Context 181

CONTEXT 181 : SEPTEMBER 2024 9 ‘IT IS AS though Goldfinger, from among the Functionalist totems, had chosen as a source of inspiration the artifacts of war. The sheer concrete walls of the circulation tower are pierced only by slits; cascading down the facade like rain, they impart a delicate sense of terror.’ John Boughton on the Municipal Dreams website, noting a description of Erno Goldfinger’s brutalist Balfron Tower in Poplar, London, by the architect’s former collaborator, James Dunnett. prone to failure and come in conservation designs suitable on unlisted and some listed buildings. Vacuum windows, the latest tech, have even more robust edge seals and can approach triple-glazing performance. Thin glazing bars of 16–18 mm can be exactly duplicated, which is impossible with slimline glazing as they need a minimum of a 22 mm bar.’ Architect Chris Procter commenting on Historic England’s Advisory Note 18: Adapting Historic Buildings for Energy and Carbon Efficiency. ‘ON A WET night in 1955 [he and his first wife Wendy] invited two rain-soaked hitchhikers into their home to dry out. They were Bradford Art School students David Hockney and Norman Stevens, travelling to London for an exhibition. Both would become regular overnight guests in Tempsford, a convenient hitchhiking stopover, and made artworks for Peter and Wendy as marks of their friendship. Hockney sent them a 60th wedding anniversary card from his iPad.’ From the Guardian’s obituary of building conservationist and IHBC member Peter Richards. ‘IT’S REVOLTING and I hate it, but it’s an important piece of history if only as a warning. It absolutely should be listed!’ Jamie Green on X @GuardJamie commenting on the Twentieth Century Society’s concern that planning permission has been granted to demolish a modernist house in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, designed in 1966 by Derrick Shorten, project architect of the Grade II-listed Coventry Railway Station. From ‘The Clay Houses of Cumberland’ by RW Brunskill, Ancient Monuments Society’s Transactions (1962) Both the ballad writers and the eighteenth-century observers agree on the survival, in those parts of Cumberland in which clay building was carried on, of the practice of erecting houses in one day, by a whole village, for an individual family, but as a communal venture. Robert Anderson, living in Kirklinton parish between 1777 and 1829, transcribed under the title ‘The Clay Daubin’ an account of such an occasion. In his introduction he refers to the erection of walls consisting of layers of a clay and straw mixture, separated by thin courses of straw, and these walls, for the sake of proper consolidation, had to be erected in one day. He then relates how, on an appointed day, all the neighbours come together to execute the work with the aid of forks, shovels, and wheelbarrows, and, having completed the walls at least, salute the house with a party, eating and drinking and dancing as guests of the householder. Housman, in his notes on Orton parish… describes the erection of clay houses there: ‘These houses are generally made up in a day or two; for, when a person wants a house, barn, etc built, he acquaints his neighbours who all appear at the time appointed; some lay on clay, some tread it, while others are preparing straw to mix with it. By this means, building comes low and expeditious, and indeed it must be owned that they have brought the art of clay building to some perfection. They generally ground with stone about a yard high; and a house thus built will stand (it is said) 150 or 200 years.’ Erno Goldfinger: brutalist ‘THIS entire monstrous project, a proposal to drive a gash of concrete and tarmac through our most sacred prehistoric landscape, should never have got off the drawing board.’ A campaigner with Stonehenge Alliance quoted by The Art Newspaper following the government’s decision to cancel the highway tunnel project near Stonehenge. ‘HISTORIC England seems to not understand window technology. Their preferred, Slimline double glazing with a narrow glass spacer bar can lead to leakage and fogging. Regular double and Passivhaus-level triple glazing with wider spacing bars are less

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