Looking Back|Moving Forwards

On a very rainy day, I went to visit the Bispham tram station, built in 1932 and designed by J.C Robinson and the Blackpool Corporation.  He also later designed the Little Bispham Tram station further up the line which opened in 1935.  Within Blackpool, predominantly constructed of Edwardian and Victorian architecture, the two structures, slightly different in their architectural approach were an attempt to modernise the network up to the area of Bispham which is populated by suburban inter war housing.

Bispham Tram Station is the largest of the two, and despite referring to the curved aspect of moderne architecture, its façade presents itself with two columns and repeated urns, creating an odd fusion of modernist and classical architecture. Dr Matthew Whitfield, from English Heritage writes that is was a common approach of early modernism to combine earlier architectural features with a modernist form in hisfeature for the Twentieth Century Society.  The Blackpool tram stations were featured in November 2012 on the C20 website as building of the month.

Bispham Tram Station had a ticket hall internally, as well as providing shelter for passengers and promenaders.  It is still used as a tram stop, and has a new addition on the left of the building with recent signage of the tram stops name.

The exterior of the building, particularly the rear which faces the sea is in poor condition, and windows and doors have been boarded up.  It would be interesting to access the interior, which you can see at various intervals where the openings have been broken into.  It is a shame the building cannot be maintained to a better standard.

The tram stop is separated from the tram line by a very popular feature in Blackpool, concrete fences.  There is also an addition of a pseudo moderne toilet block on the right of the tram station, a style of toilet repeated along the sea front.  Across the road, a 1930s apartment building sits proudly, and asks for a return visit for more inspection!

A few weeks past, I traveled over to Fleetwood to find the Fleetwood Radar Station, built in 1961-2, which is now a listed building.  It was my first time to Fleetwood, at the top of the peninsula, and was very taken with this little town, which has been powered by fishing and tourism in the past.  It is a short ride on the tram from Blackpool North, and the Radar station, is now managed by Nautical Studies department at Blackpool and the Fylde College.

The unusual and curious building was designed by architects Roger Booth and Eric Morris Hart at Lancashire County Council.  Constructed on pillars above the sand in reinforced concrete with a flat roof, the oval building was built for training the coastal craft in radar technology.  It has intriguing features such as a triangular porthole window with rounded corners, and an off white and brown paint work colour scheme.

The building was listed in 2003, and was given a Civic Trust commendation in 1965, described as ‘a modest yet dramatic little building’.

You can reach the building easily, as the Fleetwood tram (end of the line) stops on the Fleetwood esplanade, and it sits next to the Fleetwood Coastguard station, Burton’s Lighthouse (1840) and the North Euston Hotel (1840).

(This post is a re-post from Looking Back|Moving Forward blog)

I have been very busy over the past week or so, and time just seems to have flown by.  I am now in the stage of visiting sites in the North West, and have also visited one in the North East.

I had a very productive second visit to The Midland Hotel in Morecambe last week where I met with the artist and ice cream entrepreneur Kate Sundae.  I then had a fantastic in depth tour of the hotel with Brian, their concierge, who has written a book about the history of the hotel (still to be published).  You can read more about this visit on my research blog: https://lookingbackmovingforward2014.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/the-midland-hotel-morecambe/

I also took a visit to Oxford to see the museums and also Modern Art Oxford, which had a really interesting exhibition on about performance in public, with particularly insightful videos about the practices of Jeremy Deller and Serena Korda.  I liked the God’s in Colour exhibition which depicted casts of Greek and Roman gods repainted in colour and patterns found by archaeological research.  Their research states this was how they were originally painted, but had actually faded over time, and assumed to be white.

I also met with artist/curator Rob Carter, who I proposed to curate the ‘test bed’ exhibition at In Certain Places in September.  I had worked with Rob before when he co-curated my solo show ‘Why buildings stand up/why buildings fall down’ at Malgas|Naudet in 2013 with Helen Collett.  I really enjoyed working with him and appreciated his inventive to displaying works.  We are also both interested in ideas of pattern, design and how they relate to changing society.

Rob and I had a chat about what the form of the exhibition in September might be.  I was thinking a series of smaller sculptures and drawings, as it is a former domestic space.  Rob suggested it might be a space to show the research, which might be a possibility alongside some smaller work.  My research feels quite nebulous at the moment, and I am not sure which way things will develop.  Rob’s situation has changed slightly as he might be moving abroad, so we are just going to have to play it by ear in the meantime.

I also went to visit The Park Hotel in Tynemouth, which was one of the few Seaside Moderne examples I could find in the North East (please correct me if I am wrong). The hotel is an impressive, heavy curved shape, and although functioning as a hotel, it is not in wonderful condition internally and externally.  The interior decoration is not very sympathetic to the period of architecture.  There is a modern extension built to the right of the building and this seems to act as the main source of income for the hotel, by which I understand from meeting with the very friendly manager is privately owned.

This week we also had a researcher from the University of Manchester to undertake some research about the experience of artists at Rogue.  Abi Gilmore, David Gledhill and Ivan Rajkovic are writing a chapter in a new book about UK arts ecology, and how this can be shaped or assisted by experiences in Higher Education.  Ivan came to interview the artists, and it was quite interesting to think and discuss with another person where and how I have gotten to where I have. It also allowed me to reflect on (perceived) mistakes I have made, such as staying in London too long and staying in teaching too long. It sometimes feels a little self-indulgent to think about yourself that much, but it can be useful to evaluate on where you are, where you have come from and where you want to go next.

I am currently at the beginning of a 14 month research and development project, within which I will be travelling around the North West of England and Scotland.  I will be researching into Seaside Moderne architecture: buildings such as The Midland and The Blackpool Casino and Pleasure Beach that were built in the 1930s mid war leisure boom, and reference the futuristic streamlined forms of ocean liners. I will be documenting more detailed research findings from site visits, meetings with experts, locals and academics on my project blog https://lookingbackmovingforward2014.wordpress.com/.  From this research, I will develop a new body of print, drawing based and sculptural work, which will be exhibited in a test bed exhibition at In Certain Places Project Space this September, and a solo exhibition at the Grundy Art Gallery in April 2016.  I was so delighted to receive Arts Council England funding for the project, as well as financial support from Blackpool Council and UcLan.

At this stage there is a lot of planning, admin and organisation, even though I had a lot of tentative agreements before the funding was awarded.  Over the next few months, I will be deep in the research stage, so I am scheduling in meetings with different experts, arranging access to certain buildings etc. So far, I have made initial research visits to The Midland Hotel, Blackpool Casino and Pleasure Beach, Fleetwood Coastguard Station and Bipsham Tram Stations.  Tomorrow I am heading off to New Brighton Palace in the Wirral to have a look around the building.

This past week I also launched the project with a solo project, The Fair, at Glasgow Open House Art Festival.  The Fair references the Glasgow Fair week when businesses and organisations closed, and everyone would travel ‘doon the water’ to Blackpool and Morecambe to escape everyday woes.  I created a series of drawings postcard shaped forms, which explored architecture from Blackpool and Morecambe.  I posted these to five artist’s homes, and they displayed them in their homes as they wished.  At the weekend, I travelled round each of the venues, documenting them and meeting artists.  All in all, with lots of tea and cake, it was a very sociable time, and much more relaxed than meeting people through the formality of the private view.