'Laura Ashley decorates - A London House'

     This is a slim volume, a mere 88 pages, but does it pack a punch.  I have seen it before on ebay but took it little interest. I have a copy of 'The Laura Ashley Book of Home Decorating' and that really isn't up to much; whatever the merit of the text it is spoilt the by terrible photography.  However, last week I was trawling through Youtube and came across a short video by Isla Simpson on this book and I was deeply impressed by what I saw.

     In the early Eighties Laura Ashley Ltd bought and renovated a large terraced house in west London.  This book illustrates the results. (There is a section at the back of 'before and after' shots.) Though this is not all quite to my taste you really have to admire their ambition.  This is a bruvura performance, an equal to anything being produced in the more posher end of the interior design business.  The text makes it plain - this is not merely a recreation of a mid-Victorian middle class interior.  There is, after all a modern kitchen in the basement.  Kitchen apart, however, this project really could only have been made in the Post-War period.  It shares the sort of aesthetics that were illustrated in Mary Gilliat's 'English Style' of 1967.   See here for my post on that wonderful book.  In parts there is even a residual 60s/70s bohemianism.  I've always thought that Laura Ashley falls more easily into the Post-war scene than popularly thought.  Modernism's hegemony may have rigidly enforced in the realm of architecture, but failed elsewhere.  
     This project does however mark a change in Laura Ashley's outlook towards the grander and the historically informed, less cottage.  The results here are stunning.

     The research and intelligent text are by art historian Jane Clifford and the excellent photography by Arabella Campbell-McNair-Wilson. 

Jocasta Innes: Living in Style

     Realising that the original illustrations were not of a high enough standard, this post has been updated, as of 18/04/2024, with a better, and wider, selection of images.

    Picked this book up the other day while exhibiting at Aberglasney - they possess a rather good second hand book corner and I've picked some lovely books in my time.  

     I had a copy of 'Living in Style', which I believe is her third book of interior design, many years ago and, for reason I can't now remember, I got rid.  I have a suspicion that I also owned 'Paint Magic', published 1981, at the same time, but I may be mistaken.

    Jocasta Innes (1932-2013) was, as this book shows, a possibly unique combination of bohemianism and the practicality. The latter the child of the former, born out of necessity.  Creativity from chaos.  From 1979 she lived in Spitalfields, an area in the East End of London, that was then in process of being rediscovered.  There she restored a 18th century town house, honing her skills in the process, and which she relayed to us in her many books.  All the while continuing to work as a journalist and writer.  A force of nature of sorts.
     I have to admit a slight disappointment with the design of the book.  I suppose I expected something a bit more chic from a book connected with Cosmopolitan, even one sponsored by Dulux - Innes, I should add, was at the time Design Editor of the magazine.  Some of the images in this book reflect that cultural millieu of Spitalfields - hence the large picture of Dennis Severs (1948-2001) in his remarkable Folgate St house.  There is also an admix of Arty North London Bourgeoisie.  Though I have say I think some her contemporary choices don't quite hit the mark, the following do. (oh, by the way for those who don't know, the gentleman resembling a deckchair is the inestimable George Melly - jazz singer, raconteur, writer and tv presenter. Bohemian. Habitue of the Colony Room.)

Oh Birmingham....

      ....what has become of you? Have you really so sunk so low?

     I am talking here about the planning application by Marrons (for HJB Investments) for 80 Broad St, in the city.  I first came across this application in the current edition of 'Private Eye' last week.  It has also been reported on by the BBC and GBNews.  In addition to the 'Eye' it has also featured in other traditional print media such as 'Building Design' and 'Construction Enquirer' - most of these articles are essentially a re-write of a post on the Marrons' website.

     To the scheme and it really is a shocker, entailing the proposed construction of a 438ft high tower over the top of a late, rather attractive, Grade II listed, Georgian mansion called, in a couple of on-line articles, 'Islington Villa'.*  (This end of Broad St was in the beginning of the 19th century known as Islington and Broad St as Islington Rd.)  As far as I can make it both the architect of the villa and the date of construction are unknown; Pevsner says c1830s, while flickr 1814.** It is was the home of Owen Johnson, one of the founders of the Islington Glassworks, but most of its life has not been domestic but institutional i.e. a series of hospitals.  In recent years it has been a restaurant and a bar and has since Lockdown been empty.  For all its vicissitudes it is one of the last remaining pieces of the old Broad St. and, with the extraordinary former Broad St Presbyterian Church (1848-9 by J R Botham), perhaps the best bit of architecture going on the street.  And, let's face it, Broad St needs all the help it can get. It abounds in ugliness, but then the whole of the City Centre is slowly sinking into vulgarity. 

     Let's hope this really doesn't get planning permission. Marrons' design will not only set a dangerous precedent should it get permission, but it will do nothing to enhance Broad St while actually demeaning the current structure. 

*  The tower, I believe, will be be mainly, as the headline on 'Business-Live.co.uk' so elegantly puts it, 'resi'.  That's residential to you and me.

** The architect of the sympathetically designed wings is however known.  It was John Jones Bateman (never heard of him).  They date from 1863, when 'Islington Villa' was already a hospital.  The railings are also listed.

Christ is risen!

 Happy Easter!

Christ is Risen!

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

Russian icon of the Anastasis  from the Icon Collection of the Sweden National Museum

Aberglasney in the snow

      Woke up this morning to find it had snowed in the night! Not much really but enough, for all my mature years, to get a little excited. Here are a few photographs I took of the gardens at Aberglasney when I arrived at what is the final day of my current exhibition.  It is quite remarkable how even a light dusting of snow completely alters one's perception of a space or landscape.

Exhibition

      My annual exhibition at Aberglasney Gardens in Carmarthenshire is currently underway.  Here are a few images of the event.  The exhibition remains open until Thursday.