Neighbours of 1902 and 1970

click photo to enlarge
A mere sixty eight years separates the completion of the two buildings shown in today's photograph yet it might be centuries and they might be from different planets. However, both are on Euston Road in London.

On the left is the London County Council (LCC)Fire Brigade Station of 1902, built with flats above the two-bay engine house. It is the work of an in-house architect of the LCC, H. F. T. Cooper. The materials are red brick, Portland stone and slate on the roofs. Yellow stock bricks are used in the basement. The style is Arts and Crafts and it is notably asymmetrical.

The building on the right, now called Evergreen House, was conceived in 1965 and completed in 1970.It is built of steel and glass in the International Style, one of many towers across the world that owe a massive debt to Mies van der Rohe.

There are those who abhor such juxtapositions, usually favouring one style over the other, and wishing that there was greater consonance between adjacent buildings. I can see the place for that kind of planning. However, I can also see the visual delight in seeing the contrast of two completely different styles side-by-side. And as a photographer I revel in it as this blog frequently testifies. See here, here and here for example.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: 1902 LCC Fire Brigade Station and 1970 Evergreen House, Euston Road, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 54mm (108mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Thinking about the 1960s

click photo to enlarge
The other evening I came over all 1960s! I'd been listening to the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" album, after which I moved on to "Magical Mystery Tour". Then, with the echoes of "If I needed someone" and "The fool on the hill" still reverberating, I settled down to read a chapter of Reyner Banham's "Theory and Design in the First Machine Age" (published in 1960). Despite its rather forbidding title this is a very readable account of the rise of the International Style. I needed to look again at his review of the Expressionist architecture of Amsterdam and Berlin in the period between 1914 and 1923, a development that ran counter to the emergent and increasingly dominant work of the early modern masters. I wanted to place this style of architecture, and the motivation behind it, against the Post-Modern and so-called "iconic" styles of recent years. Well, it's something to do on a cold winter evening!

However, my mind wandered off at a tangent, and I began to think again about the reasons why, in the pre-WW2 and post-WW2 years the International Style was so successful in continental Europe and the United States, but barely registered in Britain. And from that I started to speculate on whether the revolution in society, architecture, style and music that erupted in England in the 1960s was, in part, a reaction to being so far behind in art, architecture and design. Perhaps the creative people of our country raised their collective gaze from parochial concerns, looked abroad, and the move into modernity that had been achieved elsewhere finally registered. Maybe, at some level, the sudden flowering of Carnaby Street, "Swinging London", the Beatles etc., that in turn gave rise to British art, architecture and design that is now acknowledged as amongst the best in the world, can be linked to the slowness with which the modern age was accepted here.

Which brings me to today's photograph. The thoughts outlined above gave me the idea of doing a few shots that harked back to the 1960s - to Mary Quant and all that. Given my photographic track record there's no chance that I'll be photographing people a la David Bailey, but I did think I'd try a few still life shots and compositions that use that decade as the jumping off point. Perhaps you'll indulge me! Here's the first, of a white mortar and pestle on black and white vinyl, converted to black and white. Mortars and pestles, in my mind, made a return to wider use in the late 1960s, perhaps because, as well as people looking forwards, there was a backwards glance and a plundering of the past going on at the same time - think the satin uniforms on the cover of Sgt Pepper's. Why the conversion given the colour of the items in the shot? Well, the shadows had an orange tinge that detracted from my intention for the image.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1.6
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off