Hidden Gardens of the Royal Mile

Hidden Gardens of the Royal Mile Guided Tour
2 July 2016
14:30 assemble outside John Knox House, £8.00 book online

This particular tour was one of the various offerings provided by the Architecture Fringe 2016, running during July 2016. Having said that Jean Bareham who gives the tours runs them fairly regularly so it should not be too difficult to find an alternative offering. Jean also offers other like themed tours and has written a short books of the Hidden Gardens of the Royal Mile. Relevant links attached below.
http://architecturefringe.com
http://www.greenyondertours.com
If you are looking for epic formal gardens then this is not the tour for you, however if you are keen to get behind the facades of the Royal Mile, as the buildings tumble their way down the slope from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace then this is wonderful. There are a couple of gardens that are quite professional and amazing, while others are not much more than areas where a few paving slabs have been lifted and some welcome greenery squeezed in.
The combination of the Old Town alleys and courts with little pockets of green is really rather wonderful. Likewise Jean could not be bettered as a guide, she seemed to know everything and everyone.
There was plenty of talk about Patrick Geddes and a separate tour is available devoted to him. Understanding Geddes is impossible without seeing and walking the Old Town that inspired him.
There is something noble about gardening, quietly and unostentatiously creating something of beauty for others to enjoy. On the one hand it is sad to realise just how fragile these dear green places are, but encouraging to see how much of an impact a handful of gardeners can still make to positively enhance one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

Pop-up Cities Expo

Pop-up Cities Expo
Tuesday 21 June - Sunday 17 July
daily 10am to 10pm
Mound Square, the Mound, Edinburgh

Five cities from around the globe, have each contributed a pavilion for this pop up expo on the Mound in Edinburgh. The Ideal Hut Exhibition was here earlier in the year, and it strikes me that some more permanent means of enclosing the area might be useful if there is going to be a regular series of these events.

Each pavilion was a very fancy hut. It was the Dutch one that most caught my imagination, made of pipes it was appropriate to the site, fun and great to look at. The others will doubtless all have their own admirers, and it was nice to see something relevant, edgy and different here in Edinburgh. The exhibition was attracting a diverse and interested audience when I was there, suggesting that there is a ready audience for more pop ups.

Hidden Door Festival

Hidden Door Festival
Friday 27 May to Saturday 4th June
12am to 6pm free, 6pm to midnight £15
Courtyard off King’s Stables Road
8-20 King’s Stables Road
Edinburgh
EH1 2JY
I will include a note on this for sake of completeness, I am so not the target audience for this sort of thing. This is one of those hidden courtyards that persist in the city. Presumably used for some vaguely council purpose it has been converted to a short lived pop up festival site. It was relatively easy to find, head to the Grassmarket then take the road round by the rock face of the the castle on the west side of the Grassmarket.
You enter via a dark curtained twisty corridor, every other exhibition these days seems to entail going through some curtains to gain entry. Inside the courtyard some installation art, a bit Occupy, some street food stands, a couple of bars. Although there were a few folk about the place was not terribly lively when I was there, but if you are happy to use a portaloo and drink wine from plastic cups, then this offers an urban alternative to festivals. There is a full programme of events, so this could be good place to hang out for a mix of art culture and drinking.

Lewis Baltz with works by C Andre and C Posenake exhibition

Lewis Baltz with works by C Andre and C Posenake - exhibition
Saturday 30th April to Saturday 9th July 2016, Monday to Saturday 11am to 6pm
Stills (Gallery) 23 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1BP

This is an odd but welcome addition to the Festival of Architecture exhibitions, events, etc, running over 2016. I am really not sighted on modern photography at all. Accordingly on first looking through the photos, a large array of black and white photos of non descript bits of land, mounds of earth, etc, I was really wondering whether I was stupidly missing something deeply profound about each single image.
There is a short five minute video that is well worth a look and my take on what Baltz (the photographer) was saying, was that by taking photos he was really seeking to put a frame on something to draw attention to it. Sometimes it might simply be a pleasing arrangement of architectural details or some nondescript land pared back of anything of interest.
Whereas the work of the French landscape artist Claude Lorrain created an ideal of beauty that was then translated by landscape gardeners into created landscapes, Baltz had taken the existing banality of our surroundings, framed it, and challenged us to see the beauty in it what we have ourselves created.
The exhibition also features some minimal art pieces, to parallel and perhaps offer their own commentary. In fact these pieces are so minimal as to be quite unobtrusive, there were aluminium floor panels (illustrated) and perhaps something that looked like ducting, or was that really just ducting, I am not sure.
While no single item here carried a great deal of meaning, as a whole the effect was contemplative and thought provoking.

Innovation, Architecture or Design? Exhibition - Edinburgh

Innovation, Architecture or Design? Exhibition - Edinburgh
Monday 25th April to Friday 29th July 2016, opening hours Monday to Friday 9.30am to 6pm.
Studio DuB, 17a, at flat 2 West Crosscauseway, Edinburgh EH8 9JW
This is another little gem of an exhibition under the aegis of the Festival of Architecture. I love the idea of pop up displays repurposing space, and testing the boundaries of what an exhibition might be. This is a fine example of the genre, an architectural practice has used an enclosed garage space, to put up a series of display boards, and if you press the buzzer they will let you in to see them. According to the website the shutters can also be raised to allow disabled access.
The projects are an imaginative mix, some fairly grounded, some fairly out there, but all well presented and thoughtful. I have incorporated a few photos of projects that particularly caught my eye.
It did take me a while to figure out exactly where the exhibition was, it is behind the shutters in the last photo, use the entry phone to the right of the shutters and the press button and ask to be let in. Once I found the place (eventually) I had no trouble gaining access, but inevitably with something as ad hoc as this, access might be a bit patchy.
Kudos to Studio DuB for putting on this exhibition, an inspiring demonstration of creativity and real generosity of spirit.

The Ideal Hut Show - Edinburgh

The Ideal Hut Show - Edinburgh
Saturday 30th April to Monday 30th May 2016, 10am to 6pm.
Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh

my latest excursion to keep up with the by now totally bewildering array of events that constitute the Festival of Architecture was to the Ideal Hut Show at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. This is a couple of rows, totalling eighteen huts. A few themes recur, there are various huts that you can look inside, kaleidoscope style, a negative space absence of hut, an expanded hut, many decorated huts. Unfortunately jamming the huts together in two neat rows does detract from their impact. Had they been spaced out around a larger area they would have carried more impact.
It would also appear that these are conceptual pieces, someone somewhere has drawn a plan, and someone else has constructed the finished item. This runs contrary to the usual principles of shed as man made man-cave, and none of these really seem to function as sheds. Overall worth a look and a ponder, but likely to be of more interest to architecture buffs than the average man in the street.
The Botanic Gardens are always worth a look, with plenty to see, so worth incorporating a look at these huts into a trip on a fine day. If you head towards the glasshouses, and then towards the big pond then you should spot them quite easily.

The Vital Art an exhibition at the Scottish Arts Club

The Vital Art - exhibition 

Wednesday 6th April to Tuesday 3rd May 2016

@ The Scottish Arts Club, 24 Rutland Square, Edinburgh 

This is a hidden gem of an exhibition that is well worth seeking out. 

To be honest, even if the paintings had been dismal it would have been worth going just to get a look inside one these unspoilt Georgian tenements. 

Rutland Square is a quaint old Georgian Square at the West End, not the grandest, nor the humblest, with some rather impressive brass plates on display. It represents a little pocket from a previous time with its fenced in private garden at the centre, and surrounded by giant modern buildings, constrained to its scale by planning restrictions. 

Ring the door bell, to get buzzed in, and then there is an exhibition on the first floor, a pleasant front to back common room with elderly comfortable furniture. There was a further exhibition space upstairs, but there was a meeting going on, so I did not see that. There was also a corridor downstairs in the basement with further pictures and paintings. 

There was not a dud painting amongst them, nor was there any of that pretentiousness can bedevil such things. There were plenty of buildings and landscapes, all appealing and affordable. This is a real treat of an exhibition.

 

 

 

Home an exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy

Home - exhibition 

Saturday 16th April to Wednesday 25th May 2016

@ Royal Scottish Academy, The Mound, Edinburgh 

I rather suspect that I got into this exhibition under false pretences, although I went in via the front door, and paid for my ticket (£5 including catalogue) the gallery slowly filled up with the Edinburgh great and good, so my moleskin jacket perhaps fooled the young lady on the front desk into thinking that I was an RSA member who had been specially invited to the opening day. Certainly after I went in, someone pointed out to her not to let anyone else in. 

Pretty much the entire RSA gallery upstairs and downstairs was filled with material, predominantly architecture. Whereas degree shows are very heavy on models, and light on actual built buildings, this was heavy on built buildings and relatively light on models. There were a lot of large photos and drawings of rather nice houses. 

The exhibition was around the theme of home,which allows a pretty wide remit. To be frank most of these are not really homely homes, more the sort of designer / Grand Designs, sort of aspirational second home that we might all aspire to. The photos of actual rooms from social housing struck a discordant note reminding me of the sort of house that I actually do live in. 

The exhibition took a wide brief, and handled this with optimism and panache. Particular standouts for me were the room including a model of the room, including the model of the room, and the clear acrylic model of a home with a central spine of services. 

In addition to the architectural material, there were artworks on display, including four by John Byrne, the self portrait was competitively priced at £22k, and a short corridor of paintings of unbuilt buildings. 

Normally I try and snap a few photos, but it was forbidden to take photos, so I have included some photos from the rather good catalogue. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Utopian Cities - Future Dreams

Utopian Cities - Future Dreams 

Wednesday 30th March 17:30 to 19:00

@ Anatomy Lecture Theatre, Summerhall, Edinburgh 

part of Scotland’s Festival of Architecture 2016

Just to demonstrate that I am partaking of the full range of what the most excellent Festival of Architecture has to offer, some quick notes on one of their lectures. 

The lecture is one of many, but was scheduled at a time and place that was easy enough for me to get to. It was in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Summerhall, which used to be the Royal Dick, the Edinburgh University Veterinary Medicine Department. The vets have all now moved to a new campus on the south of the city, and the venue has been lightly refurbished as a general arts venue. Most cities probably could not support such a range and number of venues, but Edinburgh is a festival city, and there seems no limit to the steady growth of arts culture and general festival-ness. 

I think the event was one of many concurrent Science Festival Events, the reception staff were pleasant and happily accepted the printed version of my online ticket. We went into the lecture theatre, semi circles of steeply raked oak seats, peering down on the lecturers. The event was packed, but the venue probably held less than fifty people. 

Utopia is a big topic, and there were two schools of thought. The first two speakers, Dr Diane Morgan and Dr Matthew Beaumont took a literary approach, stretching from Thomas More’s Utopia to the recent film London has Fallen. The Beaumont lecture was similar to one that is available online, check out the LSE Future Cities series. While, for me, there is some interest in the literary notion of utopia, looking back on stuff that people have already said will only ever take you so far. 

There was a brisk and spirited piece by Richard Murphy, which presumably reflects his recent book Last Futures. In fact from what I have read of Last Futures it was written in the style of a textbook, while his lecture was far more engaging. He seemed to find something insightful and new to say about the overly familiar sixties and seventies. 

For me the standout was the architect Kate MacIntosh, who adopted a distinctly humanist approach. This went beyond the usual tropes of good cities have bicycle lanes, to express genuine concern that our housing system is failing the people, and that real architecture should start from engagement with the people who will live in the houses. So that it is not just the narrow elite who can afford their own Grand Designs, but everyone that should be meaningfully involved the creation of the places where they will live. 

I do not suppose that any architect or designer actually sets out to design something that is bad. But there should be a humility that the designer is at the service of the end user. All architects probably ought to pop round five years later for a cup of tea with their residents, just to learn what they got right and what they did not. 

I don’t imagine that any one person can design utopia, it is not a destination, more a direction of travel, an exhortation to do your best. Much talk of utopia wrongly assumes that if you can just design it smart enough, then it will force the people to be happy and healthy. An architectural determinism, like the linguistics notion of the Sapir Worf hypothesis, whereby the structure of the language then determines the mindset of the speakers. Even the most grandiose of architects surely would not believe that they can design a city that forces an unwilling population to be healthy, happy, egalitarian and just.

But any true utopia won’t be built on a greenfield site. It will be built keeping the best of what is already there, involving those that live there already, enticing in those that do not. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, the architect’s perpetual bugbear of poor maintenance is one. But no architect can conceive or crystallise a perpetual utopia. It is a living breathing notion, responding to a myriad of changing circumstances. 

The moment that resonated the most for me was a photo of Kate, standing in front of her Dawson's Heights, with some residents, and her proud remark that by all accounts it was a pretty good place to live. Surely that is the best that any architect can aim for. 

 

 

 

 

Tiny Homes Village - Edinburgh

Tiny Homes Village

Saturday 26th March to Sunday 10th April 2016 (open daily 10.00 to 20.00)

@ The Mound, Edinburgh (next to the big galleries)

part of Scotland’s Festival of Architecture 2016

This is another element of the ongoing Festival of Architecture, which includes a bewildering variety of events, exhibitions, lectures and other assorted happenings. 

In essence this seems to be a ‘village’ of small homes on the Mound in Edinburgh. There are probably about a dozen, ranging from a yurt, to more boutique examples. Small houses are very much on trend these days, though how much of this is designer trendiness and how much is actually useful is open to debate. 

Regardless it is nice to have some great examples in Edinburgh for people to inspect. 

I’ve only managed to take a few quick photos, so I might update this when I get a chance to have a proper look. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grey Gardens an exhibition at Dundee Contemporary Arts

Grey Gardens 

27th February 2016 until 1 May 2016 (open daily 11:00 to 18:00)

@ Dundee Contemporary Arts 

part of Scotland’s Festival of Architecture 2016

This exhibition under the distinctly permissive theme of Art and Architecture inspired by nature and modernity makes excellent use of two hefty galleries at Dundee Contemporary Arts.

To my shame I have not visited the DCA before and the building itself is rather spectacular, in common with the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh this is another post industrial architectural repurposing by Richard Murphy Architects. The DCA also incorporates a couple of cinema screens, and is the sort of lively arts hub that would be the envy of any city. Dundee is posing a serious threat to Glasgow as Scotland’s design led regeneration capital. It is also possible to pick up a nice lunch and sit outside on the rare clement days. 

The exhibition includes material on the Glenrothes and Cumbernauld appointed artists for those new towns, as well as material on post war modernist housing in Scotland. Personally while I love European modernism or Los Angeles case study houses, the Scottish variety simply reminds me of unloved municipal buildings. Perhaps there is something to do with the Scottish lack of light and prevailing wetness that makes epic windows and expanses of concrete impractical and inappropriate. However with the recent resurgence in the appreciation of brutalism, Scottish modernism is due a reappraisal. There is material on the Las Pozas jungle follies of Edward James, which look like the lost inca cities of Piranesi. There are also some photos demonstrating how the differing light picks out different details in Carlo Scarpa’s Tomba Brion. 

addition to the usual photos, there are a variety of models, a film loop of Scottish modernist houses, many commissioned by doctors, a loop of a fascinating and odd film about Edward James, though leaving the lengthy credits on the loop might deter those dropping in. 

I am sure that I have not covered everything, and as with the DCA itself, there is plenty here to repay repeated visits.