Saturday 31 March 2012



My latest obsession has been with door furniture. Door furniture is one of those things that you just don't notice, 99% of the time, but once you do start to notice it, it is a surprisingly rich and diverse area.


This has in large part been the result of recently moving to working in an 1930's office building, predominantly with original brass door fittings, and my regular lunchtime walk taking me past a slightly grand Georgian street with some rather fine door fittings.


I have therefore been scouring eBay, with moderate obsessiveness, to source a variety of period door fittings for my own house. Mixed success with bidding, I clearly have an eye for the popular, as the bidding on some of my favoured items has at times accelerated into the realms in unaffordability. But after a few weeks, I have now sourced a variety of door fittings. The old sixties fittings and modern mock gothic are going, to be replaced by an eclectic selection. An aluminium cinema door style handle in one room, arts and crafts style brass in another, an art deco semi circular shaped one, and a few that could just be hefty pub door handles. The exercise has also reaquainted me with the charms of brass. A hundred years ago brass was clearly the go to metal for all sorts of things. It is slightly softer than most other commonly used metals, has mild antiseptic properties, and with a little polish gives a good yellow metal shine. It also comes in a variety of different hues. Of the brass handles that I have got, some are almost silver, some slightly rose gold, though obviously the overall impression is of yellow metal.



With a tin of brasso, it is possible to polish up the most unprepossing item to its former glories. From a collector's point of view they prefer to leave material unpolished, but for working items, I think it is appropriate that they follow the original intent, and are used in a polished state. Polishing is actually surprisingly gratifying. A little brasso, a good polish, and the formerly white cloth has a dirty black patch on it, you really feel like you are taking off the dirt. A burnish up with a clean cloth and the item really starts to glow. I suspect that the original intent was that raised areas would shine up more, further accentuating any mouldings or accents.


Anyway, I've supported this blog article with a before and after photo to demonstrate the reviving effects of brasso. More door furniture obsessiveness likely in future blog postings.







Sunday 15 January 2012

public space

There was a recent exhibition at the Glasgow Lighthouse on Cedric Price, and part of this was a handout newspaper on a number of student projects looking at public space in Glasgow. The teams each took a segment of Glasgow, starting from the centre and heading out, to consider public space available, and make interventions.


Cedric Price was a somewhat whimsical theorist, and the interventions were often whimsical.


Nevertheless the point remains, it is public space that makes our modern environment work, or frustrate. And looking at public space it is very often dismal. It is not intentionally bad, it was not designed by some Bond villain to drive us to despair, but it is uninspiring, unambitious, unnoticed, unloved, lacking in ability.


Public space is the space that falls between the bits that anyone cares about. Public space is the bits that we all own, but no one individual owns. Public space is that stuff that no one is proud of. Public space is the bits where we leave the litter to accumulate unless the council come to take it away.


But public space is, it is the space that defines our spaces. The tourists see public space, the visitors see public space, we see public space. It is the public space that creates the image of the city, the town, the village. We expect the bank to look impressive, we expect the expensive houses to look expensive, and run down ones to look run down. But it is the public space that sets the bar.


We should be more ambitious with public space, we should demand more from it. We should take more ownership of it. We should quietly clear away some of the junk and smarten it up.


We should celebrate the public space that works, and complain about the public space that does not.


You can tell when public space works. People walk, or drive slowly, they cycle, they sit. For really good public space people will walk dogs, or play, or sit outdoors eating or stop and talk. Public space can be designed, but it only works when people think it works. Too often it is designed to look good, without actually working. That peculiar branch of ergonomics where street furniture is designed to deter people from sitting too long, or even relaxing. Hence metal seats and stone benches.


It is people that make public space work, and we deserve better, and we should make it better.