Skip to main content

Figurations and Offer

I attended the Figurations Conference at the Bartlett on 25th April. The range of discussion was very wide and quite esoteric. One presentation which I found particularly useful was Carlo Menon's discussion of "minor to major". For me this offered up the idea that while much of John Laing's photographic imagery might be considered "minor" in that they show vernacular housing, construction workers going about their jobs and so on , in reality this work should be considered "major" because of the aggregated impact that it created over time.  Some of the work, such as Coventry Cathedral and the M1 falls immediately into the "major" but I think a lot of other material is just as important in the story that it tells.

The 4th of May has been a red letter day for me, firstly I got to meet the people at John Laing and its Charitable Trust in person and had a really great conversation and then when I got home and checked I had my formal offer letter from the Bartlett - its all very real now!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PhD Introductions

So 2 months into the degree it is time to talk about my research ideas to a wider audience. On 4th Dec the School will be running a session titled PhD Introductions. The purpose of the event is to introduce the students' previous work and research interests, to discuss their current research ideas, developments and experiments and to generate a lively discussion about research in architecture. I get to do a 10 minute presentation followed by comments/questions/discussion. It has been a useful exercise so far - thinking about how to condense a somewhat sprawling thought process into a short piece and to make sure that it is accessible in the sense of providing enough of the background and context to allow the audience to make some sense of everything.
Post a Comment
Read more

Going Nuclear

One of the many novel engineering feats John Laing was involved in was the birth of commercial nuclear power in Britain. The company worked on the Windscale reactors and were part of the AEI consortium that built Berkeley Power Station, the first commercial power station. The John Laing Collection has a series of fascinating images showing how very low tech the initial construction phase was and the human side of work - from tea wagons to the local postman taking an interest. Nuclear Power Station, Berkeley, First day of arrivals to the site, 8th Jan 1957 © Historic England 2018 - The John Laing Collection No. 48773 Nuclear Power Station, Berkeley, Supplies being delivered to caravan in its temporary site, 8th Jan 1957 © Historic England 2018 - The John Laing Collection No. 48781 Nuclear Power Station, Berkeley, Local postman interested in heavy machines, 8th Jan 1957 © Historic England 2018 - The John Laing Collection No. 48778 Nuclear Power Station, Berkel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joining Up - Reaching Out

Airfield construction at Thurleigh - Keeping contact with the control centre © Historic England 2018 Having completed the PhD introductions session I have been concentrating on completing my paper for the Construction History Society meeting in April ( Sixth Annual Conference of the Construction History Society ) - deadline is 14th January. In addition I have been looking to see what other organisations might be able to help me and so am now a "Friend of RIBA" and a student member of the International Council on Archives. John Laing very kindly put a piece in the latest Retirees Newsletter about the work that I am undertaking and I have had an immediate response with someone very kindly offering me their notebook from Berkeley to take a look at. This was better than I could have hoped for and with luck is the start of more material and anecdotes. January will start with a tutorial and attending a whole lecture series for which the reading list is huge (but usefull...
Post a Comment
Read more