Brianhuman's Blog

‘We settle onto Room 206 at around 3.15 pm.  A second floor room with a view: a narrow strip of road; a wide shingle beach; herring gulls floating by at eye-level; and the tranquil sea stretching to a hazy horizon.  An open window lets in the soft susurrus of the restless sea; occasional waves breaking fleck the blue-grey-green water with white.  Later, figures diminished in the space, scrunch along at the water’s edge and pause at the strand line as the setting sun sends shadows of the hotel creeping across the beach.’  Brundenell Hotel, Aldeburgh, 24^th April 2009.

Photo: Aldeburgh, Suffolk, 2009

Christian countries and cultures discouraged cremation historically; the body was considered sanctified by the sacraments, therefore requiring respectful disposal. The dead were buried, following the practice common in ancient Rome.  However, the idea that cremation might interfere with God’s ability to resurrect the body was refuted in the 2^nd Century; and some Protestant churches came to accept cremation, arguing that, “God can resurrect a bowl of ashes just as conveniently as he can resurrect a bowl of dust.”   The cremation rate in the United Kingdom has increased steadily since the Cremation Act 1902, the national average rising to 75% in 2015.  There is something rational about cremation, but it lacks the mystery and symbolism of burial that creates a place for enduring remembrance and reflection.

Photo: Delft, Netherlands, 2008

On the visit to the Attenborough Building, part of the new Museums Site, Cambridge, the guide from Fauna and Flora International spoke with great enthusiasm about the modernist complex of buildings in which it’s housed (see post 9^th September 2017).  It was originally designed as laboratories for Mathematics, Metallurgy and Zoology; it was in the form of an inverted ziggurat with linked towers and open spaces.  The guide stressed the clean lines, the clear vistas and the deceptively simple and slender structural features.

Someone on the tour whispered she was having difficulty in seeing the delight in all this and much preferred a few curves.  It sounded like a general criticism of modern architecture, or at least of it in its more Brutalist incantation. I agreed with the guide, and replied that it is really a matter of how well ‘modern’ architecture is handled – at its best it is as good as that from any other age, and doesn’t exclude curves.  Thinking about it sent me back to looking at photographs from an EHTF trip to the Netherlands.

Photos: 1. The Schröder House, Utrecht (Prins Hendriklaan 50), built in 1924 by Gerrit Rietveld for Mrs.  Truus Schröder-Schräder; 2. House corner of Drift/Kromme Nieuwegracht built by Sluijmer & Van Leeuwen in 2003, the smallest modern house in Utrecht.

‘Past the fish market and the landing area where men in blue squat gutting fish, attended by hordes of well-fed herring gulls….Fish are packed on ice in plastic crates and carted away from the quayside.  Meagre catches rest in baskets or lay on newspaper waiting for buyers.  Pervading all, the smell of fish – not the freshness of the sea, but the putrid stink of unwashed docks.  Dirty clothes, wind blackened faces, hard calloused hands – also nimble fingers mending nets endlessly.  “That’s not fish, that’s mens’ lives”, is given a stark reality.’  Essaouira 18^th September 2006

Photo: Essaouira, Morocco, September 2006