{architecture} – Page 123

Jaipur Observatory panoramas

A shame I didn’t discover these 360º views of the Jaipur Observatory in January when I posted a series of panoramas from different cities. The structures at Jaipur are one of five extraordinary astronomical observatories built by the Maharajah Jai Singh II in the 18th century. Would be nice to see VR photos of the other sites at higher quality but for now there’s some spherical views of the Delhi Observatory which turn it into a futuristic skateboard park. And there’s also the Garden of Instruments.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Carlo Scarpa’s Brion-Vega Cemetery
• The Jantar Mantar

Pite’s West End folly

An architectural rendering by Arthur Beresford Pite (1861–1934) whose proposal for a West End club house after the style of Viollet-le-Duc’s Gothic revivalism induced howls of outrage from the architectural establishment when it won the RIBA’s Soane Medallion in March, 1882. I know this drawing solely from an appearance in Felix Barker & Ralph Hyde’s London as it might have been (1982) where it fascinates not only for being one of the least likely proposals in the entire book but also for its vision of Georgian London as some kind of medieval throwback closer to Carcassonne than Cavendish Square. This copy is from a splendid Flickr set which features a wealth of fanciful architecture, real and imagined. Lots of favourites there, including the great Hugh Ferriss.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Viollet-le-Duc
• Hugh Ferriss and The Metropolis of Tomorrow
• Architectural renderings by HW Brewer

Tunnel 228

Lightning & Kinglyface’s paper forest; photo by Jeff Moore.

Tunnel 228 is a collaboration between Kevin Spacey in his position as artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre, and experimental theatre company Punchdrunk staging an art installation/performance work in tunnels beneath Waterloo, London. Mention of the magic word “Metropolis” (in its Fritz Lang context) caught my attention, the network of tunnels being filled in part by the sounds of clanking machinery. Visitors get to explore the paper forest shown above and may also see:

…tiny models of people in hidden nooks…a gilded statue of two fighting angels…spooky dummies of masked workers by artist Mark Jenkins, and bizarre still scenes, including a woman slumped over a melting table, by Polly Morgan.

The show runs from May 8th for fifteen days and is free but already seems to be fully booked going by the frustrated comments on this page. The rest of us will have to be intrigued by photos and hope that events such as this inspire artists and theatre groups elsewhere.

• Tunnel vision of underground art | Guardian feature.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Polly Morgan, fine art taxidermist
• Metropolis posters

Antonio Gaudí by Hiroshi Teshigahara

A largely-wordless tour of Gaudí’s architecture by the director of Woman in the Dunes (1964). Like that earlier film this also features a score by the composer Toru Takemitsu. I hadn’t realised before that the famous dragon gate (above) at the entrance to the Parc Güell, Barcelona, was as large as it is.

Teshigahara’s documentary is another film available at Ubuweb.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Atelier Elvira

The slow death of modernism

“Soon to be picturesque ruins” was a slogan the Situationists used to enjoy posting on Parisian buildings but their rebuke to architectural hubris can be applied anywhere. St Peter’s College seminary building at Cardross near Glasgow was an example of post-Le Corbusier concrete construction which drew praise for its clean modernity in the 1960s. Today it brings only photographers and graffiti kids to its dereliction. Brian Dillon notes that the seminary

resembles nothing so much as the desolate and sentient “zone” in Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker: a place where snow falls slowly upon vacant altars, where stagnant pools are so full of rot that they look horribly alive even at the edge of winter, where a startlingly tame robin will perch on your head as you step delicately over the rubble. (More.)

Yes indeed, and Flickr is full of striking examples like these. Someone ought to take advantage of what Dillon calls the seminary’s “futuristic rot” and use the place as a film set before the decay becomes too hazardous or the building is demolished altogether.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The ruins of Detroit
• Ephemeral architecture
• The temples of Angkor
• St Pancras in Spheroview
• The Stalker meme