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Dorothy Annan (19 January 1908 - 28 June 1983)
In November 2011, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) granted Grade 11 listed status to Annans murals on the front of the Fleet Building, 70 Farringdon Street, formally the largest telephone exchange in London. English Heritage advised the DCMS that the nine ceramic tile murals, which depict pylons, cables, telephone poles and generators, were of 'historic interest' to the telecoms industry and had 'relative rarity as surviving works of 1960s mural art'. The listing was supported by the Twentieth Century Society, and the Tiles and Architectural Ceramic Society, artist Frank Auerbach and Penelope Curtis, Director of Tate Britain.
The murals were commissioned at a cost of £300 per panel in 1960. Annan visited the Hathernware pottery in Loughborough and hand-scored her design onto each wet clay tile, her brush marks can also be seen in the fired panels.
The building is owned by Goldman Sachs, who wish to redevelop the site and oppose the listing of the murals.
Update:
Since this photograph was taken, all the Dorothy Annan murals have been carefully removed from the building by the Museum of London.
Thankfully, the City Corporation, English Heritage and the 20th Century Society were able to find an alternative location for the panels – the Barbican highwalks. You can find Dorothy Annan’s murals between Speed House and the Barbican Centre on the highwalk.
Feeling rather buggy today - I was running for the train this morning and felt like I might faint. Oops. Needless to say, I stopped running (but still made the train). Felt OK the rest of the day, although super knackered - and a bit wobbly on the way home.
We had a full orchestra playing in the building next to ours all day today. Not great at the start when they were all warming up, but pretty impressive by the afternoon. I ended up staying at work until 6:30 in order to get a huge email sent out, and they were playing for most of that time.
Beautiful light this morning - a proper crisp, clear, chilly Autumn day. I took this shot (and a few others) looking down from part of the Barbican highwalk onto London Wall - loved the shadows and reflections.
Good, busy day at work, although a bit sad for my friend who's had to fly back to Colombia to visit her ill mother.
I finally did pilates again at lunchtime.. Our instructor has stepped it up a bit since I last did it. Ow!
Poor Tim headed home a little early this afternoon with the beginnings of a horrid cold. I forewent my leftover pie and cooked us a good spicy pasta dish instead, to warm his poorly cockles.
Couldn't resist snapping this shot as I walked up the ramp to the Barbican highwalk this evening - this man was just so perfectly framed.
Had a good, busy, day at work, and got various things cleared - a bonus as I'd thought we would be doing more UAT today, but it's been delayed until tomorrow (at the earliest). Very handy.
It was very soggy on my way in this morning - and I was on the phone to my Mum, too - so I didn't get any photos in the daylight. Instead, this lit up staircase caught my eye as I crossed the highwalk at the Barbican this evening.
Had a busy - and cold! - day at work. Our boiler was finally repaired late this afternoon - in the meantime, I was wrapped up in my scarf with a cardigan over my legs! Brrr! Sort of similar at home this evening, too - wrapped up in a blanket watching TV :)
I suddenly noticed this chimney today, having seen it a hundred times before - then as I headed down the ramp off the Barbican highwalk I spotted this great zig-zag patch of sunlight. Photo done for the day!
Another busy day at work. I ended up having the office to myself though, as my boss had to take her cat to the vet this morning, then worked from home this afternoon. Went for a walk on my own at lunchtime - having also taken a longer route in to work (via St Paul's) - and then had to walk to London Bridge this evening as the trains were all up the spout. Lots of walking! But also lots of sunshine, which was lovely.
Some fab reflected light in Silk Street as I headed up to the Barbican highwalk this evening. Had a good day at work, and cooked something new for tea tonight, so it was an all-round good day. Not a lot else to tell, really :)
...in the Barbican centre, of course (for a change).
Another busy day of web testing at work. I am SO bored of looking at the same pages over and over again - and then finding new problems with them. Please let it be over soon!
Had some very sad news from my sister today - our 'Auntie' Chris died last night. I only found out last week that she had cancer, so it was a bit of a shock. We did know that it was terminal, so perhaps it was merciful that the end came so quickly. Terribly sad though..
Tim worked from home day, and welcomed me home with baked potatoes for dinner. He took delivery of his new camera today (the same as my compact, a Sony RX100), and is very excited about it :)
All that earth is finally being put to use on the highwalk. New (big!) planters have arrived, and they're being filled with soil, and hopefully soon with plants, too.
Had a mega busy day at work - tons to do and not enough time to do it in. Had four meetings, including an unexpected one that landed me in front of our board answering a shedload of questions (and doing quite well if I may say so - I don't mind that kind of 'presenting' if I actually know the subject matter inside out), and one that put the final nail in the coffin of our final salary pension scheme (and in the coffin of our hopes of getting some sort of compensatory deal). Much grumpiness all round. But there was a lot of cake today too, so, you know.
Spotted this growing on the highwalk this morning - it always makes me smile when I see leeks, pumpkins, rhubarb, etc, growing up there.
Still feeling super tired today, but a bit less virus-y, I think. It must surely go away soon! Had a good day at work - got lots done, and had an interesting meeting this morning going through our regulations. I know I shouldn't find it interesting, but it was a nice distraction from the usual stuff.
Made myself some pancakes after dinner this evening - couldn't tempt Tim to join me, so scarfed them all myself (just the three)!
Even colder when viewed Large and Dark.
I had to succumb in the end and post an obligatory snow shot of London – it’s the law you know. Being both obsessive and a diehard commuter (12 years behind the Gold Card and counting) I couldn’t help but come into London on that Monday – the one when it snowed like an arse all day. The journey to work was one of the more challenging commutes but being a Ninja Commuter I managed to get from the Herts/Cambs border to Moorgate before having to resort to Shanks’s Pony, hence the picture here which was taken as a trudged through the snowy wastes of The Highwalks.
And behold – Moor House, which I have to say looks rather pleasing in the snow and the tones it produces. From this angle the inevitable curves are obscured as yes, this is yet another curved blue-glass building by Norman Foster. At the other end of London Wall is the aptly named 1 London Wall as seen here on my photostream which is also by Baron Foster of Thames Bank and is somewhat unsurprisingly a curved blue-glass building. As I mentioned in the guff for that picture there are some inspirational and innovative buildings by Foster Associates but there is also the Yet Another Normal Foster category within whose boundaries these two buildings are firmly planted.
The road here is London Wall as shown in the adjacent picture, Ray of Light which was taken from a location some way to the left of here. The trees in the foreground are partly obscuring the remains of the Highwalk which formed the rather dire raised pedestrian area which ran between the towers alongside London Wall and was intended to eventually expand across the city. I won’t repeat the history behind the development of London Wall as it’s detailed alongside Ray of Light but of the original 5 blocks the old Moor House was sold in 1995 for redevelopment but was a later casualty of the wrecking ball with the construction of the new building running from 2002 to 2005.
I’d always intended to capture Moor House from this angle as it presents a flat expanse of glass which I like to think is a homage to the original building – the other sides are, all snipes at Foster aside, a truly impressive combination of curved surfaces. If Foster likes curves in his buildings this must be the Foster Orgasm of Curves and one can only hope that, now spent, he’ll move on to something new. At 276ft tall the surfaces of the building are best visualised by two cylinders intersecting at right angles – one ‘upright’ quarter-cylinder (one flat surface here, the other completely out of sight) and the other a horizontal quarter-cylinder positioned so that the two flat sides are shared. The intersection of the two runs from the top corner, visible here, and swoops down to the opposite corner on Moorgate. Confused? Have a look here for help. Not easy to explain!
The design means that all the floors are different shapes which made construction somewhat complex although this is only half the story as the foundations for Moor House extend almost 200ft below ground and are some of the deepest in London. Below the building is also a 100ft deep ventilation shaft and an enormouse ‘box’ – these for the Crossrail project, a route which will eventually allow travel from Heathrow to Canary Wharf in about 40 mins. The shaft will link with the railway tunnel, which has yet to be built – even though Moor House has super-foundations, designed specifically withstand the tunnelling, there was concern enough about the disruption for questions to be raised in parliament by the contractors… this to say nothing of potential peril for the Barbican and other buildings along the route. The ‘box’ will become part of the ticket hall for the station which is going to be a monster – the aim is to have a platform with entrances at each end, one at Moorgate and one at Liverpool St which I think gives a good illustration of the scale of the project. Huge!
Meanwhile above ground Moor House is clearly snow proof and it’ll be interesting to see how this building ages – there were many reasons why the original London Wall development failed but this aside many folk railed against the boring monotony of the blocks because “they all looked the same apart from minor differences”. I can’t help but feel that the same could be said to apply to Baron Foster’s output – “a lot of it the same but with minor differences”. While at the moment this view may be held in derision, this is no different to what people said in the 1960’s and today we look back and tut tut at how the planners could get it so wrong and who would even think of building monotonous monstrosities now.
In the meantime we can only wonder what may become of the last remaining block, St Alphage House and the highwalk area which is scheduled to be demolished to make way for, as current plans outline, a vaste headquarters. Until then…
.. Enjoy
Dorothy Annan (19 January 1908 - 28 June 1983)
In November 2011, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) granted Grade 11 listed status to Annans murals on the front of the Fleet Building, 70 Farringdon Street, formally the largest telephone exchange in London. English Heritage advised the DCMS that the nine ceramic tile murals, which depict pylons, cables, telephone poles and generators, were of 'historic interest' to the telecoms industry and had 'relative rarity as surviving works of 1960s mural art'. The listing was supported by the Twentieth Century Society, and the Tiles and Architectural Ceramic Society, artist Frank Auerbach and Penelope Curtis, Director of Tate Britain.
The murals were commissioned at a cost of £300 per panel in 1960. Annan visited the Hathernware pottery in Loughborough and hand-scored her design onto each wet clay tile, her brush marks can also be seen in the fired panels.
The building is owned by Goldman Sachs, who wish to redevelop the site and oppose the listing of the murals.
Update:
Since this photograph was taken, all the Dorothy Annan murals have been carefully removed from the building by the Museum of London.
Thankfully, the City Corporation, English Heritage and the 20th Century Society were able to find an alternative location for the panels – the Barbican highwalks. You can find Dorothy Annan’s murals between Speed House and the Barbican Centre on the highwalk.
I bought myself an old film camera lens on eBay the other day - for a whole £11.50! The adaptor (£16) I ordered on Amazon turned up yesterday, and I was really excited to try them out today. Had good fun before work and at lunchtime, wandering around the Barbican to find things to photograph. The manual focus is a bit hit and miss (or rather, my control of the manual focus is a bit hit and miss), but I managed to nail a few shots, and I really enjoyed how it made me look at everything differently. I was mostly shooting wide open (f2.8), to try and get some lovely bokeh. Think this is the bokeh-est shot I took!
This could be the start of a vintage lens collection....
London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by N Pevsner (1 Jan 1997)
via this post, although a subsequent one says that "pedways" in this book doesn't necessarily mean "raised walkways", but "any pedestrian space".
Another beautiful day - sunny and warm but beautifully breezy too. I popped my vintage Helios lens on my camera and had a wander on the Barbican highwalk at lunchtime - and came away with loads of shots I'm happy with. This has to be my favourite though :) I never did see the rest of the person these toes belong to - too dozy in the lunchtime sunshine, methinks.
Had another very useful CRM meeting today - getting our current database provider together with our new one, and getting lots of questions resolved. I also spent a lot of time packing stuff up in my office, ready to move upstairs next week.
This evening I met Sarah and Char over near Oxford Circus and we went to see the poet Hollie McNish in The Social. Had a quick beer and burger before heading downstairs for the poetry, which was excellent - so warm and honest and often funny. A brilliant night :) Really quick and easy journey home, too, and Tim came to meet me from the station about 10:30pm.
Bomb Damage near Museum of London, London Wall. The remnants are from 18th - 19th Century buildings that abutted the original Roman Wall defining the City of London.
Went for a haircut after work today - a very short asymmetric bob. I think I like it! I wasn't 100% sure, but Tim made me feel a lot better about it when I got home.
As usual, the hairdresser took great care and a lot of time (over two hours), so here's a shot from my walk home in the dark, along the new bit of highwalk.
OMG, I found a new bit of Barbican highwalk! After years of exploring what I thought was every inch of it, I found a small disconnected bit just off Basinghall Street. And it had a beautiful diamond shaped puddle, reflecting the new London Wall building rather nicely. A nice little find on my way to work this morning :)
Had a good, busy, day at work. Stayed a little late to get a few things finished, then left with Char and Mawreen, who had stayed late too. Got home to Tim and had a nice cosy Friday evening in.
Nice sunny day today - sat over at the Barbican at lunchtime with my friend Sarah. Not a lot to tell from the rest of the day, except from the fact that my Mum, sister, brother and I spent all day emailing back and forth trying to work out the logistics for getting my Mum to her friend's funeral next weekend. Unfortunately, she's still not feeling well though, so has decided to bow out of going - which I have to admit does make everything a bit easier. My brother and I will still be there to represent her.
Spotted these people on my way home peering out of this window at the building site (the London Wall Place development) down below, and liked the scene with the sculpture in the middle.
As part of the Open House London event, I went on a guided tour of The Barbican Centre in London.
We had a look around the highwalks on the estate and the "Conservatory" area, among others.
Some great light on the way to work this morning - I love winter days like this; cold and crisp and sunny :)
Another stupendously busy day. Somehow I have made it through this week not feeling stressed at all - definitely an achievement! We did three more interviews today - all good; going to be hard to make a decision (thankfully the final decision is not mine to make!) Also got a lot of other work done this afternoon - as well as fitting in a quick gossip with some of my favourite colleagues, and doing the weekly fire alarm test.
Caught a slightly later train home (mostly because of the gossipping) - very glad to get home and have an incredibly relaxed Friday evening with Tim.
Leica MP Summitar 1:2 Kodak Portra ISO160
This was shot with a relatively recent Leica MP (probably about 8 years old) and a very old Leica Thread Mount Summitar F2 from the 1950s (6 blade aperture) which I suppose is noted for its centre sharpness and the weird soft bokeh. The Portra of course is brand new.