Jonathan Meades c/d?

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)

If anyone could find a torrent or link to his football towns it would be good. I love the way the football link is so tenuous, to the point it is a penalty shootout between architecture and town planning in the end with barely a mention of the football clubs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_uqoHZk4R4

There is an awesome bit here 6 minutes in where he rails against the vulgarity of amateur part time yobbo boozers with genuine disgust "This is animal!".

you've seen Nairn's London has been reissued?

I have ordered the Darly/McKie Words In Place book for a fiver, probably go for Nairn's London next.

it's good. like his series it's as much a documentary of a time as anything else, and a frustrating read in some ways. but walking down electric avenue this morning is an example that his words still hold true in many places, and where they do it's because people can live there and efforts have been made to ensure a city is what it should be - a place for everyone.

wonder whether electric avenue will be the same in ten years. (there's lottery money to do it up, and renovate the flats - and I still can't find out whether those renovated flats are intended to be public housing. they certainly need to be.)

It would seem completely corrupt to use lottery money to renovate private housing but saying that lots of private Victorian terraced houses in my area got free NT work done on them, which was a complete surface restoration and nice new wrought iron fences.

On Nairn's funeral, quite a poignant paragraph and reminds of some family funerals I have attended. I am sure I have been to St Georges Tavern before, whilst staying in Pimlico about 20 years ago.

There were few mourners that August day;in his last silent melancholy days (in reality, some years) he had been almost forgotten. But their number included both Nairn's widow Judy and his ex-wife Joan (Liz). The Group then repaired to his favourite haunt, St Georges Tavern, Pimlico. Peter Baistow's photograph showing Nairn wreathed in cigarette smoke with an army of empty beer glasses jostling on the table in front of him, was installed above his customary seat.
In the cemetery, Nairn lies beneath a standardised iron tablet, one of many, laid flat on the grass. But the legend on this one is most particular. At the top it reads Hora e Sempre (Now and Forever) and then, below the dates of birth and death, little more than 50 years apart, comes the phrase A Man Without A Mask. The words were chosen by Samuel Palmer to describe William Blake. They could have been written, with equal justice, then and forever about Ian Nairn.

Meades making a record w/ Mordant Music!

http://thequietus.com/articles/17394-jonathan-meades-announces-album

There is actually a random mention of Meades on the last eMMplekz album (You Might Also Like) on the track 'Bedrheum Raver 78', which also namedrops 0PN and seeing David Tibet in the laundrette.