Jonathan Meades c/d?

yeah he is clearly a belguim fan

just catching up on the brutalism progs. funny he should mention the whole Swinburne Poems and Ballads as object of cultural rebellion thing. P&B stood in relation to the fin de siècle as jazz did to the Angry Young Men. A symbol of a oppositional and willed break with the previous generation.

― Fizzles, Thursday, 27 February 2014 21:18 (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post

the second program is a bit of a nadir of that raging against complasiant bien pensant pietist sentimental cretinous oafish morons thing he does, just screaming VANBRUGH over and again into the void

they are still better than anything else likely to be on the bbc this year but that's beside the point

I agree on both points. I also think his "bring back the big beasts of architecture, dictating to the masses and creating artistic statements" was all a bit weirdly Ayn Rand. The gratuitous bashing of "bureaucrats" and the like wasn't particularly edifying either.

re Brutalism, part 2, yes:

- it's "better television" than other people make, and one wants this good TV to exist
but
- I disagreed with almost all the substantive views he put forward.

nairn's london and paris books £50+ for a used paperback

Hello pinefox!!

Hello Tracer Hand, I've missed you.

I love Nairn striding out to his Morris Minor to "Wade in the Water".
The episode at the Munich Beer Festival is bizarre - not quite sure what is going on there, apart from the fact that he's clearly steaming drunk.
By the end of the Orient Express trip he look's as if he's been drinking for days with no sleep.

The documentary about him made it clear that his shows tended to be filmed around pub opening hours.

"Nairn's Paris", which I've never read, gets short shrift from every Nairn commentary I've ever read, but I'd love to find a copy at a reasonable price. I would also love a copy of "Modern Buildings In London", which everyone seems to like more.

Someone's recently re-published "Britain's Changing Towns" as "Nairn's Towns", I note. I bet you'd agree with Ian Nairn more than you do with J. Meades, Pinefox.

Thanks Tim !

I like the idea of NAIRN'S PARIS, too.

As a boy I used to read and reread the bits of NAIRN'S LONDON that were relevant to where I lived, which was about 1-2pp out of 300. When I take people to Blackheath I tell them what he said about it. But I never really read what he said about anywhere else, because I didn't really know anywhere else.

It's odd, or not odd, how the JM thread has become an IN thread.

I think I would agree with IN more than JM, Tim, yes, absolutely. But (or do without the But, if you like) this (or my disagreement with JM) is not so much, or not only, about the aesthetics (ie is "Brutalism" good or bad?), as about the politics or ethics of what JM says (which have been touched on a bit above).

re aesthetics, I am quite happy to think that eg function, efficiency, rationality are good principles which might make eg 'modernist architecture' better for certain purposes. I live in a nondescript block of flats myself.

JM's defence of 'brutalism' though seems to be less about that (healthy social-democratic principles, etc) and more about eg 'the terror of the sublime', which I think is a terrible principle for architecture or life.

I could describe your block of flats pinefox!

:D

in a Conradian style I hope

As it happens, PF, the agreement I was imagining between you and Nairn was more on matters of principle than of taste, really (I reckon you'd get along with his lines on e.g. sense-of-place and character and what-people-like, I'm not sure I know about your taste in architecture).

I'm not sure I do!

JM's defence of 'brutalism' though seems to be less about that (healthy social-democratic principles, etc) and more about eg 'the terror of the sublime', which I think is a terrible principle for architecture or life.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 14:11 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the principle is apt for collossal multistorey carparks and university libraries and for the modern residents of the trellick tower who spend half a million on a poky flat of their choosing, maybe less so for mandated social housing

as towho exactly hates brutalism, nevermind quinlan terry or pusillanimous pols, there are evidently lots of people who fucking hate the stuff, mostly the sort of boors who buy those 'crap towns' books

even so

dismissing their esthetic sensibilities is fine but you can't dismiss their existence

"the problem of architecture in the 21stC: public negotiation of private spaces." an unwritten paper.

(like the actual paper i had to deliver a couple of years ago: I have somewhere I picture of me trying to finish it off in a square in Antwerp ten mins before I was due to give it.)

I do not see how 'terror' is a good principle for a car park, library or other amenity.
I think terror is pretty much always a bad thing.

I think utility, function, efficiency, eco-efficiency etc are good principles.
Though Meades does not believe in anything ecological, another way in which I think he is very wrong.

yeah his air of "it's PC gawn mad" whenever anyone raises concerns about environmental impact is bizarre, as are sweeping generalisations about how "eco architecture has failed"

In a sense whether it has failed or not is irrelevant to whether it is, in principle, a good thing, which it is.

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/culture/concrete-poetry-by-jonathan-meades/8658865.article

a response to pinefox and company

Nairn's London being reprinted by in November, a little penguin tells me.

:)

meadesy shd not interview

It's not a real interview is it? It's him and Paul Finch (i would guess) mucking about.

Pola Fringuello was selected by Jonathan Meades to conduct this interview on behalf of the Architects’ Journal

meadesy shd not interview

His defence of anti-environmental thinking in that interview is as wrong and bizarrely ignorant as it is in the programme.

He is intelligent so I suppose he cannot really be that ignorant. He just likes to provoke.

you could charitably read him as suggesting that environmental piety that doesn't serve human need is an empty gesture. i wouldn't wholly disagree with that, altho i think his fundamental issue is really an aesthetic one that wants to ignore environmental imperatives.

the environmental stuff is either a joke or it isn't which doesn't serve human need v much

am i confusing the difference between having an "opinion" about something and things that have purpose?

how would one go about doing that

sorry, my processing might be disrupted today, feel like i've got a crossed line

get well soon

If you were to write a historical novel, which event or figure would be your subject?

watching 'on france' & my god he is wonderful

Saw him navigating his way around the Friday afternoon overspill of drinkers outside the Nellie Dean last week. I wonder if he'd just been to the Private Eye office?

I found this thread by searching for Ian Nairn, and seeing as there is Nairn discussion I may as well post here as anywhere else. I watched his 1975 documentary on Huddersfield and Halifax. He sounds so weary, especially at the end of the Huddersfield section, but seems to have an affection for Halifax, one which I can share (6 mins of Hudds and 16 of Halifax!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQfgA_6HLT0

I managed to rip all 3 ep's of Nairn Across Britain from iplayer, if it is not on there anymore I could share if you need it. I love this guy and actually get quite weepy watching him, he really is something else.

I think they're all on youtube, I watched Trans Pennine Canal, and part of Leeds to Scotland (as far as Appleby), but not London to Lancashire yet

I had never heard of him before today, hes good in the across britain ones, but the halifax/huddersfield one is something else, though im realizing the first 10 mins is missing, as they would obviously get equal billing

He hates the ABC cinema building which was built over the bullring market, glad he never lived to see the Sainsburies supermarket. Then he he is looking down towards where the Queensgate is and says "the hills are all that redeem it" that comment still stands!

halifax is a football town?

Halifax draw supporters from places as disparate as Brighouse, Elland and Rastrick. Massive fucking club!

there's a very intense sadness about him and in his silences, there is a bit in one of them where is on a suitably desolate moor and pauses just to emphasize the roar of the wind

this sadness is probably accentuated by having read his wikipedia page beforehand

The football is just a tag, theres not really any mention of it!

I suppose historically its been an RL town, but I dont know if RL attendances are declining or not. Brighouse leans Huddersfield, not sure at what point west it becomes Burnley. Definitely after Hebden Bridge its Burnley

I had forgotten Speedway even existed

I actually installed emergency lights at the Town Hall about a decade ago so I when I see the interior shots I find myself reminiscing about 2nd fixing mineral insulated cable at some awful heights on wobbly tower scaffolds, thinking fuck me I hate this fucking job!

The Nairn docs on iPlayer had an expiry time of 99 years when I looked so I guess they are still there.

Nairns Across Britain 1-3 are on the iplayer but not football towns

Football Towns huddersfield/halifax is on youtube (obv!), but I havent found preston/bolton or wolverhampton/walsall (though i havent looked that hard as I only even found out about him while searching for Halifax on youtube)