Modern Mooch

Castle House – Sheffield

Posted on November 23, 2015November 23, 2015 by modernmoocher

I want it.

Historic England want it.

Hopefully you and the people of Sheffield want it,

– anyway it’s listed.

http://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1393220

“1964 by George S Hay, Chief Architect for CWS, with interior design by Stanley Layland, interior designer for CWS. Reinforced concrete with Blue Pearl granite tiles and veneers, grey granite tiles and veneers, buff granite blocks, glass, and brick.”

The Liberal Democrat Council objected, saying

“It could be a major barrier to regenerating Castlegate.”

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/what-s-on/saving-castle-house-controversial-listing-call-defended-1-453913#ixzz3sL3p5RAP

There is now the possibility of redevelopment as a creative hub.

It was a Co-op on the grandest of scales.

It has it all, public art, monolithic proportions and finish, bags of detail and scale in abundance. A fascinating building to explore and certainly one that fills my little heart with joy in superabundance

A building of period distinction, it deserves its preservation.

We do not require another patch of steel and wilfully wayward clad nowheresville non- architecture, replete with aspirational retail agogo.

Go see it soon!

Moore Street Electricity Substation – Sheffield

Posted on November 23, 2015May 28, 2018 by modernmoocher

Moments from the centre of the City, bordered by dual carriageways and a substantial roundabout, sits a most remarkable building.

What is it?

It’s almost unfathomable.

A carpark lacking entrance and exit, abattoir, contemporary art space?

No – an electrical substation, on such a colossal scale as to relieve you temporarily, of a gasp or two.

Finished entirely in unfinished concrete, a great volume, broken by vertical and horizontal lines, punctuated by intermittent abutments.

Accessed externally via a most extraordinary glazed and enclosed staircase.

Wisely Historic England have had the site listed:

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1415383

“Electricity substation. 1968 to designs by consulting architects Jefferson, Sheard and Partners, Sheffield, led by Bryan Jefferson, in association with the Regional Civil Engineers’ Department of the CEGB North East Region. Contractors, Longden & Sons Ltd, Sheffield. Reinforced concrete frame with board-marked finish with formwork bolt marks, construction and daywork joints emphasized, concrete floor slabs, blue engineering facing bricks, cladding panels of Cornish granite aggregate.”

Go see for yourself, if you don’t believe my eyes.

Hexagon Tower – Blackley Manchester

Posted on November 22, 2015August 20, 2016 by modernmoocher

Manchester Orbital – a coach trip around the outer and upper limits of the city’s Modernist Architecture.

Organised by the Manchester Modernist Society

http://www.modernist-society.org

“Seifert’s corporate buildings were regularly bold, those in Manchester no exception, but this is perhaps the most monolithic of his North-West schemes. The site, in a depression adjacent the River Irk in Blackley, was formerly owned by ICI, by whom the building was commissioned. At one time, a four storey ICI laboratory building by émigré architect Serge Chermayeff also stood close. Here, the simple massing, formed by the junction of horizontal and vertical volumes, bears several of Seifert and Partners trademark gestures; the hexagonal geometries, the cut away sections of wall to form entrance ways between structural elements, and the repetitive facade. The end wall is reminiscent of Tolworth Tower, also by Seifert. The tower and podium configuration is a product of the brief; the machine hall had to be at ground level and have no construction above. The narrow tower has no internal columns, the structural grid is mirrored in the services arrangement and the two co-exist outside the usable volume of the laboratory space, in the walls and floor. This solution is expressed in the deep reveals of the main façade, services travel vertically between the window modules. Whilst somewhat hidden, the building reveals itself fantastically from elevated vantage points, the tram south from Bowker Vale station being one such location. Originally it was intended that four of these towers would be built and run along the river valley in some sort of massive futurist domino arrangement.”

With thanks to Mainstream Modern

http://www.mainstreammodern.co.uk/casestudies.aspx/Detail/72/hexagon-tower

Manchester – Tanzaro House

Posted on November 16, 2015April 2, 2018 by modernmoocher

A chance meeting with two aged cordial bottles, a little nudge in the right direction from Christine Studley-Yates, encouragement from Natalie Ainscough, and learned guidance from this erudite site:

http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/outside/tanzaro.html

Here we are on the edge of Ardwick Green, outside Tanzaro House, former home of Jewsbury and Brown – J&B.

So called as many of their soft drinks were branded Tanzaro.

J&B are long gone, bought out by Schweppes in 1964 – the building is now home to a range of photographic, clothing and design studios. Happily the majority of the internal and external architectural features remain intact.

It stands in a small corner of Manchester, surrounded by a rich variety of architectural styles, by the side of a well-used public park – take a trip down there, just a moment away from the city centre.

The Tudor Café – Stockport

Posted on November 11, 2015August 19, 2017 by modernmoocher

On Lower Hillgate, almost next door to where it used to be, there stands The Tudor Café.

Almost where it has almost always stood.

Other businesses have come and gone, happily it prevails.

The cheapest tastiest grub in town.

An interior festooned with tea towels.

Tables polka dotted, teas hot.

Signs inside and out, some of them inside out.

Greetings from Gdansk.

Post Office Tower

Posted on November 4, 2015November 16, 2019 by modernmoocher

The man from BT he says “No!”

I only asked.

Everyone’s life is towered over by one obsessive dream or other.

So why not have an overpowering, towering dream of a Tower?

I asked to come in, he said no.

What was once ours, opened in 1965 by PM Harold Wilson at the behest of Tony Benn, was sold by PM Margaret Thatcher.

– “It’s good to talk.”

It’s bad to gift ownership of other peoples’ towers to other people, in the name of “popular capitalism.”

So I dry my eyes, pick myself up and engage in an immersive therapy, absorbing the visual culture of the seemingly unobtainable Tower – like an eternally embittered Rapunzel in reverse.

Marine Court – St Leonards on Sea

Posted on October 15, 2015May 14, 2020 by modernmoocher

It’s ever so easy to fall in love with a building, that’s ever so lovable.

So much of its time and place – a perfect piece of Seaside Moderne.

Sun soaked and whiter than white, against almost clear blue southern skies.

A luxury liner beached and beloved, now returned to showroom condition.

Go see for y’self.

http://www.modernistbritain.co.uk/post/building/Marine+Court/

Washeteria – Hastings

Posted on October 6, 2015June 27, 2018 by modernmoocher

Don’t forget to forget.

Big is not large, not small.

This is a dirty blue, washed-out pale yellow, Alice in Wonderland un-wonderful land.

Time will not stand still – you’re in a spin, oh what a spin that you’re in.

Walk in, wash and wish.

Hastings – Arthur Green’s

Posted on September 15, 2015May 31, 2018 by modernmoocher

Facing happily out to sea, hard by Hastings promenade, sits Arthur Green’s, former menswear shop of some considerable distinction. Currently operating as an antiques centre, the whole of the perfectly preserved, period interior is now listed by English Heritage.

A mosaic porch and glass lined vestibule, invite you into a palace of dark hardwood fittings, capacious drawers, glass fronted cabinets, and an ornately carved cashiers booth, all topped off and lit by crystal chandeliers.

Few such example still exist intact, their contents usually ripped out, ripped off and reinstalled in chi-chi overpriced, cosmopolitan boutiques – suits you sir?

I think not!

My thanks to the helpful and patient staff who informed and facilitated my mooching.

Take a walk along the front – pop in.

Launderette – London Road St Leonards

Posted on September 5, 2015June 27, 2018 by modernmoocher

Mid blue linoleum tiles, patched here there.

And everywhere.

Signs

Everywhere.

In an uncertain universe, you can almost always rely on the launderette, to guide you on life’s soapy journey, through a complex series of immutable do’s and don’ts, arrows, slots, buttons and bows.

Giant is the new big is the new large.

I feel so small.

The Wash Inn – Hastings

Posted on September 4, 2015 by modernmoocher

Standing alone in an unattended laundrette can be a chilling experience, a heightened state of awareness abounds, accentuating that all pervasive absence of presence.

The unseen hand, that write the notes, that speak to you in emphatic hurried caps, pinned or taped precisely on the walls.

The ghosts of clothes, still warm, now gone.

A Proust defying amalgam of aromas, that almost fills the air.

Just you and a series of slots, demotic instructions, care worn utilitarian surfaces and time.

Wash Inn get out.

Pevensey – Oyster Bungalows

Posted on August 20, 2015December 1, 2015 by modernmoocher

Hardly by accident, passing Pevensey Bay by bike one sunny summer’s day, hurriedly intent on catching up with old friends.

Having visited here some years ago, under the guidance of pal Pauline, I was as ever, over eager to renew our previously brief acquaintance.

There they were waiting patiently, to the left of a long straight road, running parallel to the adjacent shore.

Oyster Bungalows – so called for their cylindrical form and formerly scalloped barge boards.

Holiday homes the work of designer / architect: Martin & Saunders Limited built: 1937 – 1939.

Small and perfectly formed, they all seem to have suffered the indignities of ageing none to gracefully.

Subject to the whims of fashion and the uPVC expediency of our age.

Typically no two are the same, variegated planting, neglect and graceless addenda grace the previously pristine homes.

For all that, their diminutive charm remains undiminished.

My spirits lifted as I strolled by, inevitably yours will too.

Exmouth – The Wool Shop

Posted on August 14, 2015June 22, 2020 by modernmoocher

I wandered aimless in Exmouth, finding myself on Exeter Road outside:

The Wool Shop

Bewitched

By arcane sun-faded hand written signs.

Seemingly ancient undergarments.

Wool, wool, wool.

Okehampton – Car Wash and Go

Posted on August 11, 2015July 8, 2018 by modernmoocher

Early morning on the A30 out of Okehampton and something is beginning to stir.

Two inscrutable Romanians and a curious garrulous traveller are going about their respective business.

They – filling buckets and arranging a complex array of cleaning fluids.

Me – just mooching with a compact camera.

Initially expressing an understandable resistance to my snappy ways, their consent was granted, following a series of complex hand gestures, smiles, and an open and honest request.

Moments later my job was done and theirs had just begun.

Wash and go!

Llanidloes – Shopfronts

Posted on July 2, 2015April 9, 2017 by modernmoocher

In the heart of Wales, former centre of the flannel industry, stands Llanidloes.

Through civic pride, love and local doggedness, the decorative shopfront prevails unabashed.

The finest selection of carved and moulded wooden filigree, hand painted signs, large open panes, tile work and the odd suspended folk-art sheep, adorn substantial Victorian properties, rich in the market town tradition of controlled opulence. A varied typology, the majority continuing to trade, the odd domestic conversion retaining its retail characteristics, whilst maintaining its modesty, behind tightly drawn net curtains.

Go take a look.

Stoke on Trent – The Glebe

Posted on June 30, 2015July 1, 2015 by modernmoocher

Hard by Stoke Minster stands the only pub in the area I care to visit, tucked in a cosy corner by the Civic Centre, five minutes from the station, barely time to work up a thirst.

Carefully and skilfully refurbished, exquisite original semi circles of stained and painted glass depicting the months of the year – though there is no February, the lower panes a recent addition.

A tiled floor and broad stripped floorboards beneath your feet.

Sympathetically furnished, plainly, simply appropriate to a pub with pride.

In being a pub.

We and the afternoon sun, spill lazily in, in time for a pint.

It’s delicious so we have another

And another.

http://www.joulesbrewery.co.uk/pubs/pub_details.php?id=9

Manchester – Pomona the Last Lost Posts

Posted on June 25, 2015March 14, 2019 by modernmoocher

Things come and go.

A former dock has surely seen its fair share of life’s ins and outs.

Things have gone.

Now.

Over your cities grass will grow.

Greening the ground.

The last lost posts still stand.

Kent – Ghost Signs

Posted on June 21, 2015May 7, 2016 by modernmoocher

Revealed as fascia is removed and replaced.

Weather washed brick, faded.

Scratched painted glass surface.

Cut, cast and moulded in native stone.

Ghostly.

Signs.

Margate – Batchelor’s Patisserie

Posted on June 19, 2015September 18, 2017 by modernmoocher

Idly meandering through Cliftonville, along Northdown Road, I chanced upon the most delightful of cake shop windows. Being something of an aficionado of cakes, shops and windows it seemed like an ideal opportunity to snap away, with customary broad-smiling, wide-eyed enthusiasm. Furthermore why not go in? I was met with the most charming of receptions from the patron Stuart Turner and staff – not unreasonably inquisitive regarding my impromptu picture taking, I explained my particular interest in the patisserie. The interior of the 50’s bakery, shop and café is perfectly preserved, with a little sympathetic restorative work. Well upholstered and formica topped the furniture is the finest of its kind, each table graced with fresh flowers, condiments and loving care and attention. An exquisite array of breads, pastries and cakes, resting on delicate doilies, displayed in glass fronted cases. I encourage you to visit, take tea, take cake, take away the fondest of sweet memories.