New Architectual Stamps

It comes to something when an article in the Metro elicits three emails from friends all asking me the same thing, in this case, did I know that there were some new stamps with Basil Spence & Coventry Cathedral on.

I’m not sure if it’s because of the Basil Spence connection or the stamp collecting, either way, it’s probably not a good thing to be known for if I’m honest…

Still here are the stamps as seen in yesterday’s Metro.. and very nice they are too…

Ten stamps of distinguished Britons, two of which are architects; the undoubted genius that was Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (a man so driven, he had worked himself to death before he was 41) and my personal favourite Sir Basil Urwin Spence (why is it that the old school architects have such great names…)

I suspect that Spence was chosen not only as he is a Briton of Distinction, but that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the consecration of his masterpiece, Coventry Cathedral…

Personally I think it’s good that architects are considered worthy of inclusion. My profession at the moment is suffering from something of an identity crisis. We generally know the value of what we do and how much benefit good design can bring to a project, but all too often it seems that a sadly decreasing number of clients agree with us. Architecture is too often considered as nothing more than a bolt on service to the main job of getting something built, rather than a fundamentally important aspect of the process.

Still like most architects I know, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do and I suspect (and I’m aware this sounds a bit pretentious) this is a key part of our problem, in that architecture is a career that we’re born to do rather than are paid to do.

And yes I will be getting a set for my collection.

Sir Basil & the Unknown Print… Part II

I wrote recently about my very good fortune in acquiring this fantastic print of a watercolour and chalk drawing of Coventry Cathedral by Sir Basil Spence. Well I’ve been busy finding out more about it, and have the following to report…

When Spence died in 1976, his archive was bequeathed to the Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) and when I spoke to them they advised that this drawing did not form part of their collection. They had an original copy of the London Midland Train poster, but suggested that I should contact the RIBA Collection at the V&A, as they had the original drawing.

So we duly made an appointment, and last week little A & I went to see the collections Curator and his assistant, who were both very helpful and told us the following:

Spence presented the original drawing to the RIBA after his two year term as President sometime in 1963. The RIBA have a record of the drawing being exhibited at the Royal Academy but no record of any prints being made since it has been in their ownership.

The Curator also thought, that from the photo on my blog page, the frame looked contemporary with the print and suggested that in light of my story about the organist being the previous owner, it was possible that Spence had privately had a limited number of presentation prints produced to give to key people in the project and as neither the RCAHMS nor the RIBA had any prior knowledge of such prints, the number of them was probably quite small.

All very intriguing, but the icing on the cake was when the Curator said that the RIBA might be interested in buying our print as they didn’t have one (weren’t aware of any in fact) and it would be useful to have for exhibitions etc…. I said it wasn’t for sale, but that’s a nice thing to know.. maybe I’ll bequeath it to them when I’m in my dotage…

It goes without saying of course that it was a real treat to see the original work: the colours are still incredibly vibrant and the textures of the chalk, watercolour and oil on the paper give the whole piece an amazing depth especially as it is over 60 years old…

The bust above of the great man himself that was in the reading room at the V&A is by none other than Jacob Epstein (no surprise maybe when you consider the St Michael & the Devil connection at Coventry Cathedral). The Curator told us that there were two of these cast in honour of Spence’s Presidency of the RIBA from 1958 to 1960. This one was at the RIBA for many years before finding it’s new home at the V&A. The second one was presented to Spence, and I’m told he placed it in an alcove in the entrance hall to his Cannonbury offices… adorned with a laurel leaf crown. Apparently Spence was something of a vain and difficult man (as geniuses often are) and the Caesar allusions were not thought to be ironic… I’ll have to ask Bill Mitchell about this, I’m sure he’ll know if there’s any truth in it…

So an excellent hour or so at the V&A, and thanks very much to Charles and Katherine for taking the time to talk to us.

One final aspect to this story is that BBC Radio Coventry have been in touch after seeing my original post. 2012 sees the 60th anniversary of the consecration of Sir Basil’s Masterpiece, Coventry Cathedral and the BBC are looking for stories relating to its construction. Vanessa, the journalist who contacted me, was keen to speak to Bill Mitchell about his dealings with the Cathedral’s architect, and she was also interested in the story about my print and the possible connection to the organist. Vanessa and I haven’t managed to meet up as yet, but I know she has recently met Bill and Joy Mitchell and recorded Bill’s stories for possible transmission in the not too distant, which I for one can’t wait to hear… as I’ve said before, Bill is a man who is very good at telling a story….

So all in all our decision to buy the picture has created a string of events that have been both rewarding and interesting, and it’s very likely that we are not yet at the end of the tale…

Basil Spence’s Expo 67 Pavillion, Montreal

The 1967 Expo in Montreal, Canada is generally accepted to have been the most successful Expo of the Twentieth Century and must have been an amazing experience.

After the success of the New York Expo of 1964, the event was supposed to have been held in Russia to mark the 50th anniversary of the Revolution, but for reasons both political and financial, this was not to be and Montreal was awarded the prize in 1962.

Spread out over the newly created Isle Notre Dame and the significantly enlarged Isle St Helene, in the St Lawrence River, were 90 cutting edge pavilions representing if not all, then certainly a large number of the nations of the world. So not only could you have visited a proper Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome (USA Pavillion) and a genuine Frei Otto tensile steel structure (West German Pavillion), there was also Moshe Safdie’s iconic Habitat 67 Housing scheme, which attempted to redefine affordable urban living through its use of prefabricated concrete units arranged to provide both internal and external spacial variety and suggest a more suburban living in the heart of the city.

But it’s Basil Spence’s wonderful pavilion for Great Britain that has prompted me to write this post. I came across a selection of amazing images at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Monuments in Scotland (RCAHMS), who are the trustees of the Sir Basil Spence archives and just had to put them up on my blog…

They appear to depict a huge, pure white monster of a building, with a Pop Art Union Jack at the top of a tower. I particularly like the fountain by Steven Sykes (maybe because it reminds me of the work of Bill Mitchell) and the black and white interior shots, with their tellingly organic 1960′s corners…

All this Expo business reminds me that when A and I were in China at the end of our world tour, we missed the opening of the 2009 Shanghai Expo by about 2 weeks.. We went to visit the huge site hoping they might take pity on us, but it was well guarded by fences and soldiers and we left pretty quickly. So an annoying bit of organising on our part, as I would dearly have loved to have seen Thomas Heatherwick’s Seed Cathedral…

An amazing find… An original Basil Spence lithograph of Coventry Cathedral from 1957

I’ve written a number of times before about synchronicity & The Lattice of Coincidence, or how a sequence of events can be given greater significance than they may deserve (especially by me). Well here’s another one for you…

One of the most amazing things to have come out of writing this blog is that I’ve become friends with the Artist William Mitchell and his lovely wife Joy. After reading some of my posts, Bill got in contact with me and we’ve since met up a couple of times. He’s an amazing guy, still making art, still a bit of a raconteur. He’s obviously lived the life and worked all over the world, with several appearances on Tomorrow’s World and various other entertainment shows throughout the 1960′s, whilst latterly he’s worked for Mohamed Al-Fayed.

We got talking about his work for various Architects during the 60′s and 70′s and I told him I was struggling to finish an overly long post on the Architecture Exhibition of the Festival of Britain at Poplar, and that it had now divided itself into 2 parts, the second of which wanted to be just about Frederick Gibberd, one of our most succesful post war architects…

“Aahh Freddy”, said Bill “I knew him well…” and off he went telling stories of a perfect gentleman with a big moustache, who sounded like a thoroughly nice chap indeed and who he had worked with on several projects, including of course their Masterpiece, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. Bill also said that, amongst other respected names from this period, he’d worked with Basil Spence, and told me a story about visiting Spence’s home and seeing the fantastic model for the Coventry Cathedral, just sitting in his front room (I guess it was the one in this photo above which Sir Basil is showing to some school kids…)

It was this reminder of Basil Spence that prompted me to complete an unfinished idea for a post on some of his beautiful drawings, that I published on Saturday morning…

Anyway the following day, we headed off with some friends to Dulwich College to the Mid Century Modern Show to see if we could buy some more lovely (but unnecessary) things for our home. We all thought this years event was ridiculously rammed, and not as enjoyable as in previous years, but I’m so glad we went, because I quite literally couldn’t belive my eyes when I saw this…

It’s a truly wonderful, lithograph print of Spence’s beautiful chalk drawing of Coventry Cathedral, which I have only seen used by The London Midland Train Co. for their “Rebirth of Coventry” advert below. My print is about 700 x 940mm, is in perfect condition and is of a very high quality (in fact so good, I wasn’t initially convinced it wasn’t the original, so bright & life like are the chalk marks).

It came in what looks to my untrained eyes like a contemporary teak frame. I was told when I bought it that the picture was previously owned by the original organist of the Cathedral, and was given to him in the late 50′s when the prints were originally made. Of course I have no way of knowing if this is true (and don’t really mind anyway, it’s a nice story, but the print itself is more than enough for me…).

I just had to have it.. A huge, perfect Basil Spence print of Coventry Cathedral.. unbelievable.. I went and got A and asked if a) we could afford it and b) she would she want it up on the wall.. she said yes to both and after some slight haggling and a bit more worry on my part about the cost… I took the plunge and bought it.

Would I have been so keen to buy it if I hadn’t been thinking and writing about Basil Spence over the last few weeks.. possibly, I will never know. But I am so glad that I’ve got it, it makes me happy every time I look at it. And once I’ve reinforced the wall to take its ridiculous weight, it will look absolutely fantastic, taking pride of place in living room…