Alison and Peter Smithson are two of the most influential architects of the 20th century. This is in spite of the fact that only several of their buildings made it past the design stage and that, of those that did in the UK at least, they have often been reviled as the most grim of Brutalist designs. Yet, apart from their buildings standing out for … Continue reading Responses: Alison and Peter Smithson’s Architecture (London).
I remember being sat on a bench on Dunwich Heath in September last year and seeing the dome of Sizewell B for the first time as an adult. I had just walked a little way down the coast, after a day of filming further down at Orford Ness, from Dunwich beach through to the heath. I simply was not expecting to be greeted by such … Continue reading Short Film – Heavy Water.
Above is the trailer for the next short film, Heavy Water. This is to be the longest film this year and the most ambitious in terms of scope in spite of future projects containing narratives and actors. Heavy Water ‘s difficulty is the connection of its two main themes represented by adjacent places on the Suffolk coast; the strange, liminal landscape surrounding Sizewell nuclear power … Continue reading Trailer – Heavy Water.
“The contours of the Sizewell power plant, its Magnox block a glowering mausoleum, begin to loom upon an island far out in the pallid waters where one believes the Dogger Bank to be, where once shoals of herring spawned and earlier still, a long, long time ago, the delta of the Rhine flowed out into the sea and where green forests grew from silting sands.” … Continue reading A Last Glimpse of the Land
This is an edited version of the paper given at Spirits Of Place in Calderstones Park, Liverpool 02/04/2016. My thanks to John Reppion and Leah Moore for organising the event and for to the other excellent speakers (Gill Hoffs, David Southwell, Gary Budden, Kenneth Brophy, Richard Macdonald, Ian “Cat” Vincent and Ramsey Campbell). Here’s to the next one. There is strange landmass on the opposite … Continue reading “Wyrd” Wirral – Spirits Of Place (02/04/2016)
It’s an oft-stated critique of Liverpool city centre in recent years that it’s become an increasingly oversized student campus as opposed to a city. A number of local writers and commentators, including an excellent summation earlier in the year by Seven Streets, have mentioned the suspiciously sheer abundance of developments comprising purely of student accommodation within the centre though it has rarely been quantified as a reality if … Continue reading Wanders: Student Flatopia (Liverpool)
Dear Joe, I’d like to walk with you From Clapton Pond to Stamford Hill And on… – Harold Pinter Harold Pinter liked walking around London. It is easily forgotten how vital walking around the capital was for him when considering how claustrophobic much of his theatre work is. Yet there is still a sense of place in his work, often highlighting many of his characters’ … Continue reading Walking On and On with Harold Pinter
‘When I was not confined to the house, I would spend my days and my nights on the Edge.’ – Alan Garner On a frosty but sunny January morning, I was steadily making my way along the M56 towards Macclesfield. I was on my way to Alderley Edge in Cheshire, the stalking ground of writer Alan Garner. In 2015 I had made this journey in … Continue reading Alan Garner’s Edge
Somewhere in this nexus of concrete and structural steel, this elaborately signalled landscape of traffic indicators and feeder roads, status and consumer goods, Vaughan moved like a messenger in his car… – Crash (1973), J.G. Ballard In the dead space before Christmas 2015, I found myself meandering back towards my old secondary school on The Wirral peninsula, one of only two things that I still … Continue reading Wanders: The M53 Cavern (A Northern Concrete Island)
Celluloid Wicker Man 