12 Years A Slave: 5 Stars All Round

"The critical reception of this film tells us more about the relevance of The Trans-Atalntic Slave Trade to Contemporary Society, than the film itself".

"Only as Creators! It has caused me the greatest trouble, and still causes me the greatest trouble, to realize that what things are called is unspeakably more imortant than what they are. The reputation, the name and appearance, the importance, the usual measure and weight of things each being originally almost always an error and arbitrary, thrown over the things like a garment and quite alien to their essence and even to their exterior- have gradually, by the belief therein and the continuous growth from generation to generation, grown as it were on- and-into things and become their very body. What was appearance at the very beginning becomes almost always the essence in the end and operates as the essence! What a fool he would be who would think it enough to point out this origin and this nebulous veil of illusion in order to destroy that which virtually passes for the world namely, so-called " reality "!  We can destroy only as creators! But let us not forget this either : it is enough to create new names and valuations and probabilities in order in the long run to create new "things".
Nietzsche

We have a black man in the White House ,or the 'big house' as Tarantino might have it, completing his second term as the president of the United States of America.  As Spike Lee would say, this is 'what time it is'.

We've had 'Django Unchained', Tarantino's acclaimed satirical take on the subject, but that film as it turns out, was only an hors d'oeuvre; this film '12 Years A Slave', based on the true story of the same name written by Solomon Northrop, the historcal African American at the centre of it all, is the film 'they' want 'you' to see.

Directed by acclaimed black British director Steve MQueen and starring acclaimed black British actor Chewitel Ejiofor, it's a straight retelling of the experiences of free black violinist, Solomon Northrop following his kidnapping and selling into slavery, as described in the book he himself wrote.

The story takes place during a period when slavery is abolished and it is illegal to obtain 'new' slaves.  This led to the kidnapping of free black people for the purpose of keeping slavery going.

I'm ever keen to view art as art and to not let emotions get in the way of assessing it, but I feel that this attitude is particularly important when talking about this film, not only because of the potential for personal emotional involvement with it, but also because the director is an acclaimed and Turner Prize winning artist, a true autuer if ever their was one.  The lead is also a 'thesp' having won the Olivier award for his stage portrayal of Othello.  Thus, this promised to be art in it's purest form, devoid of commercialism and sentimentality.  My experience of watching 'Hunger', Steve MQueen's first feature length outing as a film-maker, only served to heighten the promise.  It's surely not possible for a film to be more uncompromising and 'arty' (in the best sense of the term) than that one.  By turns spellbinding and repulsive with a totally dominant and bewitching performance by Michael Fassbender in the lead role as Bobby Sands, the film made me begin to question the very idea of film as an art-form.  Everything I'd watched up until then seemed somehow trite.  I felt it all slightly fraudulent in comparison to this stark piece by a true artist, a true observer and interpreter of reality in all it's elusiveness.

His second film 'Shame' was also critically acclaimed so I had high hopes for this latest offering, the most critically acclaimed of all his three (count' em, three films).

The first thing to say about the film is that it does the important job of giving Solomon Northrup's story and book their historical due.

The second thing to say about it is that it's critical reception says more about the issues that the film is ostensibly about than the film itself.  There is a sense of a void needing to be filled, just like Schindler's List filled a void, a need to attach oneself to the vehicle that will finally bring absolution and reconciliation.  And there is a belief that awards and recognition for two of the most talented black artists in film today, will go a long way to achieving all of this.  Perhaps this belief is not misplaced.  The dream ticket of a black director and black lead alchemising an artistic victory on screen while dealing with the subject of slavery, and being critically recognised for it, may well go a long way to healing wounds that are so old that they are a now part of us.  But as Brad Pitt's Achilles said to Brian Cox's Agamemnon in 'Troy', 'first you need the victory' and it is probably due to the fact that those aforementioned ancient wounds remain profoundly conjoined with the enduring sense of ourselves, that this victory, I'm sorry to report, remains elusive.

Appearances would seem to suggest all is well though.  There is MQueen's customary flamboyance from behind the camera, his beautiful shot making, but it is strangely sanitised within a Hans 'Zimmer-ed' 'Spielbergesque' movie vehicle.  This is where the source of the problems begins; the film doesn't know if it is a sentimental Spielberger or a 'McQueenite' 'challenge' to sensibilities and this confusion only serves to neuter both approaches (which can both be effective in their way).  For all McQueen's undoubted talent with a camera in his hand, it's obvious that he is slightly out of his depth as the director of a major Hollywood movie, (because make no mistake, that's what this is, the recruiting of Hans Zimmer to score the film confirms that).  One wonders, did MQueen really want to make such a film or did he feel the weight of influence from some of the figures behind the scenes mentioned in Armond White's iconoclastic review; Harvey Weinstein, John Ridley et al, pushing his pet project towards 'hollywoodisation' and the harnessing of his poetic and uncompromising prowess with a camera, to produce a work that would enable liberal whites to engage in masochistic catharsis with angry blacks?  Hmmmmm. The film lacks a clear narrative structure (something that perhaps a conventionally trained director with more experience would probably have provided, if at the cost of some virtuoso shooting) and the direction of the cast leaved much to be desired ;  the innocence of the black characters and the evil of the whites involved is too close to caricature. 

 MQueen may argue that 'it's all very close to Northrop's book' but he shouldn't need to argue this, making reality palpable is part of the responsibility of the auteur.  A case in point is Fassbender's Mr Epps.  Does anyone really believe that Fassbender's dandy portrayal of the sadistic plantation owner -which was at times almost Monty Pythonesque- really existed in that form?  He needed his director to tell him to tone it down a bit.  Having said that, other performances were more measured and subsequently more menacing when they needed to be.  Cumberbatch's conflicted but ultimately compromised benevolent slaver gives perhaps the most poignant and relevant performance opposite Ejiofor's sounding-board of a central protagonist, exclaming to him at one point, 'you are an exceptional nigga, but I fear that it will be of no account!'  Paul Giamatti's turn as a cruel and hardbitten slave auctioneer was also spot-on, making the role relevant to today in someway, implicating all of us, something that speaks volumes about his personal skill.  Such performances, along with some of MQueen's  shooting (the scenes of the slaves at work singing as they go had a hypnotic quality at times) constituted the films high points, but they were too few in number and there was not enough of a sense of true director's vision to make this the film that everyone wants it to be.  

Much of the film seems, I'm afraid, largely irrelevant, about very nasty people doing very nasty things to 'remote' people, people we can no longer really recognise or relate to, though portrayed in handsome black performances and captured by fine camera work.  Critics have lauded the brutal realism of the film and it's true that the film's unflinching realism is a significant achievement, but while lauding it, we must also ask, what does this graphic portrayal teach us?  Were we really only waiting for a camera honest (and sociopathic even) enough to show us these grisly realities before we could  be finally healed of the festering wound that is the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the diseases associated therewith?  I think not.  So despite the promises to the contrary, the film clearly has very little to do with us all here, now, today.  In terms of culturally relevant and inspired programme-making on the subject, there is nothing here that outstrips 'Roots' or 'The Colour Purple'. 

Just to add some context to what you may feel at this point is an unnecessarily withering and dismissive review, I watched for the first time Olivier's Shakespearian Othello a couple of weeks ago and found the production absolutely jaw dropping, disturbing and universally implicating.  Olivier's portrayal of an exceptional black man in Venice, 'fresh off the boat' (as he chose to play him), based on the Bard's impossibly engaged and relevant material, towers above 12 years... as both art and a commentary on modern race relations.  How is it that a man writing towards the end of the Medieval period in England and a posh white man acting decades ago (daubed in shoe polish for Gods sake), could get so right what we, in our 'enlightened age', continually seem to get so wrong?  

In addition to the rampant caricaturing and one-dimensionality of the characters in 12years...., the 'distance' of the film is also due to the fact that Northrop's story effectively takes place in post abolitionist 

America so that all the racism is basically perpetrated by god-fearing hillbillies in the south (Cumbercatch's and Fastbender's characters for example spend a lot of time quoting scripture and its notable how the religious faith of Pitt's character, the one man who had the courage to help Northrop, was notable by its ambiguity or even absence).  This won't do as a message or a moral.  This obviously is not the fault of the story or the film, but in view of this, the clamour there seems to be to make 'this' film the definitive slavery epic, is puzzling and perhaps reflects the belief held by certain sections of the liberal white elite, that racism is generally perpetrated by the uneducated and the uncultured and that what is perhaps most offensive about racism is it's inherent stupidity.  The kidnapping part of the story is also problematic in this regard, allowing the central narrative- that of a section of humanity choosing to subjugate another on an industrial scale, in relatively modern times, due to racial difference- to become conflated with modern problems such as sex-worker trafficking, which while important and deserving of attention, have no relation whatsoever to historical Trans-Atlantic Slavery.  Sex worker trafficking cannot help us to explain the recurring mystery of the burgeoning black prison population, unfulfilled black potential and the preponderance of fulfilment taking place within the spheres of entertainment and sport when it does occur, Trans-Atlantic Slavery however, can begin to do this.   As such the film does almost nothing to address or redress  racism in its present form.  The kind of racism that underpinned the legislation that enabled the Transatlantic Slave Trade as opposed to the brutal racist sadism that it gave rise to.   A racism that surely still persists not least in the form of unfair world trade and persisting (up until very recently anyway) third world debt, even as the 'northern hemisphere' nations continue to live off wealth that could not have been obtained without slavery while preaching to the world about human rights. Tarantino's Django... was more effective in, unveiling some of these persisting injustices and contradictions though satire.

One thing that may have made the film more effective is to have seen more of Solomon's pre-slavery life so that it could be more violently contrasted with his subsequent experience of slavery.  Instead, Northrup's pre-slavery life is rushed through in about 20 minutes and we have no real sense of the person he was so that we can relate to him.

And so to return to the Nietzsche quote at the beginning of this piece.  We seem intent on disregarding reality to fulfill our purposes not only in this case but in all our cases, from foreign policy to environmental issues to press regulation.  It has become such a way of doing and a way of being with us that the roots of reality gets lost under layers and layers of our own projections, until finally we are unable to distinguish truth from falsehood and dream from reality.

The dream of the current elite intelligentsia is to finally get this 'racism' monkey off its back, and as such they seem desperate to shower recognition on a film that does not really deserve it, as well as confer upon it a significance that is unwarranted within the context of the continuing wider discussion on the relevance of not only the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, but also colonialism and other related historical phenomena, to contemporary society.  Rather than see things as they are, they would write the history of the future so that the era of world's first black president of the USA should read as having been more than a token occurrence.

I too would like it to read so, but it is wrong to  manipulate facts to suit ourselves.  The American Film Academy had its chance to recognise the 'dream ticket' of black director, lead and 'Black issue' film when it emerged in 1992.  Spike Lee's Malcom X starring Denzel Washington would have been a worthy winner of the best director and best actor oscars back then, but the time (and perhaps indeed the subject) was not 'deemed' opportune.  Instead, Al Pacino won the best actor Oscar (for Scent Of A Woman) which was really an Oscar that he should have won several years before and possibly several times over for other previous work, but was denied for reasons 

best known to The Academy (anti-Italian bias?).

So injustices give rise to further ones.   Call me cynical, but I sense that this is really the story behind the blanket 5 star reviews (one of which describes it as one of the best films ever made) and Oscar campaign for '12 years a Slave' which is why it will probably win.  This tells us more about the state of our society than any film ever could.

I could be wrong though, the seats were uncomfortable at Tate Modern where I was honoured to be among the first to see the movie at a special preview (I had to pay of couse for the privelege!)  There was no popcorn and the 35mm print format seemed incongruous (in a way that it didn't seems so for Django).  I will watch it again.

Only God Forgives

Why the one star reviews? It's obvious.  Hardly any dialogue, hardly any acting, Ultra violent, totally without cathartic potential.  Distant. Alien.

5 stars? Peter Bradshaw praises the production design, the cinematography, the mixture of bad taste, subtlety and vivid visuals, the visceral emotional  response it pulls out of you(?), the back story (gosling and his brother and their mum are 'very bad people',apparently), the supernatural-like police officer character Chang.

Bradshaw could have done without making that link to Shakespeare as well as making too much of the films 'formal brilliance' but he's right to praise the film for being art and not just celluloid consumptive fodder.

Having established that it's art then, what is it about (the art rather than the plot) and is it any good (the film not the art)?  I'm afraid simply being art doesn't get you off 'that' hook.

In answer to the first question Refn seems to be very intent that the camera does all the talking; an idea as straightforward as it is revolutionary.  This seems to be behind the visual virtuosity and the lack of dialogue.  So stylistically it owes much to animated features or even quattrocento icon painting which was designed to present the bible to illiterate people.  The plot as Refn tells us is a 'western' but told from the point of view of the 'outlaw' gang, with whom we sympathise because they are 'westerners' (I.e Americans) a in a foreign country.  This is the most interesting aspect of the film (as even the 'visual virtuosity' thing has been done in different ways by other directors (Mann, Del Torro, even Paulo Sorrentino).  The hero is actually the fearsome creepy retired policeman Chang, but his code of ethics (presumably Thai) is alien to us and we can only identify with parts of it (he chastises the father of a murdered prostitute for allowing his daughter to become a prostitute but than cuts off his arm (as if the brutal death of his daughter was not punishment enough).  So we think to ourselves maybe a man who encourages his daughter to become a prostitute for economic reasons on the dangerous streets of Bangkok, isnt particularly 'punished' by the loss of a cash cow that was probably on borrowed time- daughter or no-, particularly when he has another 3 daughters, as Chang reminds him when he chopped off his arm.  Thus as westerners we are being critiqued as we watch this film. As the film unfolds we find that a bloated, decadent, corrosive western culture (something that is only reinforced by the pseudo erotic tension between Scott-Thomas' -well cast- and her sons ) is being critiqued.

So is it good.  In retrospect yes but it's not an enjoyable film, although it has its moments. The visual brilliance (which includes the violence) suits the 'academic' film watchers like Bradshaw -who want to nod and wink at fellow thesp connesieurs- as well as it does the high-violence thresholders, but it's a trap.  These are not solitary 'cock-a-snooks' but essential elements in the strategy of alinenation that underpins the film.  Those who realise that the visual style , and lack of dialogue doesn't really work, that Gosling doesn't really do very much in the film (Evans would have been interesting simply because of how he looks), and doesn't convince us of his essential internalised rage (again Evans natural features may have communicated that better), but instead comes across as a sad damaged little boy.  

The fact Chang's 'arc' through the film comes as a genuine shock, tells us much about our cultural prejudice .  We are forced to consider which is the greater crime; violently killing  a few bad people with whom we identify, allowing the drug business to continue by letting our western rogues off lightly(not to mention letting them get away with murder). Again our western prejudices are highlighted one only has to recall the predictable shock when some 'poor' British girl faces the death penalty for trying to smuggle drugs out of some eastern country.  It may be Ryan Gosling and Scott Thomas are both appealing but they're also bad, not loveable rogues, not noble savages....just bad.  In fact Bradshaw is wrong about the who comes out of it well.  Chang has stopped the death and misery that comes with the  drug trade via his 'sword of justice' and Gosling seems to recognise the decadence his family embodies by the end if the film, perhaps changed for the better by his life in Bangkok (that's not very western like...the bad guys should simply be bad-but this redemptive quality is perhaps the one familiar celluloid consumptive trope that Refn allowed himself so that he could avoid completely alienating the watcher.  Mai, is perhaps the one thing in the film we can relate to, but that isn't the same as saying she's comes out of the story well (as Bradshaw says), and it isn't saying much.

So this is a film about film and about culture as depicted by film, it's difficult watch in that takes us to an alien place and uses alien -if insisting that the camera takes primacy can be called alien- means.  Perhaps Refn is also trying to say that formulaic plots have corrupted the purity of film as much as glamourised gangsters have corrupted western culture. Maybe.  Here I am questioning my values. That's the films triumph because that seems to be most art can aspire to nowadays.

And just to return to that formal brilliance, scenes from the film stay with you because of it but it depends on who you are, it tells you what you actually engaged with in the film.  For me it was 'the' fight scene.... Again totally unexpected.

Dumbed Down: Bach, The Stirling Prize & Mies

I'm reading several things at the same time right now; Building Seagram, the fascinating account of the commissioning and building of Mies van der Rohe's New York masterpiece.  A book on  one of the fathers of Renaissance architecture, Donato Bramante, by Arnaldo Bruschi, and the latest AJ which has eulogies, pithy interviews and details (really informative details-thanks AJ and nominated architects) of all the nominated buildings.

In fact I've got details on the brain.  Details of the process recounted by Phyllis Lambert which would eventually lead to the exquisite Seagram Building.  Things came together that would perhaps never again do so; a client with a profound sense of craft and quality; an architect with (even now after his death) an unrivalled ability to achieve it; a budget large enough to achieve it and a client advisor with the depth of passion and purpose to ensure that the achievement was measured against the best that mankind had ever produced.  Reyner Banham once said of Corb's Vers Une Architecture that it would be the only architectural treatise from the 20th Century worthy of a mention in the history of mankind.  While it's practically impossible to identify a building that could occupy the same position, it could be said perhaps that the Seagram Building, among works of architecture is the most emblematic; the perfect apologist for the 20th century.  

Designed by a man who spent much of the time, 'thinking', according to Lambert.  What thoughts! Thoughts manifested in the legendary articulation of the Seagram facade as well as in sayings such as 'form is not the aim of our work, only the result' and 'architecture is the real battleground of the spirit'.  At the same time as reading these books I'm also listening to Bach's 'The Well Tempered Clavier' repeatedly (aware that Colin Rowe once compared a Palladian Villa to a fugue and that Mies probably has equal right to such a comparison) and have watched Oliver Stone's epic on Alexander the Great 3 times in the past couple of weeks.  Alexander =Bach = Mies 

and surely they all would have all appreciated Bramante, the architect who more than any other save Alberti before him, dedicated himself to working on 'Architecture as a Language', Mies' own definition of his vocation as the Tempietto and Palazzo Caprini amply testify.  There are big dreams at work here and a recognition that they can only be achieved 'one carefully placed brick' at a time, with vision, courage, sacrifice and strength of will.  Mies's Seagram sketches are not all that impressive; Alexander wasn't necessarily the best warrior, Bramante may not have been the most talented or most skilled of his generation, even Lambert had no business experience when she commissioned Mies.  In this there is a lesson for us all.  'Means must be subservient to values', Mies would say.

So on to this years Stirling Prize.  Is there any among the nominees who will make us 'dream big dreams', as Anthony Hopkins' Ptolemy recounts in Stone's 'Alexander'?  Well I don't think it will be the very nice and very skilfully executed housing in Harlow that will do it, or some skilfully sweetened sink housing in Sheffield.  In fact it would take a lot for any housing to so move us.  No, it's more likely to be the Agora like university buildings in Limerick, all heavy concrete, stone and civilising intent.  The numinous cavern of the Giants Causeway Museum? Hmmmmm.  Then there are the two 'struggles' for the very   highest; one palpable, the other invisible; Astley Castle and Bishop Edward King Chapel respectively.  These two are separated from the others by a Lote tree.  

This years  RIBA Gold Medal winner Joseph Rykwert, in one of the best building write-ups by him in a while tells us how The chapel is liturgically formed of two elements, the altar and the lecturn, and of how the ellipse, generated from these 2 foci,  is the perfect shape to express the basic conceptual arrangement.  

From this genesis comes the roof, whose slightly sunken soffit uses the invisible line linking the two foci of the ellipse -floated down a short distance from window head height- as it's datum.  Directly from this then comes the exposed internal structure which lightly and delightfully supports this roof only at its sunken 'hull' and which, making an aesthetic virtue out of the necessity for cross bracing- assumes a form akin to the type of fan-vaulting that is associated with Gothic churches, such as one finds in and around the college where the chapel is located.  The lattice trails off beyond the hull at both it's ends, resolving itself just short of the enclosing elliptical wall where the members turn sharply downwards to form columns, the inner colonnade of an ambulatory, but more of that later.  

Light is admitted at clerestory level between slender stone fins, bouncing of the smooth plaster soffit-hull of the roof.  
Most architects can only dream of such a supreme  resolution of form and function, from which seems to derive a completely consistent layering of richness, of an order that seems all but absent from much modern architecture, here it seems effortless.  Bramante and Bach would have no doubt approved.  And yet somehow the perfect balance is upset. Something disturbs about the final result.  Something detracts from the union of concept, structure and form begun so promisingly.  Those stone fin mullions  don't quite 'fit' and there is a formalism at work bedevilling the naturalness of the final result.  It is the ambulatory, or rather the way in which it seems to have been created 'almost as an afterthought' (it seems almost silly to say that but bear with me) which seems to be at issue.   It's as if the ambulatory has been formed by disengaging the roof structure from the wall at some point during the design process, curving its criss-crossing members downwards to form the columns.  This creates two separate structural systems; the masonry one of the enclosing walls and the engineered timber one of the roof/colonnade.  Having set up this tectonic duality in order to form the ambulatory, the subsequent treatment of the now independent masonry enclosure confuses.  The tripartite stratification of its stone cladding  into ashlar, houndstooth and mullion fin at the top seems to retain a vestige of a previous tectonically unified scheme which would have, notionally, been a timber framed building with the stone encasement effectively 'hung' from it. The stone fin mullions at the top are strongly suggestive of this notional timber frame 'breaking free' at this point in order admit the clerestory light, otherwise this treatment of the stone enclosure can only be explained by wilfulness and formalism.  The details supplied by the architect support this contention.  It turns out that slender steel ''T' sections presumably bolted to an inner structural masonry leaf are the 'real mullions' supporting a clipped-on stone fin externally  and SW clad in MDF internally.  If we look closely, we might also object to the steel 'X' ties which provide hidden but necessary support to the roof structure at the criss-cross points.  

Rykwert, who wrote of the necessity of artifice, may well direct our attention at this point to the way in which Mies 'hid' the  fire-protecting concrete encasement in his steel framed buildings with a plate metal sheathing and welded-on extruded 'I' sections.  In his defence Mies would have said that these measures  played the same role as mouldings in classical architecture; elaborating on the underlying constructional philosophy; a legitimate part of the 'spiritual battle' he talked about.  

We are quite a ways from this at Cuddesdon College and it's new rather delightful Chapel.  The building I'm afraid, is the poorer for this lack, but this is to enact the harsh judgement that is reserved only for the very best.  Remember, when we mention Mies in the same breadth as Bramante or Alexander in the same breadth as Achilles, no one flinches.  An august and select group.  And why should we flinch from the mention of those names and achievements which vindicate humanity's existence?  God knows we spend enough time focusing on what detracts from it; war, environmental catastrophe, cruelty.  There is inspiration as well as caution; carrot as well as stick.

So it is with this spirit that I hope -along with McLaughlin-the architects of the re-animation of Astley castle, Witherford Watson Mann will not take offence if  perchance they ever read this.  I hope they they will see that it is their excellent work- like that of McLaughlin- that has given us occasion to remember the stuff of Greek legend (literally and figuratively), even though ultimately, that excellent work falls short of it.

I remember the original model for the Astley Castle scheme, a new armature-represented by balsa wood- inserted into the existing fabric-represented by plaster- in such a way so as to support, protect and extend the historic fabric.  

I remember being really quite excited by this approach at the time, I thought it was brave and necessary.  As Edwin Heathcote notes in his write up of the project, not enough of the english modern approach to extending the country's historic fabric attempts to commune with it, to measure ourselves against it, to give us the opportunity of taking our place within the unfolding history of human experience.  WWM's proposals for Astley Castle promised much in that regard but they haven't 'quite' delivered.  

First off, the inserted new armature is not as homogenous as that balsa wood and plaster model suggested it would be, but this is going a bit too far.  The armature is formed of  foreign brick (well chosen I might add) sharp concrete and -problematically I might add- engineered wood in the form of Glulam and various combinations of softwood and laminated Oak.  The brick-supplied by legendary manufacturer Petrsen Tegl- is a typically long and flat continental variety whose colour compliments the weathered sandstone of the existing ruin and whose flat profile allows the new construction to get 'up close and personal with the old'.  At the same time the flush mortar joints give the new brick elements a confident presence so that the new is not simply overwhelmed by the wrinkly, crevassed history of the old, even if by 'stepping forward to be counted' in this way, they are ultimately outdone by the adjacent weathered craftsmanship of bygone centuries.  

Having used such a beautiful brick so extensively however, one may be forgiven for thinking it strange that more use has  not been made of the vault and the arch, perhaps in the way that Kahn showed us how to.  Instead of vaults we have concrete lintels which it has to be said -if a full and frank discussion with the past is to be had - are a truer reflection of modern syntactical sensibility than vaults and arches.  Having said that though the type of lintol we are treated to seems a rather inadequate thing, strangely subdued. Again the details supplied tell us the reason why since these are 'biscuit' type lintols much of whose active bulk is hidden from view.  The overall effect is to render the new construction very much like drapery or tapestry, an impression reinforced by the textile quality of the brick, the way the brick turns into a carpet in the outdoor dining room and the way certain details render the construction 'weightless'.  I'm thinking particularly of the large opening (or parting) immediately to the left of the fireplace in the outdoor dinng room, supported seemingly impossibly off the centre of a large window opening.  Such details reveal a desire to 'tread lightly' on history which is perhaps entirely appropriate in this day and age, confidence in our contemporary architectural production not being what it was.  We'd have to go back to the time of Spence's Coventry Cathedral to find it at an all time high, and to the kiboshing of ABK's competition winning National Gallery proposal by Prince Charles, to pinpoint the start of it's decline.  Even Alexander, eventually had to listen to his troops, end the campaign and turn for home, but the subtlety and ambiguity of the approach adopted here by WWM is beguiling.  

And so to the timber, exposed roof structure and joinery elements- all of which are executed in various types of engineered rather than natural  wood, so subsequently there is no 'real' grain and no aspirant prenatal form (Kahn might've asked if it knows what it wants to be).  It might as well be..well... Er...Balsa wood.  It is however difficult to see how the roof in particular could have been executed in oak or something similar without being prohibitively costly.  But the 'unfinished' aesthetic WWM have chosen an 'unfinished' for these wood elements doesn't help matters, a deliberate 'provisionalism', done certainly intending to complement the ruined state of the host structure and perhaps even to celebrate it, but like McLaughlin's clipped on mullions this is a step too far down the road of artifice for me and smacks a little of wilfulness.  Take the stair for example.  Rather than make a sophisticated parody of an unfinished stair why not actually 'design' a timber stair as a beautiful form (like you get in stately homes..hint) and then let the centuries do their own work rather than try to usurp the right of time?  But perhaps honing the engineered wood into such complex forms is the only way to make it 'sing'?  Maybe this kind of treatment is what the relatively anodyne exposed timber roof structure is missing, (it almost seems to be just once removed from being in need of plasterboard and skim)? Hmmm.  But it's  the extra-tall windows that bother me most, particularly when seen in the same breadth as the exquisite weathered stone tracery of the ruin.  

A series of characterless custard picture frames clumsily attired with a fig-leaf lead skirt.  Taken out of the context of this historic ruin, the materials; brick, concrete and blonde timber if not ordinary are certainly unspectacular.  Think WWM's own Amnesty International Headquarters in Shoreditch and you'd be on the right track; ordinary raised to the level of the extraordinary.  One wonders if there a veiled champagne-socialist imperative to democratise this ancient stately residence; to surreptitiously undermine its exclusivity through a studied unfussiness ?  Is this why Heathcote in spite of himself likes it so much?  If this is so then this is a mistake.  Mies knew that architecture had to be essentially apolitical: 'we refuse to recognise problems of form, but only problems of building' he said, but the same could be said of the 'big picture problems of politics'.  If architects want to change the world they should perhaps take to the streets or vote like everyone else, or even write but they should never imagine that their work can change the world should they?  Well Alexander, Bramante even Mies and certainly Lambert would disagree with me here.  In response I would only say remind them of their own approaches, indicated at the beginning of this piece; 'brick by carefully placed brick with courage, will and conviction'.  Striving after God/Greatness through details.  Then Alexander, Bramante, Lambert and especially Mies would see what Im driving at.

If these details aren't constructed champagne socialism though, then they (the lead skirt and the ceiling joists included) are the solved 'problems of building' par excellence, which perhaps leads us to think that Mies contradicted himself when made that statement until we remember that he also said: 

'Means must be subsidiary to ends and to our desire for dignity and value'

P.S

Alexander may have been an inveterate dreamer, hankering after the glory of Achilles  but he would have achieve nothing without first being perhaps the greatest military general and strategist in history.  Phyllis Lambert may have dreamed about the beauty of The Renaissance but she would not have got near it without the kind of tooth and nail fighting that saw her stubbornly insist on  10 foot high ceilings so that she could bargain for the 9 foot ones that she and Mies actually wanted. Details.  Greatness.

The Top Ten Fictional Mentors (In order of 'Bad*ness) [*Bad is used here in the sense of 'extremely impressive']

10 Bruce Wayne

There are three incarnations of Bruce Wayne as mentor.  The earliest is the slightly over-earnest, grey spandex wearing, slightly overbearing 'father figure' of the 1960's 'BIFF', 'THWACK' really really camp Batman and Robin series.

Next we have the brilliant bitter, old and twisted (physically and emotionally) retired Batman / Bruce Wayne of the Brilliant futuristic animated series 'Batman of the Future' where the old goat has passed on 'cape and cowl' to teenager terry McGinnis while he 'runs 'tings' from the Bat Cave.  McGinnis has to balance being Batman with homework, babysitting and keeping his girlfriend happy.

Finally, we have the semi-retired Batman of the recent movie 'The Dark Knight Rises' where Bruce Wayne/Batman is as much inspired/motivated by the young police officer John Blake (who's figured out his secret identity) as the other way around, and who leaves Blake 'The Batman' in his will.

My personal fav? Bitter, old, twisted and animated!

9. Obi Wan Kenobi

Being responsible for the training of both Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker- the two most significant figures in the Star Wars saga -gets Obi Wan on this list, even though he messed up royally with Anakin.  Played to brilliant effect by Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor '....You were the chosen one.......!!!!'


8. Lord Matsumoto Moritsugu

Ken Watanabe's portrayal of this inspiring old world samurai warrior-poet earned him an Oscar nomination and almost made us forgive one of Tom Cruise's most annoying performances in an otherwise utterly forgettable movie.  It was brilliant the way Watanabe radiated calm from his Buddhist temple in the Samurai village.

7. Master Yoda

He's trained Jedi for over 900 years, need I say more?  Slightly ridiculous CGI version of his younger self in the later Star Wars films.  Check out Tartokofsy's brilliant animated version of him in the excellent animated 'Clone Wars' (as opposed to the CGI ' Clone Wars').

6. Ducard / Ras Al Gul

Batman's Mentor turned enemy-when Bruce Wayne declined to share in Ducard's expansion of revenge for his wife's murder, into a misanthropic murderous campaign against everyone everywhere who might not be very nice.  Captain Ahab would be proud.  A hard, bitter and twisted taskmaster.  I bet he was bullied at school.  A note, Bruce Wayne/Batman's enemies are always versions of himself.  There are who he may have become had he failed to keep the lust for revenge at bay.

5. Colonel Kurtz 

 Marlon Brando in an iconic performance.  How many mentors do you know who decapitate their victims while quoting TS Eliot?  By the time Willard realises that Kurtz is 'mentoring' him, from a distance, through his file, it's too late!!!  He is to Moritsugu what Darth Vader is to Luke Skywalker.

4.Mr Miyagi

He's Mr Miyagi.  He's fat Coca Cola in a glass bottle.  Everyone else on this list is Coca Cola in a plastic bottle (diet, zero, etc..etc..) or Sainsbury's / Morrisons 'cola drink'.


3. Pai Mei

All of the mentors up until now have been real 'baad-aasses' who nevertheless retained a kind of humility or emotional vulnerability and there is an understanding that this is in fact part of their strength.  Not this guy.  Tarantino's sadistic task master is 'Baad' and he knows he's 'Baad' (he even has the same shoes and socks as Michael Jackon).  It's Darwinian.  He's at the top of the food chain and he knows it.  Reminds me of my old 11+plus tutor Mrs Koshi.

2. Li Mu Bai

The legendary swordsman who just wants to give up thrashing bad guys and live the quiet life with equally Michelle Yeoh (don't we all).  However he is drawn to the precocious and rare martial arts talent of Zhang Ziyi's 'Jen'.  Amazing sequence where he gives Jen (who is no mug) a fencing lesson with a tree branch (while she uses his legendary antique sword 'The Green Destiny').  He subdues her with the stick.  Later on in the film he moonwalks on water proving that he really is Michael Jackson 'Baad'.

1. Master Toda

He is referred to at certain points in Yamada's subtle melodrama 'The Hidden Blade'.  It's the end of the 'Samurai way', the West is encroaching on Japan.  Master Toda, legendary fencing master has apparently seen the writing on the wall and given up his Samurai status to become a farmer (for which he is mocked).  Towards the end of the film, he makes a 5 minute appearance as Kategiri (the film's main protagonist) seeks out his old fencing teacher for one last lesson as he has to fight someone whom he is not confident of beating.  Kategiri arrives on Toda's farm to see the old man tilling some soil.  He asks for help.  The old man picks up the Kendo training sword used for practice and selects a bit of bamboo lying on the ground for himself (he only has the one Kendo sword) and obliges.  I would trade all the other films on this list for the 5 minutes that Master Toda is on camera in this movie.  The film is also the most profound on this list

'Continuita' at West Malling Abbey Part 1: Fusion Cuisine by Maguire & Murray

In Gorgias, Plato's critique of the art of oratory, Socrates states that this art, (along with cookery) isn't an art at all, but a knack of producing a 'pleasurable [emotional] response' in subjects; a sort of 'pandering'.  Socrates goes on to say that he regards any kind of 'irrational' occupation as more of a 'knack' gained by experience, rather than a genuine ‘art’ supported by sound theory and training {Gorgias, Penguin Books p.45-47}

Although this critique is in fact a thinly veiled (but valid) discussion on the drawbacks of democracy and the 'surly mob' placated by 'bread and circuses', the argument itself is flawed and contains within it the sort of 'cold-logic' that would eventually lead to Plato's call for the transference of the breeding and rearing of children to special centralised authorities in 'The Republic'.

The same cold logic was employed by Le Corbusier in the development and enunciation of 'his machine for living in' and just like no wants to outsource their breeding capabilities similarly, no one really wants to live in hygienic white boxes.

Rational systemised housing, though not quite 'white and hygienic' has proven to be just as unpopular.  The masses have not swallowed architects' various overtures to 'platonicification' in the built environment and have instead, led chiefly by Prince Charles demanded pitched roofs, cornices and fluted columns.  The blighted neighbourhoods and sink estates that have resulted from this impasse has led in recent years to an increasing number of architects attempting to chart a conciliatory course; The likes of FAT, Sergison Bates and Caruso StJohn have all attempted to reconcile the demands of a platonic architecture with the emotional needs of the masses with the result that their architectural practice has assimilated familiar forms and patterns and beloved cultural quirks with varying degrees of success.  Is this pandering?  To some degree perhaps but this doesn't make it wrong. 

We as architects have to accept that our offerings must sometimes be tempered with sugary motifs to make them palatable and perhaps this formed part of thinking of architects Maguire & Murray when they approached the commission to design a new chapel for the Benedictine Order of nuns who live on the ancient site of St Mary's Abbey in West Malling Kent in 1962.

After you enter the abbey complex you turn left to approach the chapel which is situated just to the left (north east) of the 10th century ruin of the original Norman cathedral.  Two things are immediately apparent; the first is that the chapel while taking clear cues from the Norman ruin, clearly 'panders' to [entirely appropriate] associations of a rural kind.  While the agricultural grade precast concrete blocks and the precast semi-circular window surrounds in the lower part of the building are clearly meant to pay homage to the illustrious ruin adjacent, the tower/elongated dome form above recalls the barns and oast-houses that one imagines to be common to this part of the world, while also acknowledging the partial octagonal tower form embedded in the ruin.  Secondly, as we move closer, we see that the forms are combined with a pitched pantile roof to create a further new and unique form which has something of the naiveté and irreducible character of an Aldo Rossi archetype only even more abstracted so that in amongst the associations, we are presented with an attractive disposition of volumes ‘in light’ to enjoy, something that is reinforced, as with their slightly earlier church at Bow Common, by superlative workmanship.

Having said that, this strategy of 'fusing' disparate elements and accents into a new evocative whole has given rise to some strange occurrences, such as the 'collision' between the pitched pantile roof and the base of the oast-house 'tower' form.  Details like these have pushed the limits of traditional detailing and narrowed the tolerances within which builders must have been required to work.  This is as much about the strength of personality of the architects as it is about the drawing-board.

However, the 'feeling' that results from these decisions is 'spot on', the conviction behind many of the key moves speaking of a craftsman’s sensibility; intuition and instinct abounds without the reassuring 'safety-net' of an underlying architectural order, recalling vernacular architecture and the work of figures like Carlo Scarpa. 

It perhaps comes as no surprise to learn that one half of the practice, Keith Murray was an artist craftsman by training who designed the fixtures and fittings of the practices projects.

An exposed hardwood entrance canopy, rather 'Japanese' in flavour leads into the church via a vestibule intended for 'public' use (the church space proper is reserved for the Benedictine Order).  The vestibule and the canopy together have the flavour of a 'lean-to' thus preserving the Platonic/Rossi-esque autonomy of the main building and perhaps symbolising the relationship between an enclosed religious order and a visiting public.

The Abbess who led us on the tour made the point just outside the church that people usually either liked it's exterior or it's interior but rarely both and on entering the church it is apparent why.

Quite unexpectedly, The vernacularist, oast-house aesthetic of the exterior is found to camouflage a heroic internal space reminiscent of the interior of Le Corbusier's Assembly Building in Chandigarh, India.

It’s a beautiful, pure serene space, perfectly suited to it's sacred function and far superior to the exposed trussed rafter structure that the pantiled roof suggests you may find inside.  Your mind (if you’re an architect or perhaps a epistemologist philosopher) recoils at the idea that you could clad an iconic modern  material like in-situ cast concrete with traditional clay pantiles but it ‘feels’ just right and in fact it recalls the way in which stone vaults are roofed in timber framed slate roofs in Gothic cathedrals.

Internally, the oast-house form is found to be framed in a painted exposed trussed rafter structure, it's lightness perfectly counterbalancing the solemn weight of the concrete structure that supports it below.

Maguire & Murray also designed a startling new cloister quite unlike any you will see anywhere else.

Entered through the retained ancient south wall and doorway originally used by the Order for accessing the cathedral, the cloister forms part of the access from the nuns' living accommodation to the church.  Here the slightly incongruous seeming clay pantiles and exposed timber experienced on first approaching and entering the church, reaches fulfilment and we find the same refined craftsman’s judgement here that underpins all the work.

The warm exposed timber structure of the pantile roof slopes down from the ancient stone wall towards the central garden.  It’s raining when we visit and we can see that there are no gutters so that we are faced with the beautiful spectacle of rainwater cascading down into the garden just in front our eyes, watch the fight scene between Nameless and Sky in the movie ‘Hero’ to get an idea of what I mean!  

As the exposed roof structure transitions from the floating wall plate down to the timber framed windows, something strange and rather unfashionable happens to the building work.  Lightness is added by a shallow clerestory formed of little timber cylindrical vertical supports, routed to within a millimetre of pastiche.  Below this, a further heresy as 40 years of Modernism is cast aside and we find ourselves in the presence of 'leaded lights'!  Only the honeycombed pattern of these lights prevents outright pastiche if not sacrilege.  Maguire & Murray were bitterly criticised by the architectural establishment of the time for these bold details, to get an idea of just how ‘out-there’ this work was, consider that Lasdun's 'modernist' Royal College of Physicians was built 2 years earlier to critical acclaim.

But (if you're an architect) put aside your deep seated 'modernist' conditioning for a minute and consider how bland and utilitarian the space would be without these 'traditional' touches and realise that once again, Maguire & Murray have 'judged' it just right.

As we went round, the Abbess regaled us with a litany of complaints regarding the user-friendliness of Maguire & Murray's work at the Abbey; the honeycombed windows are a nightmare to clean, the position of lighting in the church makes for inflexible use of the space and the change in character between the main church and the public/entrance vestibule means that a torrent of condensation pours down at the junction between the two in early spring.  The deep precast semi-circular window surrounds house almost inaccessible and highly impractical single-pane, vertical, centre-pivot windows with nothing but surface mounted neoprene gaskets for stops.

Many changes have had to be carried out to the original building, some quite soon after completion; the columns for example had to be introduced after major structural engineering errors meant that the original floating concrete soffit was untenable; various subtle level changes conceived by Maguire & Murray in line with their liturgical philosophy had to be expunged soon after for access reasons.  The tightly interrelated set of fine judgements instituted by Maguire and Murray at the Abbey has been disrupted but the power, serenity, beauty and quality of the architecture has become none the poorer for it.  It reminds me, for example, of the way in which Inigo Jones’ vision for Covent Garden retains it’s essential power despite the drastic changes the precinct and the church has undergone over the centuries, a mark of truly great architecture?

plans showing original column-free design and level changes

Although the building itself has tolerated and accommodated changes admirably, it seems that the architects themselves were not able to do so.  They were apparently so hurt by the Abbey’s choice to mitigate the major structural failure by installing concrete columns rather than opting for the prohibitively expensive partial rebuild required to preserve the original concept, that they never returned.  But this didn’t bother the Abbess half as much as the architect’s decision to employ an ill-conceived lighting arrangement, originally employed at the chapel, in a subsequent church design after the Abbess had informed them that it didn’t work, ‘Sheer arrogance!’ she said.  It was Confucius that said that a person’s qualities belong to a ‘set’, perhaps the sensibility required to pull off such a great piece of architecture is inseparable from this arrogant obstinate streak?

I asked the elderly Abbess, who has been there through it all, whether she, in her private moments 'cursed' the architects for all the additional costs and on-going issues, to which she replied 'Not at all, it's lovely', an answer reminiscent of Alexander Pope's line 'Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door', food for thought.