Lubetkin, its construction overseen by Denys Lasdun and still preserving a nearly perfect atmosphere of Eastern Europeanism:-

Over the last few months, I have become both a subscriber – it’s free – and a devotee of a blog called A Daily Dose of Architectural Books, which pops into one’s inbox every day in the late afternoon with a recondite recommendation from the huge range of recent architectural publications, which are otherwise hard to keep track of. Today, he has been generous enough to feature my book. It exemplifies his approach – careful, scrupulous, and giving a very good indication of what to expect. It’s pretty impressive that he can do a new book in such detail every day.

https://archidose.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-art-museum-in-modern-times.html?m=1

I have just read that the Marram Grass is closing, at least for the time being. It’s our local restaurant in Anglesey. I used to go for breakfast to use their wifi and then discovered that it was in the Good Food Guide: a wonderful place, originally serving the local campsite and then gradually turning itself into a foodie haven, but keeping the campsite ambience, a remarkable achievement.

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/one-north-wales-best-loved-20574066

The Rector of St. Paul’s, Deptford mentioned that there used to be Rectory to the south of the church, also designed by Thomas Archer, but not any more. I looked it up. It was the most astonishing building – more mannered and idiosyncratic in its design than the church itself, its grand entrance flanked by octagonal rooms and with a curiously elaborate look-out on the roof. It was demolished in the 1880s:-

St. Paul, Deptford was closed again, but at least the churchyard was open, so we were able to enjoy its Roman stone-carving at close quarters – vigorous and less mannered than Hawksmoor:-

I had forgotten how fine the houses are in Albury Street, just off the High Street in Deptford, with elaborate carved brackets all the way along the street, a recollection of when Deptford was a prosperous riverside village, close to London, but related more to the river and shipbuilding than the distant city, with Emma Hamilton and Nelson reportedly shacking up at no.34:-

For several months, I have known that Hettie O’Brien, an opinion editor at the Guardian, was hard at work on a Long Read about the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. I was worried that it might not appear in time for the verdict due to be delivered any minute by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

It is an admirably fair and well-informed piece which casts the debate about the future of the Bell Foundry between the two principal actors: Alan Hughes, the fourth-generation proprietor, who took the decision, apparently with a heavy heart, to sell the business to a local property speculator after years of operating it at a loss; and Nigel Taylor, his employee, a fantastic enthusiastic for the history and technology of bells, who passionately wanted the skills of bell-making to be preserved and could have organised a management buy-out if the opportunity had been given.

It is a very sad story. At its heart is a view held by Hughes that if his family was not able to operate the company at a profit in Whitechapel, then nobody else could, so nobody was given the chance. The business was never put on the open market, nor indeed was the property, but sold for £5.1 million and then flipped not long afterwards for £7.9 million to a New York venture capitalist.

There will be many people who take the view of Alan Hughes – that this is the way of the world and proprietors should be at liberty to sell their property at maximum profit, irrespective of the importance and public interest in its historic use. But it is worth remembering that not far away, C.R. Ashbee campaigned for the preservation of the Trinity Green Almshouses, which led to the establishment of the Survey of London, and effective legislation for the preservation of historic buildings.

Are we simply to abandon history for profit post-COVID and put the interests of speculators above those of the local community ? Is there really no way that Jenrick can intervene and either encourage or compel Siegal to reinstate the foundry as a working foundry, as Re:Form and Factum Arte have so imaginatively and effectively proposed ?

He can easily sign the form sitting on his desk and forbid the redevelopment.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/may/11/whitechapel-bell-foundry-battle-save-britains-oldest-factory?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I went off to do some weekend food shopping in Eataly, a massive, and possibly monstrous, new food emporium strategically placed right next door to Liverpool Station. I have been often to their branch outside Pinerolo, but am not quite sure what to think of its sense of massive super-abundance immediately post-lockdown. It feels more than faintly immoral. But I’m not averse to that feeling of being in an Italian supermarket, even if it’s a Hollywood version of one:-

I’m doing an online talk tomorrow evening, organised jointly by the Harvard Art Museums and the Harvard Department of History of Art and Architecture, where I was a Henry Fellow in 1976. I have been nervous about it because I never did my Generals, but I have now written the talk on three of my case studies, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Bilbao and the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

There is still time to sign up.

https://haa.fas.harvard.edu/event/transformation-art-museum-conversation-charles-saumarez-smith-martha