South Cumbria Sharpe Paley & Austin

Dave Kyles took some photos of the church interiors we visited: Flookburgh, Allithwate, Field Broughton, Finsthwaite and Torver

Eugene Viollett-le-Duc

Google recognises an architectural theorist, and one we've all heard of too!The doodle at the top of the main Google search page today featured Eugene Viollett-le-Duc's 200th birthday.

I wonder how many other people will know what this is about? Just one of the benefits of studying architecture with the Furness U3A.

Can we call this vernacular architecture?

Some fantastic examples of earth houses here.

"An earth house (also known as an earth berm or an earth sheltered home) is an architectural style characterized by the use of natural terrain to help form the walls of a house. An earth house is usually set partially into the ground and covered with thin growth. Modern earth houses are built with concrete walls and insulation. Earth houses are some of the most energy efficient."

The White Star Building, or Albion House

Albion House, or the White Star Building, from a Flickr set by R-P-M

Looking back across the road from the Museum of Liverpool, I exclaimed: "That must be Norman Shaw".

Well, it is: the White Star Building, the head office of the White Star Line, owners of the Titanic.Properly named Albion House, it is instantly recognisable as Norman Shaw if you have ever seen any Ealing Studios films about London coppers: the original New Scotland Yard on the Enbankment and this building are siblings.

The interior is apparently "remarkable for its raw display of iron girders, stanchions and jack arches lined with fireproof bricks, with all the rivets and bolts emphasised for effect, although it is currently hidden by suspended ceilings and partition walls.

This would not have been possible in London where regulations required the cladding of structural ironwork for fire safety, but under Liverpool's more commercial and laissez-faire regimen, such restrictions were not applied."
(courtesy of Liverpool's World Heritage Site: http://www.liverpoolworldheritage.com/visitingthewhs/areas/castlestreet/whitestarbuilding.asp)

That Model

Finally got to the Museum of Liverpool to see the model of the design for the unbuilt Lutyens Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. It's quite a thing! There's more material on the model, its discovery and conservation at these links:

• Andrew Cusack: The Greatest Building Never Built
• A model of what could have been: Lutyens’ cathedral in Liverpool
• Conservation of the model

La Luciole Concert Hall, France

La Luciole Concert Hall, France.

Certainly looks arresting, but I wonder how well it works as a concert hall?

Ruskin Watch: an occasional series

Inspired by our visit to the Ruskin library, I thought I might keep track of some relevant and not so relevant things from the pen and hand of John Ruskin. Perhaps slightly off-topic, but in anticipation of an end to the balmier weather, I couldn't resist this quote from John Ruskin:

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather

Not found a source for this yet.