Museum names and obfuscation

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You'd think that one of the primary aims in giving a building a name would be to supply part of a unique address, to identify it to people passing and searching for it, and to indicate its purpose. The latter is not always required but in certain instances it is. There's little point in giving a town hall any other name other than the words town hall preceded by the placename: to do anything else would cause confusion and waste people's time. Similarly with art galleries. Yet in their naming the sound principle just described in relation to town halls is often ignored. What would you expect to see at the Wallace Collection in London? A collection of what? It happens to be fine and decorative arts, but you wouldn't know that from its name.

A public building in Lincoln has a similarly confusing name. It styles itself simply, "The Collection". Perhaps those naming it were influenced by the London example I just mentioned. Yet in Lincoln The Collection is a museum. There seems to be something of an acknowledgement that people won't necessarily guess what the building is about because some of its printed literature describes it as The Collection Museum. But, of course, a museum is a collection, so this awkward construction has built in redundancy: it is somewhat tautological. It seems to me that it is a confusion that should have been seen and then avoided. What is wrong with the name, Lincoln Museum?

We're back, it seems, to yesterday's theme of daft names. And like that post we are discussing a building that is better than the average for the city of Lincoln, despite its unfortunate name. I like the way that stone (is it artificial?) has been used in strongly horizontal lines with randomly disposed holes. I enjoy too the way one enters into a relatively dark foyer then passes into a beautifully lit "Orientation Hall" before entering the main exhibition spaces. The materials of wall, roof and floor have been well chosen and well put together. The exterior is also attractive, its avowedly modern lines fitting in well with the older buildings on its hillside site.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
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Messerschmitt KR200

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When you visit a national museum - say the British Museum, the National Railway Museum or the National Maritime Museum - you know what you're going to see: exhibits of national and often world significance, artefacts and objects that you recognise from books and film, gob-smacking, awe-inspiring, magnificence. Such an experience is often memorable.

When you go to a small, local museum, the sort that has been lovingly assembled by an enthusiast, you expect less. And yet sometimes, as Mies van der Rohe said, "less is more". Sometimes the care, concern, and attention that has gone into presenting the collection shines through and leaves a lasting impression. I recently went to such a museum in Lincolnshire, one not too distant from me, the Bubble Car Museum at Langrick near Boston.

I'm not a car enthusiast, but as regular visitors to this blog may have gathered, I am interested in design. This museum appealed to me because it was illuminating to compare the ways designers approached the task of making and selling inexpensive motorised vehicles. In particular I was fascinated by how some tried to hide the fact that these could be better described as enhanced motor cycles than proper cars, and how others cared little about revealing their lineage. Micro cars, a few mopeds and bicycles and some displays of household goods from the 1950s and 1960s, the era of the bubble car, accompanied the main exhibits. The model that caught my eye was the Messerschmitt KR200, a vehicle manufactured between 1955 and 1964. This silver three-wheeler looked like a combination of a small WW2 fighter aircraft, a kitchen implement and the sort of personal spacecraft that Dan Dare might have flown. The bug-eyed fairings, the glazed "cockpit", the piped, red upholstery and the attention to detail were very appealing. In these days of rising fuel prices, with manufacturers trying to eke every last mile per gallon out of cars, it's surprising that such vehicles, in updated form, haven't made a re-appearance on our roads.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
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Small museums and broken windows

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I enjoy visiting the large, national and regional museums of Britain. Places such as the Natural History Museum, the National Maritime Museum, the Imperial War Museum (Duxford), the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge) or the Harris Museum (Preston) hold rare and important treasures of great interest, often displaying them in beautiful spaces to great effect. However, the smaller museums of our country, the places that document towns and villages, that were often established in the eighteenth, nineteenth or early twentieth centuries by philanthropic donation, enthusiastic individuals or a motivated group of citizens, can also offer interest and delight. Such places are frequently run on a very modest budget and few staff, or rely on the support of a small and dedicated band of volunteers. The Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Lynn Museum (King's Lynn) and Newark Air Museum are examples of such places that I've visited recently.

The other day we visited another example, the Baysgarth House Museum in Barton upon Humber, Lincolnshire. This  mid-eighteenth century house was given to the town in 1930. Since that time it has had various uses including housing a school. It continues to be the place where the town council meets, but today the buildings and the historic collections it now holds are managed by a charity supported by volunteers. Displays about the history of the house, Georgian and Victorian rooms, collections of pottery, artefacts and displays about the industries of Barton upon Humber, as well as much else, can be found there, all well-presented and cared for by enthusiasts. It is a good example of the sort of museum that a small town can offer, given a little funding, local support and dedicated volunteers.

The house has a fine main staircase, typical of the period, in which are hung three large oil paintings. The window that lights the stairwell is south facing and therefore has a blind to protect the paintings. I took a photograph of this space and its lighting (small photograph) before ascending the stairs. On the landing I looked across at the window and noticed a broken pane in the top corner casting its fractured shadow on the blind. This blemish was all the more eye-catching being set against the carefully managed and well-decorated stairwell. And, with my photographer's hat on I took a shot (main photograph in black and white) of the imperfection, quite liking the way it interfered with the regularity of the glazing and its shadows.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
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Secrets, lies and Lancasters

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Scanning the very truncated TV listing for today in my newspaper, more in hope than expectation I have to say, I was struck by the titles of three documentary programmes. The first was called "The Secret History Of Our Streets" (about things on, above and below streets), the second, "The Secret Life Of Ice" (about glaciation), and the third, "The Secrets of Scott's Hut" (about the explorer's wooden hut in Antarctica). All of them purport to be "revealing" secrets to the viewer. Except of course they're not, and they know it. The word "secret" in the context of TV and book titles has been flogged to death in recent years. It is used as bait to subliminally suggest that the offering is in some way divulging that which has been hidden, or is new, or to imply that this is not yet another re-hash of a familiar subject. Except of course it invariably is. I think I'll be reading my book again tonight.

A UK TV channel called Yesterday is the biggest culprit as far as overworking the tired concept of TV programmes that reveal secrets. It manages to broadcast multiple series about the Second World War that show the same film footage, the same narratives, the same topics, all re-worked from an angle, the most common of which is the revelation of that which has hitherto been "secret". What it hasn't yet come up with, as far as I know, is "The Secret of the Avro Lancaster" or The Secret of the Supermarine Spitfire". It can only be a matter of time.

I recently visited the aircraft collection of the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. I've photographed there before and never found it especially easy to come away with a shot that I liked. This time, however, despite the fact that I was with several members of my family, I got a few. Today's shows Britain's main heavy bomber of the Second World War, the Avro Lancaster, revealed for all to see - no secrets whatsoever. It took quite a bit of post processing to tease this shot out of a fairly contrasty original, and it's probably technically my best effort at this venue. Incidentally, as a contrast with my complaint above, I quite like the way that this museum has retained the original name of the founding Imperial War Museum in London. When it was founded there was no disingenuous attempt to call it an Air Museum, a Defence Museum, or to toy with any other verbal equivocation. It contains mainly military aircraft and their weapons and the name recognises these have been and are weapons of war.

photograph and text © T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
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Fishing nets

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We visited Lynn Museum in King's Lynn, Norfolk, the other day. It's a small museum based in a rather fine, converted, Victorian-period Union Baptist Chapel. Our time there was very enjoyable, not least because it had a good balance of exhibits and interpretation - too many museums go overboard explaining things these days. The fact that it has free entry from October to March helped too!

Among the exhibits was a collection of wooden "needles"used in the making of fishing nets. I don't recall seeing any actual nets of similar vintage, but that's not surprising. Nets (like the needles) were once made of bio-degradable materials such as cotton, and so most of them have disappeared. Today, of course, the great majority of nets are composed of man-made materials; nylon and the like. One consequence of this is that their bright, often day-glo, colours are a familiar sight on beaches or tangled up in marine structures the world over. They are a major component of the litter and refuse in and by the sea and have been identified as a hazard to wildlife. Some marine biologists feel that they make a significant contribution to the nano-particles of plastic etc. that have entered the food-chain and which are likely to have an adverse effect on human health.

But, as I mentioned in a recent post about blots on the landscape, humankind, including photographers, are capable of finding interest and even beauty in things that we often, in general terms, deprecate. And so it is with bright, modern, fishing nets. On the wall above the computer at which I am writing this blog post is a print of one of my photographs from 2007, a favourite of my output, that shows fragments of rope and netting wrapped around some slipway posts and chains at Cleveleys, Lancashire. It was the memory of this image that caused me to stop by a pile of discarded nets on the quayside at King's Lynn. They were in the shade with a shaft of sunlight throwing a glowing line across them. The light and dark with the kingfisher-like combination of colours was very appealing and so I took today's photograph of part of the untidy heap.

photograph and text(c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
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Stairway to the past

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Stairways make good photographic subjects. They offer complexity, strong forms to use in a composition, leading lines, visual routes through the image, a stage and frame for people, metaphor and much more.

This photograph was taken in the stair-well that links the floors of a museum. The translucent glass of the windows and below the hand-rail allowed the silhouettes of the people to be seen to good effect. However, as much as I tried to get a shot with people just where I wanted them, they never quite arranged themselves as I would have liked. This is the best of a fairly quickly taken group of photographs.

Thinking back I recall posting another shot taken in a museum stair-well. On this occasion, however, the motivation was the semi- abstract nature of the composition and the shades of grey that a black and white conversion produced.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
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The Blacksmith's Workshop

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English surnames are usually classified into 5 groups: given names (e.g. Johnson), occupational names (e.g. Tailor), locational names (e.g. York), ornamental names (e.g. Ballard - "bald head"), and other names. Smith is the most common occupational surname in England, but also the most numerous of all names. The reason for this is likely to be the fact that the job of the smith (sometimes called "blacksmith") was such an important and widespread occupation for much of recorded history. We sometimes forget that English villages changed remarkably little until the last quarter of the nineteeenth century. Up until that time a farmer or agricultural labourer from the medieval period would easily have recognised the tools and practices of his Victorian counterparts. He would also recognise the self-sufficient nature of village life with its baker, shoemaker, saddler, wheelwright, smith and many other tradesmen carrying on their occupations in the small community.

The mechanization of agriculture, a process that began in the late nineteenth century and was complete by the end of the second world war, ended many of these occupations, and changed the character of village life. What was previously made in these small settlements now often had to be brought in from the nearby town, or even ordered from a city. The blacksmith lost a large part of his work, particularly that connected with horses and farm machinery. They didn't entirely disappear of course: ornamental metal work, repairs and the burgeoning equine hobbies provided (and still do supply) a living for some.

Then there was the specialist smith attached to a particular line of work. Today's photograph shows the preserved blacksmith's workshop of an employee of a South Lincolnshire drainage board. His work would involve dealing with all the metal-work needs of this large undertaking that kept the water flowing off the low-lying land. In the corner is the forge, next to it a leather bellows with a long handle to pump it, and nearby a big anvil raised up on a section of tree trunk. There are a couple of workbenches equipped with vices and lathes, and the walls are festooned with tools. The red, wheeled object in the centre of the photograph is a portable, petrol-powered engine. It could be used to drive machinery by means of a belt fixed to the drum on the nearest wheel. I don't know when this particular workshop closed but it must have been around 1950.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
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