The aesthetics of decay: rust

5 07 2011

Railings, South Parade Pier, Southsea, c.1879

One result of the post-modern turn in architecture has been a fashion for ‘distressed’ materials – weathered wood, stripped beams, broken bricks – that supposedly invest a new building with some sense of historical authenticity. Decayed materials speak of processes over time, their patina the result of a unique history. However, one sign of material decay – rust – has largely remained outside the pale of this recent appreciation of decay in building materials. In almost all cases, rust devalues the object and as a result we fight a constant battle to protect our possessions and buildings from it – painting and repainting, sanding, filing, and soaking – to ward off oxidation.

Capital, Madeira Drive, Brighton, 1888-95

Yet, there have always been those attracted to rust. In 1890, the architect William Lethaby expressed his delight in iron’s appeal to the imagination. A material that spoke of strength, simplicity and severity, Lethaby argued that rust allowed nature to return to this artificial building material, giving it a ‘magnificent patina which was a true colour of iron’ and which contributed to its ‘mysterious appeal’. Today, a whole gamut of photography groups on Flickr testify to this strange fascination with decaying metal: ‘Wonders of Oxidation’, ‘Rusty and Crusty’, ‘The Rust Bucket’, to name only a few.

Railing, Victoria Pier, Colwyn Bay, 1900

According to Dylan Trigg, the contemplation of material decay, like rust, offers an escape from the illusion of progress that dominates our everyday perceptions. Taking the time to look at decaying objects means stepping back from onward rush to a slower time, that of gradual accumulations and imperceptible losses. In decaying materials, we are reminded that, at the root of things, entropy governs the material world – the unstoppable movement from order to disorder, form to formlessness. Of course, realising this produces melancholy, but a rich sadness that knows the fragility of life and perhaps even liberation from the need to impose order and clarity on it.

Columns and brackets of the derelict pier pavilion, Llandudno, 1883-84

Seating on Blackpool's North Pier, 1863

Perhaps nowhere is this sense of melancholy more powerful than in Britain’s seaside resorts, where rusting Victorian cast ironwork epitomises their long decline from opulent places of escape attracting millions of pleasure-seekers to the often-derelict and lonely places they are today. Here, rust speaks directly of both material and social processes of decay, and with it a mixture of pleasure and sadness. There’s no denying the rich lovely colours of cast iron created from decades of exposure to wild untamed nature, but the exotic ornamental forms, disfigured by years of neglect, also speak of long-distant dreams and desires that have either been cast aside or long-since transferred elsewhere.

Supporting column, Lytham St Anne's Pier, 1885


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : abandoned space, architecture, iron, ornament, ruins, seaside, symbolism, Victorian

Temples of convenience: cast-iron fountains and urinals

10 03 2011

1: Water fountain, Clifton Downs, Bristol, 1866

From the mid-1850s onwards, temperance societies in Britain actively promoted the building of water fountains in public places as a potent aid in their mission against drink. In the second half of the nineteenth century many hundreds of fountains were installed in villages, towns and cities across the country. Some were constructed in stone or marble, but many more were provided for (at a lower cost) by the large iron foundries that dominated the industrial landscape of Glasgow, particularly George Smith & Co, and Walter Macfarlane. These companies produced their own designs which embraced the religious and moral language of the temperance societies. In almost identical examples found in Preston, Wallingford, and Bristol (1), Macfarlane’s design for a water fountain exploits the decorative potential of cast iron with a host of elevating aquatic motifs including: a heron standing upon leaves in the bowl of the fountain and repeated in the dome above (2); salamanders crawling on the pillars beneath the bowl (3); and Biblical and moral inscriptions above (4). Winged lions – symbols of civic pride – surmount the corners of the canopy, which in a larger example in Darwen (5), become part of a tour-de-force of naturalistic display, featuring arabesques of leaves and flowers infilled with birds supporting a dome of intertwined garlanded wreaths.

2: Heron, water fountain, Shirehampton, Bristol, 1886

3: Salamander, water fountain, Wallingford, Oxon, 1885

4: Fountain canopy, Clifton Downs, Bristol, 1866

5: Fountain canopy, Whitehall Park, Darwen, 1906

These associations of natural abundance, water, civic pride and religion were interweaving aspects of Britain’s sanitary revolution in the second half of the nineteenth century. Casting fountains in iron provided a ready means of asserting these values in visual form throughout the country at a cost far lower than the commission of individual designs for each location. They also promoted the work of specialist ornamental founders like Macfarlane and the reputation of cast iron as a material suitable for decorative treatment. Such designs could be selected from a series of examples illustrated in Macfarlane’s increasingly lavish catalogues, issued from 1855 onwards.

6: Canopy inside the men's urinal in Mina Park, Bristol, 1886

7: Men's urinal in Mina Park, Bristol, 1886

Ornamental cast iron was also responsible for another piece of sanitary street furniture in the Victorian period: the urinal. Often located in urban parks in close proximity to water fountains, Victorian urinals (in both male and female versions) still survive in Bristol, Bath, Birmingham and London. Standing beneath the dome of the urinals in Mina Park, Bristol (6), one could be forgiven for imagining oneself to be in a strange wonderland, despite the overpowering stench and rusting surfaces. Manufactured by Macfarlane’s Glasgow rivals, George Smith & Co., these urinals adopt similar motifs to those of fountains, although with an emphasis on naturalistic flora rather than fauna (7). In one sense, this naturalism is suitable to the park environment in which the urinal is located; in another, it refers to the perceived elevating nature of sanitary improvement embodied in public urinals. To perform one’s necessity in this space is no mere vulgar bodily activity; it is, rather, an ennobled act, as much part of the natural as the ornament proclaims. As such it contrasts sharply with the more familiar toilet spaces in public places, characterised by their uniform white tiles and functionalist design, where the acceptability of the excreting body depends only upon its assimilation into a neutral environment devoid of symbolic meaning.


Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : architecture, cities, everyday, iron, ornament, religion, Victorian

Great Victorian ways

25 02 2011

1: Joseph Paxton, perspective view of the Great Victorian Way, 1855

In July 1855, a Select Committee on Metropolitan Communications published its report on how best to improve London’s chronic traffic congestion. One of the proposals came from Joseph Paxton, celebrated designer of the Crystal Palace in 1851. Paxton’s plan comprised a vast iron and glass arcade, which would form an uninterrupted covered space of 10 miles around central London: the ‘Great Victorian Way’ (1). Unsurprisingly, given its projected cost of £11 million, the Committee decided not to adopt this scheme, despite Paxton’s high reputation, and would later choose a far less ambitious underground railway, which was built from 1859-63.

2: Wayfarer's arcade, Southport, 1896

Despite the failure of utopian projects like Paxton’s, the idea of a micro-city under glass and iron persisted in the second half of the 19th century. Although never realised on the kind of scale envisaged by Paxton, there were attempts to create sealed environments offering protection from both the elements and the chaos of the street, most notably in the countless shopping arcades that were built in Victorian towns and cities. One of these – the Wayfarer’s Arcade in Southport – was designed to integrate into an already existing network of covered walkways. Built in 1896 by the Scottish iron manufacturer Walter Macfarlane, this arcade extends the concept of the canopy beyond the street, creating a new enclosed space between two buildings fronting Lord Street (2).

3: Lord Street, Southport

In fact, Lord Street itself is unique in its scale in the Victorian period. For over half a mile, covered canopies project from the shops creating an almost continuous shelter for shoppers in the unpredictable seaside weather of north-west England (3). These canopies were not built by a central municipal authority (as would have been the case if Paxton’s proposal had been built), but by individual property owners responding to demand. One at a time, and presumably in competition with one another, each property owner acquired a canopy for their premises, employing a host of mainly Glasgow-based iron manufacturers to produce ornamental cast-iron columns and railings. So the castings of Walter Macfarlane sit next to those of J & A Law (4); those of McDowell, Steven & Co sit next to George Smith (5). Different-sized columns sit side by side in what amounts to an exhibition of the ironfounders technique. The result is a sense of unity in diversity, with each company vying with its competitors to produce the most elaborate designs to attract customers and heighten the esteem of the property owners. It is almost as if the resulting covered arcade is an accident, achieved piecemeal over the years by the principles of free competition.

4: Lord Street canopies, Southport

5: Lord Street canopies, Southport

If Southport’s Lord Street represents the part-realisation of utopian dreams in relation to iron and glass, other seaside resorts had similar ambitions. As early as 1874, Walter Macfarlane proposed building a mile-long iron colonnade under the cliffs in Brighton. This was never built, but its concept was revived 25 years later in the construction of Madeira Drive (6), a vast covered walkway that formed part of the wholesale re-sculpting of the cliffs to the east of the Palace Pier, which included terraced walkways and an elevator at the eastern end. All of this was the product of cast iron being produced and employed on an industrial scale for decorative purposes. The resulting colonnade was likened to a enormous grotto, hewn from the cliff and emblazoned with mythic subjects: Neptune, acanthus leaves, and water nymphs. This was iron remaking nature into a modern, progressive space but simultaneously adopting the image of an ancient and mythic past.

6: Madeira Drive, Brighton, 1888-95


Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : architecture, cities, iron, London, ornament, seaside, symbolism, Victorian

The ring of Saturn

11 02 2011

Grandville's universe of iron, 1844

Grandville’s 1844 book Un autre monde (Another world) offered a fantastical take on Parisian life in the 1840s. Often cited as a prototype Surrealist, Grandville filled his alternative world with the products of the new industrial age but as imagined in a dream or nightmare: people become the objects they desire, machines become animated, the universe is filled with outlandish structures. The image above illustrates the adventures of a hobgoblin who is trying to find his way around outer space: ‘A bridge – its two ends could not be embraced as a single glance and its piers were resting on planets – led from one world to another by a causeway of wonderfully smooth asphalt. The three-hundred-thirty-three-thousandth pier rested on Saturn. There our goblin noticed that the ring around this planet was nothing other than a circular balcony on which the inhabitants of Saturn strolled in the evening to get a breath of fresh air.’

Walter Benjamin later reflected on this fantastical imagining of cast iron as a ‘wish image’, that is, something that appears from the unconscious of a society. Here, the utopian promise of iron construction is imagined to have been realised but not in the form that engineers might have supposed; rather, the image of iron bridging the planets draws on the new-found superabundance of iron (made possible by the industrialisation of production) and its tendency to invoke a sense of awe of its seemingly magical properties. In Grandville’s world, what was perceived as natural (the rings of Saturn) are now discovered to be a product of the industrial world. It is as if the sheer power of industrial materials like cast iron now remake the universe in their own image.

Lamp, Regent St, Cheltenham, 1880s

Shelter on Ryde pier, 1880s

It is in this context that the association of cast iron with the fantastical throughout the nineteenth century begins to make more sense. The recurring motif of the dragon – seen in the forms of street lamps in Cheltenham, in a shelter on the pier at Ryde, and the supporting brackets in the market halls in Halifax and Leeds – might be seen as an appropriate symbol to be cast in iron; after all, the foundry, where iron was cast, was indeed like a dragon, with its incessant flames of fire and connotations of unnatural power. Yet, because the cast-iron forms could be repeated endlessly and exactly, there is a sense in which the power of the dragon now lies in its potential to appear anywhere and in infinite numbers, in the same way that Grandville’s iron bridge assumes its monstrous proportions.

Kirkgate market hall, Leeds, 1904

Borough market, Halifax, 1896

It should come as no surprise, then, to discover Victorian architectural critics railing against ornamental cast iron. Mechanical reproduction of ornamental forms challenged the notion of an original, authored work of architecture. To the horror of architects and critics alike, the power of expression was seen to be shifting from the artist to the manufacturer. So, when an ornamental cast iron lamp was unveiled in Southwark St, London, in 1865, The Building News praised its decorative treatment but went on to say that:

‘The most objectionable circumstance connected with the structure is, however, the fact of the ornament being executed in cast iron…There is the prospect of seeing the same design erected without the slightest variation, some dozens of times, it may be, in various parts of London…Constant repetition, sooner of later, would make the highest work of art offensive; and it is to this that the use of cast iron naturally leads’

Lamp in Southwark Street, London, 1865


Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : architecture, iron, ornament, symbolism, Victorian

Dreams in iron: Bolton’s Victorian market hall

18 01 2011

Photograph of the interior of Bolton's market hall, c.1900

In the nineteenth century, market halls transformed the buying and selling of everyday goods. Previously, markets were usually open-air and acquired a reputation for all manner of insalubrious activities, including food riots and fighting between animals such as bears and dogs. In addition, animals were not only sold at market but also slaughtered on site, leading to complaints by more well-to-do residents about bad smells and insanitary practices that they saw emanating from the market. By the early 19th century the old market had assumed much of the social function of the old fairs – many of which had already been closed because they were regarded as centres of wickedness and immorality. They were seen as promoting bad habits – like heavy drinking, poaching and theft. In short, the market was a poorly controlled space, that for middle-class residents, provided a focus for anxieties about disorder and chaos that they saw played out in these spaces.

The new market halls that were built throughout cities and towns in the Victorian period were promoted against the background of these perceptions. Bolton’s new market hall was a relatively early example of the aspirations of civic authorities in promoting a transformed urban environment of buying and selling. Constructed between 1853 and 1856 and designed by the architect G. T. Robinson, Bolton’s market hall was, for many years, one of Britain’s largest – it measured 218 by 300 feet – larger than any railway station from this period. The interior is divided into two nave-like spaces that cross in the centre: a 50 foot wide nave on the long side and an equal width one on the short side. This created a dramatic focus for an elaborate fountain in the interior, now sadly lost. At the intersection of the two naves is an elaborate cast iron lantern, rendered in a kind of arabesque form of decoration – semicircular arches and richly decorated spandrels that towers 112 feet above the central space.

Interior of Bolton's market hall today

Detail of the ornamental cast iron lantern, Bolton market hall

The principle reason why Bolton got a new market hall was to in order to improve the town’s health by removing food sales from the unsanitary open market and to bring the town’s public market in closer proximity to its growing population. Just as important was the intention to elevate the town’s status by means of a lavish but orderly architectural display. What we get is a monumental Classical exterior, complete with a Corinthian portico with 50ft high columns and taking up an entire block in the town centre. This contrasts sharply with the iron and glass interior and its sense of open space and lightness, which was a necessary aspect of its sanitary requirements: both light and air were considered prerequisites for a clean environment and these could only be achieved in such a large space by using iron and glass.

Commemorative wood engraving of Bolton's market hall, 1856

Bolton’s new market hall was opened on 19 December 1855 to an audience of 18-20,000 people, with 3,000 women of Bolton seated in the galleries. In fact, the whole town was effectively closed for the day and given a public holiday: church bells rang, flags adorned many buildings, while a procession moved through the streets. What all of this demonstrates is that market halls, like Bolton’s, were much more than functional buildings: they were a visual spectacle in themselves, a kind of architectural showpiece for the town. The first visitors described the interior of Bolton’s market hall as reminiscent of ‘the fabled palace of Aladdin, or its more real type, the Moorish palaces of Granada and the East’. In the ornamental ironwork, they perceived an exotic counterpart, one that contributed to the market hall becoming the focus of entertainment on Saturday evenings, but of a more civil kind than bear baiting. Social mixing was encouraged in its new spaces, because they were clean and well controlled by the police. They provided a model in defining morally uplifting urban leisure-cum-commerce. The iron and glass interior – with its rich decoration – was perceived as a fitting location for this new form of entertainment. If the market was now sanitised it was equally glamorised.


Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : architecture, cities, everyday, iron, ornament, symbolism, Victorian

Next Entries »


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 439 other followers