Monday 27 February 2012

Preparing to begin working here on Tuesday (see article below). I have a lot of ideas to pursue and really didn't need to diversify anymore when lo and behold I discovered another.... The imortance of selection and focus and development is abandoned again in favour of greedy overstuffed ideas, desperately vying for attention.... But this one just came accidentally and begged to be noted down..:
I have worked with the idea of drawing time or marking time before and then I found a test used for diagnosing dementia. The patient is asked to draw a clock face. From this a series of conclusions are used to diagnose the full extent of the dementia.
It struck me because of the cognitive and language research into drawing that can be extrapolated but also in a poetic sense the age of the patient and the passing of time is being forced on them, they are facing their own passage of time.

Any road up. The project at High Cross House will be heavily influenced by the rampant nature surrounding the house and the tension between this and the Modernist 'line' of the building itself. I'm hoping to blog a little more regularly, if not for my own sanity (reflecting thoroughly on my drawing research) then for a document of the work which I am notoriously lousy at. It will be interesting to work in a domestic house, I have wondered if the work I made on the theme of home will resurface. Especially in this environment 'designed for living' where 'Ornament is crime' and where the canon of modernism, the masculine, emotionally phobic lines and shapes of minimal expression reign over the concept of 'home'. Have I had enough of this subject? Maybe I will just let rip with a mark making response to this space without the ideology surrounding it. As always context will be content but there are umpteen contexts to look at.........Overstuffed? Bursting!






National Trust to open modernist High Cross House to public

Devon property designed as a simple and sleek 'machine for living', is one of the UK's most important modernist homes

High Cross House in <span class=Dartington, Devon" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; ">
High Cross House in Dartington, Devon. Photograph: Chris Boden/PA

The National Trust, best known for its lavish mansions and sprawling manor houses, is to take over the management of one of the UK's most important modernist homes.

High Cross House in Dartington, Devon, a former headteacher's home designed as a simple and sleek "machine for living", will open to the public from 7 March.

Designed by the Swiss-American architect William Lescaze and completed in 1932, the house was built for William Curry, the first headmaster of the progressive Dartington Hall school.

Robyn Brown, of the National Trust, said: "It is one of the top five modernist houses in the country. It is fantastic, brutalist architecture, very clean lines, very machine-like and indeed that is what it was designed as – a machine for living."

High Cross is still owned by the Dartington Hall Trust but will be managed as a tourist attraction by the National Trust. The building will be turned into a "local hub for contemporary arts", where visitors can see artists at work.

Vaughan Lindsay, chief executive of the Dartington Hall Trust, said: "We hope the partnership will bring many new visitors to the estate to enjoy High Cross House, explore Dartington's glorious grounds and gardens and find out more about our charitable programmes in the arts, social justice and sustainability."


1 comment:

  1. Oh my gosh wouldn't it be lovely to live there! It's wonderful that it will be open to the public for everyone to enjoy visiting and dreaming.

    ReplyDelete

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