nairn's london and paris books £50+ for a used paperback
― conrad, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 11:33 (ten years ago) link
Hello pinefox!!
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 5 March 2014 11:34 (ten years ago) link
Hello Tracer Hand, I've missed you.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 11:57 (ten years ago) link
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.
― mahb, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 13:11 (ten years ago) link
The documentary about him made it clear that his shows tended to be filmed around pub opening hours.
― Yuri Bashment (ShariVari), Wednesday, 5 March 2014 13:24 (ten years ago) link
"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.
― Tim, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 13:56 (ten years ago) link
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).
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 14:08 (ten years ago) link
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.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 14:11 (ten years ago) link
I could describe your block of flats pinefox!
― conrad, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 14:20 (ten years ago) link
:D
in a Conradian style I hope
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 14:22 (ten years ago) link
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).
― Tim, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 15:40 (ten years ago) link
I'm not sure I do!
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 15:43 (ten years ago) link
― 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
― Thanks in anticipation of your opinions (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 5 March 2014 17:23 (ten years ago) link
"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.)
― Fizzles, Thursday, 6 March 2014 20:26 (ten years ago) link
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.
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 March 2014 11:11 (ten years ago) link
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"
― Angkor Waht (Neil S), Friday, 7 March 2014 11:13 (ten years ago) link
In a sense whether it has failed or not is irrelevant to whether it is, in principle, a good thing, which it is.
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 March 2014 11:47 (ten years ago) link
http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/culture/concrete-poetry-by-jonathan-meades/8658865.article
a response to pinefox and company
― fedora the implorer (nakhchivan), Thursday, 13 March 2014 18:51 (ten years ago) link
Nairn's London being reprinted by in November, a little penguin tells me.
― Alba, Thursday, 13 March 2014 23:15 (ten years ago) link
:)
― conrad, Friday, 14 March 2014 09:16 (ten years ago) link
meadesy shd not interview
― conrad, Friday, 14 March 2014 09:22 (ten years ago) link
It's not a real interview is it? It's him and Paul Finch (i would guess) mucking about.
― Yuri Bashment (ShariVari), Friday, 14 March 2014 09:30 (ten years ago) link
Pola Fringuello was selected by Jonathan Meades to conduct this interview on behalf of the Architects’ Journal
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 14 March 2014 09:36 (ten years ago) link
― conrad, Friday, 14 March 2014 10:10 (ten years ago) link
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.
― the pinefox, Friday, 14 March 2014 10:35 (ten years ago) link
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.
― pings can only get wetter (Noodle Vague), Friday, 14 March 2014 10:44 (ten years ago) link
the environmental stuff is either a joke or it isn't which doesn't serve human need v much
― conrad, Friday, 14 March 2014 11:06 (ten years ago) link
am i confusing the difference between having an "opinion" about something and things that have purpose?
― pings can only get wetter (Noodle Vague), Friday, 14 March 2014 11:11 (ten years ago) link
how would one go about doing that
― conrad, Friday, 14 March 2014 11:15 (ten years ago) link
sorry, my processing might be disrupted today, feel like i've got a crossed line
― pings can only get wetter (Noodle Vague), Friday, 14 March 2014 11:19 (ten years ago) link
get well soon
― conrad, Friday, 14 March 2014 11:25 (ten years ago) link
If you were to write a historical novel, which event or figure would be your subject?
― Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 25 June 2014 19:32 (ten years ago) link
watching 'on france' & my god he is wonderful
― i'm elf-ein lusophonic (imago), Sunday, 20 July 2014 23:48 (ten years ago) link
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?
― Michael Jones, Monday, 21 July 2014 13:59 (ten years ago) link
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
― anvil, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 18:52 (nine years ago) link
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.
― xelab, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 20:06 (nine years ago) link
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
― anvil, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 20:12 (nine years ago) link
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!
― xelab, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 20:26 (nine years ago) link
halifax is a football town?
― Enterprise Lesotho (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 23 December 2014 20:29 (nine years ago) link
Halifax draw supporters from places as disparate as Brighouse, Elland and Rastrick. Massive fucking club!
― xelab, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 20:35 (nine years ago) link
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
― Enterprise Lesotho (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 23 December 2014 20:39 (nine years ago) link
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
― anvil, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 20:44 (nine years ago) link
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!
― xelab, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 21:07 (nine years ago) link
The Nairn docs on iPlayer had an expiry time of 99 years when I looked so I guess they are still there.
― koogs, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 22:44 (nine years ago) link
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)
― anvil, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 22:51 (nine years ago) link
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.
― xelab, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 23:18 (nine years ago) link
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!".
― xelab, Wednesday, 24 December 2014 08:43 (nine years ago) link
you've seen Nairn's London has been reissued?
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 December 2014 12:52 (nine years ago) link
I have ordered the Darly/McKie Words In Place book for a fiver, probably go for Nairn's London next.
― xelab, Wednesday, 24 December 2014 13:02 (nine years ago) link
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.)
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 December 2014 13:20 (nine years ago) link