I have been thinking and researching recently into the form and period of architecture that I have been referencing in my work, keeping in mind how I would like this to develop. Do I narrow my research to a specific period or form? Or do I keep it broad? For a large proportion of 2012, my work explored post-colonial architecture from several research trips to South and North Africa. I particularly became interested in seafront architecture on my last trip to Cape Town. Along Sea-point, an affluent area, there is mid-century ‘high rises’ that look out to sea. These apartments and buildings on the sea are utopic spaces where people spend part of their time, on this fringe between land and sea. The buildings themselves have the interesting formal quality of sweeping curves like an ocean liner, straight lines, pastel colours and patterned detail particularly in tiled areas.
I intend to extend this research by spending time visiting early to mid-century sea front architecture in Britain. A few weeks back, I visited St Anne’s on Sea, south of Blackpool to look at the buildings, which is a mixture of Victorian up to mid-century, and a few later. I would like to visit De La Warr, The Midland Hotel, and Embassy Court in Brighton amongst other buildings in the coming months.
The other projects I currently working on are exploring a range of historical architecture, such as my sculpture for The Barnaby Festival which will be referencing the inner market walkways of Macclesfield. I am also working towards a tiled work for a show in Brighton which will work from details of industrial architecture in Bolton.
I have also been doing reading to expand my knowledge of architecture and the idea of utopia. I have been reading Utopia by Thomas More, and A Critical History of Modern Architecture by Kenneth Frampton. In addition to listening/watching a lot of documentaries about modern architecture, I am starting to understand that my interest in architecture perhaps comes from an interest in the history of architecture in general, looking at a lot of urban spaces as a postmodern city.
I also recently had a mentoring session with Mark Devereux, which was really helpful and insightful in a number of ways. I explained how I was unsure if I should keep to one historical period, perhaps in the sense that others would be able to ‘categorise’ my work more easily. He felt I should keep all of the research as broad as possible at this initial stage. I think that was good advice.
