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The Eden Project is a visitor attraction in Cornwall, England, UK. The project is located in a reclaimed china clay pit, located 2 km (1.2 mi) from the town of St Blazey and 5 km (3 mi) from the larger town of St Austell.
The complex is dominated by two huge enclosures consisting of adjoining domes that house thousands of plant species, and each enclosure emulates a natural biome. The biomes consist of hundreds of hexagonal and pentagonal ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) inflated cells supported by geodesic tubular steel domes. The larger of the two biomes simulates a rainforest environment (and is the largest indoor rainforest in the world) and the second, a Mediterranean environment. The attraction also has an outside botanical garden which is home to many plants and wildlife native to Cornwall and the UK in general; it also has many plants that provide an important and interesting backstory, for example, those with a prehistoric heritage.
There are plans to build an Eden Project North in the seaside town of Morecambe, Lancashire, with a focus on the marine environment.
The clay pit in which the project is sited was in use for over 160 years. In 1981, the pit was used by the BBC as the planet surface of Magrathea in the TV series the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. By the mid-1990s the pit was all but exhausted.
The initial idea for the project dates back to 1996, with construction beginning in 1998. The work was hampered by torrential rain in the first few months of the project, and parts of the pit flooded as it sits 15 m (49 ft) below the water table.
The first part of the Eden Project, the visitor centre, opened to the public in May 2000. The first plants began arriving in September of that year,[8] and the full site opened on 17 March 2001.
To counter criticism from environmental groups, the Eden Project committed to investigate a rail link to the site. The rail link was never built, and car parking on the site is still funded from revenue generated from general admission ticket sales.
The Eden Project was used as a filming location for the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day. On 2 July 2005 The Eden Project hosted the "Africa Calling" concert of the Live 8 concert series. It has also provided some plants for the British Museum's Africa garden.
In 2005, the Project launched "A Time of Gifts" for the winter months, November to February. This features an ice rink covering the lake, with a small café-bar attached, as well as a Christmas market. Cornish choirs regularly perform in the biomes.
In 2007, the Eden Project campaigned unsuccessfully for £50 million in Big Lottery Fund money for a proposed desert biome.[10][11] It received just 12.07% of the votes, the lowest for the four projects being considered. As part of the campaign, the Eden Project invited people all over Cornwall to try to break the world record for the biggest ever pub quiz as part of its campaign to bring £50 million of lottery funds to Cornwall.
In December 2009, much of the project, including both greenhouses, became available to navigate through Google Street View.
The Eden Trust revealed a trading loss of £1.3 million for 2012–13, on a turnover of £25.4 million. The Eden Project had posted a surplus of £136,000 for the previous year. In 2014 Eden accounts showed a surplus of £2 million.
The World Pasty Championships, an international competition to find the best Cornish pasties and other pasty-type savoury snacks, have been held at the Eden Project since 2012.
The Eden Project is said to have contributed over £1 billion to the Cornish economy. In 2016, Eden became home to Europe's second-largest redwood forest (after the Giants Grove at Birr Castle, Birr Castle, Ireland) when forty saplings of coast redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens, which could live for 4,000 years and reach 115 metres in height, were planted there.
The Eden Project received 1,010,095 visitors in 2019.
In December 2020 the project was closed after heavy rain caused several landslips at the site. Managers at the site are assessing the damage and will announce when the project will reopen on the company's website. Reopening became irrelevant as Covid lockdown measures in the UK indefinitely closed the venue from early 2021, though it had reopened by May 2021 after remedial works had taken place. The site was used for an event during the 2021 G7 Summit, hosted by the United Kingdom.
The project was conceived by Tim Smit and Jonathan Ball, and designed by Grimshaw Architects and structural engineering firm Anthony Hunt Associates (now part of Sinclair Knight Merz). Davis Langdon carried out the project management, Sir Robert McAlpine and Alfred McAlpine did the construction, MERO jointly designed and built the biome steel structures, the ETFE pillows that build the façade were realized by Vector Foiltec, and Arup was the services engineer, economic consultant, environmental engineer and transportation engineer. Land Use Consultants led the masterplan and landscape design. The project took 2½ years to construct and opened to the public on 17 March 2001.
Once into the attraction, there is a meandering path with views of the two biomes, planted landscapes, including vegetable gardens, and sculptures that include a giant bee and previously The WEEE Man (removed in 2016), a towering figure made from old electrical appliances and was meant to represent the average electrical waste used by one person in a lifetime.
At the bottom of the pit are two covered biomes:
The Tropical Biome, covers 1.56 ha (3.9 acres) and measures 55 m (180 ft) high, 100 m (328 ft) wide, and 200 m (656 ft) long. It is used for tropical plants, such as fruiting banana plants, coffee, rubber and giant bamboo, and is kept at a tropical temperature and moisture level.
The Mediterranean Biome covers 0.654 ha (1.6 acres) and measures 35 m (115 ft) high, 65 m (213 ft) wide, and 135 m (443 ft) long. It houses familiar warm temperate and arid plants such as olives and grape vines and various sculptures.
The Outdoor Gardens represent the temperate regions of the world with plants such as tea, lavender, hops, hemp, and sunflowers, as well as local plant species.
The covered biomes are constructed from a tubular steel (hex-tri-hex) with mostly hexagonal external cladding panels made from the thermoplastic ETFE. Glass was avoided due to its weight and potential dangers. The cladding panels themselves are created from several layers of thin UV-transparent ETFE film, which are sealed around their perimeter and inflated to create a large cushion. The resulting cushion acts as a thermal blanket to the structure. The ETFE material is resistant to most stains, which simply wash off in the rain. If required, cleaning can be performed by abseilers. Although the ETFE is susceptible to punctures, these can be easily fixed with ETFE tape. The structure is completely self-supporting, with no internal supports, and takes the form of a geodesic structure. The panels vary in size up to 9 m (29.5 ft) across, with the largest at the top of the structure.
The ETFE technology was supplied and installed by the firm Vector Foiltec, which is also responsible for ongoing maintenance of the cladding. The steel spaceframe and cladding package (with Vector Foiltec as ETFE subcontractor) was designed, supplied and installed by MERO (UK) PLC, who also jointly developed the overall scheme geometry with the architect, Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners.
The entire build project was managed by McAlpine Joint Venture.
The Core is the latest addition to the site and opened in September 2005. It provides the Eden Project with an education facility, incorporating classrooms and exhibition spaces designed to help communicate Eden's central message about the relationship between people and plants. Accordingly, the building has taken its inspiration from plants, most noticeable in the form of the soaring timber roof, which gives the building its distinctive shape.
Grimshaw developed the geometry of the copper-clad roof in collaboration with a sculptor, Peter Randall-Page, and Mike Purvis of structural engineers SKM Anthony Hunts. It is derived from phyllotaxis, which is the mathematical basis for nearly all plant growth; the "opposing spirals" found in many plants such as the seeds in a sunflower's head, pine cones and pineapples. The copper was obtained from traceable sources, and the Eden Project is working with Rio Tinto Group to explore the possibility of encouraging further traceable supply routes for metals, which would enable users to avoid metals mined unethically. The services and acoustic, mechanical, and electrical engineering design was carried out by Buro Happold.
The Core is also home to art exhibitions throughout the year. A permanent installation entitled Seed, by Peter Randall-Page, occupies the anteroom. Seed is a large, 70 tonne egg-shaped stone installation standing some 13 feet (4.0 m) tall and displaying a complex pattern of protrusions that are based upon the geometric and mathematical principles that underlie plant growth.
Environmental aspects
The biomes provide diverse growing conditions, and many plants are on display.
The Eden Project includes environmental education focusing on the interdependence of plants and people; plants are labelled with their medicinal uses. The massive amounts of water required to create the humid conditions of the Tropical Biome, and to serve the toilet facilities, are all sanitised rain water that would otherwise collect at the bottom of the quarry. The only mains water used is for hand washing and for cooking. The complex also uses Green Tariff Electricity – the energy comes from one of the many wind turbines in Cornwall, which were among the first in Europe.
In December 2010 the Eden Project received permission to build a geothermal electricity plant which will generate approx 4MWe, enough to supply Eden and about 5000 households. The project will involve geothermal heating as well as geothermal electricity. Cornwall Council and the European Union came up with the greater part of £16.8m required to start the project. First a well will be sunk nearly 3 miles (4.5 km) into the granite crust underneath Eden.
Eden co-founder, Sir Tim Smit said, "Since we began, Eden has had a dream that the world should be powered by renewable energy. The sun can provide massive solar power and the wind has been harnessed by humankind for thousands of years, but because both are intermittent and battery technology cannot yet store all we need there is a gap. We believe the answer lies beneath our feet in the heat underground that can be accessed by drilling technology that pumps water towards the centre of the Earth and brings it back up superheated to provide us with heat and electricity".
Drilling began in May 2021, and it was expected the project would be completed by 2023
Other projects
Eden Project Morecambe
In 2018, the Eden Project revealed its design for a new version of the project, located on the seafront in Morecambe, Lancashire. There will be biomes shaped like mussels and a focus on the marine environment. There will also be reimagined lidos, gardens, performance spaces, immersive experiences, and observatories.
Grimshaw are the architects for the project, which is expected to cost £80 million. The project is a partnership with the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership, Lancaster University, Lancashire County Council, and Lancaster City Council. In December 2018, the four local partners agreed to provide £1 million to develop the idea, which allowed the development of an outline planning application for the project. It is expected that there will be 500 jobs created and 8,000 visitors a day to the site.
Having been granted planning permission in January 2022 and with £50 million of levelling-up funding granted in January 2023, it is due to open in 2026 and predicted to benefit the North West economy by £200 million per year.
Eden Project Dundee
In May 2020, the Eden Project revealed plans to establish their first attraction in Scotland, and named Dundee as the proposed site of the location. The city's Camperdown Park was widely touted to be the proposed location of the new attraction however in May 2021, it was announced that the Eden Project had chosen the site of the former gasworks in Dundee as the location. It was planned that the new development would result in 200 new jobs and "contribute £27m a year to the regional economy". The project is in partnership with Dundee City Council, the University of Dundee and the Northwood Charitable Trust.
In 2021, Eden Project announced that they would establish fourteen hectares of new wildflower habitat in areas across Dundee, including Morgan Academy and Caird Park.
In July 2023, new images were released depicting what the Dundee attraction would look which accompanied the planning permission documents for the new attraction which would be submitted by autumn 2023.
South Downs
In 2020, Eastbourne Borough Council and the Eden Project announced a joint project to explore the viability of a new Eden site in the South Downs National Park.
Qingdao, China
In 2015, the Eden Project announced that it had reached an agreement to construct an Eden site in Qingdao, China. While the site had originally been slated to open by 2020, construction fell behind schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the opening date was delayed to 2023. The new site is expected to focus on "water" and its central role in civilization and nature.
Eden Project New Zealand
A planned Eden Project for the New Zealand city of Christchurch, to be called Eden Project New Zealand/Eden Project Aotearoa, is expected to be inaugurated in 2025. It is to be centred close to the Avon River, on a site largely razed as a result of the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake.
Eden Sessions
Since 2002, the Project has hosted a series of musical performances, called the Eden Sessions, usually held during the summer.
The 2024 sessions will be headlined by Fatboy Slim, Suede, Manic Street Preachers, The National, JLS, Crowded House, Rick Astley, Tom Grennan and Paolo Nutini.
In the media
The Eden Project has appeared in various television shows and films such as the James Bond film Die Another Day, The Bad Education Movie, in the Netflix series The Last Bus, and in the CBeebies show Andy's Aquatic Adventure.
A weekly radio show called The Eden Radio Project is held every Thursday afternoon on Radio St Austell Bay.
On 18 November 2019, on the Trees A Crowd podcast, David Oakes would interview the Eden Project's Head of Interpretation, Dr Jo Elworthy, about the site.
Alternating expanses of beige and slate grey siding begin to cover Tyvek on a new apartment building
Built in 1923, this Renaissance Revival-style twenty-story skyscraper was designed by George B. Post and Sons to house the Buffalo Statler Hotel, part of the Statler Hotel chain that was headquartered in Buffalo. The second permanent hotel that the Statler family built in Buffalo, the building replaced an earlier hotel that stood on the site, housed in the former Millard Fillmore mansion, known as the Castle Inn, and an earlier flagship Statler Hotel, which was built in 1907, and located at the southeast corner of Swan Street and Washington Street in a building that was heavily influenced by the nearby Guaranty Building. Ellsworth Milton Statler, whom owned the business, had started in the hospitality industry with a restaurant in the basement of the Ellicott Square building in 1896, expanding with a 2,000-room temporary hotel at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, and a 2,200 room hotel at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, which were so successful that Statler, a former bellhop, decided to re-enter the Hotel business permanently. The present building was the flagship hotel for the chain, which was based in Buffalo, but had hotels all around the United States, which featured amenities that are commonly expected today, including private bathrooms, telephones in each room, and free stationery and newspapers, and were priced at a moderate cost for more average travelers, rather than being targeted at wealthy clientele. Statler also wanted to attract the city’s elite to his establishment, and thus bought the nearby Iroquois Hotel, a longstanding center of social life for Buffalo’s elite and business class, in 1923, and closed it a day after his new hotel opened. Arguably, the original Hotel Statler was more architecturally significant, as it was one of the largest ever Art Nouveau buildings constructed in the United States, and featured a far more unique and distinctive interior and exterior, as well as being the first hotel to have all the innovative features that Statler became known for. Like the similarly significant Larkin Building, however, the original Statler Hotel Buffalo was demolished in 1968 to make way for a “shovel-ready” development site, with no regard for the non-monetary value of the building. Private development never materialized on the site, and it sat as a barren parking lot until a baseball stadium and plaza were built on the site in the late 20th Century.
The building features a tripartite composition, with a four-story base, which extends to the rear (east) of the tower along Genesee Street and Mohawk Street to Franklin Street, which contains many of the hotel’s major public spaces, including meeting rooms, ballrooms, lobbies, and retail spaces. Above the base rises a tower, twenty stories tall and E-shaped, with two light wells on the western side of the building that extend deep into the block to the east, with a largely unadorned red brick-clad section between the sill line of the windows on the sixth floor to the sill line of the windows on the eighteenth floor, forming the “shaft” of the composition. At the top is a more richly detailed three-story section of the building, forming the “capital” of the composition, drawing the eye upwards and emphasizing the verticality of the building. The first floor is clad in stone with rustication, with the second and third floors sharing large window bays with decorative surrounds, which include decorative keystones, broken pediments with cartouches, triple arched window openings flanked by doric pilasters and recessed niches on the western facade, paired arched windows facing Niagara Square, separated by doric pilasters, and smaller windows at the east end of the building along Franklin Street and Mohawk Street. Above the arched window bays are low-slope roofs enclosed by decorative balustrades, with smaller window openings on the fourth floor featuring decorative stone trim, with the window bays around the perimeter of the base of the tower portion of the building being flanked by doric pilasters, with an architrave with triglyphs and decorative reliefs above the pilasters, and a cornice featuring modillions running around the sill line of the fifth floor windows, marking the base of the transition from the base to the shaft. The fifth floor features windows with decorative surrounds and keystones with busts, and is topped with a cornice, which is the last strong horizontal datum before the building becomes an unadorned brick shaft for the next twelve floors. The building features double-hung and fixed windows, some of which are original, and others of which are replacements, with two-over-two windows being predominant between the sixth and eighteenth floors. On the eighteenth floor, the sill line of the windows is a line of stone belt coursing, with decorative window trim at the window openings, and a cornice with dentils above the windows, originally extending further out from the facade, but having been chiseled away due to structural issues in the late 20th Century. The nineteenth and twentieth floors feature decorative trim once again, with the outermost bays of the individual north and south facades, as well as the west facade, featuring single windows flanked by doric pilasters with decorative window trim, including busts on the keystones, and the middle bays being recessed, flanked by ionic pilasters, with copper spandrel panels. The top of the twentieth floor windows is a line of belt coursing, above which are a few courses of brick, with decorative reliefs above the doric pilasters on the east and west facades, which sits below the building’s cornice, which features brackets, and runs around the base of the brick parapet that encloses the building’s low-slope roof. Atop the parapet above the doric pilasters are decorative urns. The rear of the building also features a large circulation tower, housing the building’s main stairways and elevators, which features a largely unadorned facade with four oxeye openings with stone trim at the top, with this being the least detailed section of the building’s exterior.
Inside, the building features many original semi-public spaces that have been partially preserved from the original period of construction and function as a hotel. These include the “palm room”, the main lobby that is themed after a tropical garden, which sits just outside the hotel’s main dining room, a two-story space with a vaulted ceiling, decorative archways, paired arched second-story openings with balustrades and columns, arched windows above the dining room entrance, an entrance portico at the dining room with ionic columns, a decorative cornice, a broken pediment with a cartouche, and a decorative balustrade atop the portico, and a fountain surrounded by greco-roman statues. There is also the Terrace Room, which features a decorative beam ceiling, ionic columns, and a section of the ceiling that is vaulted, the golden ballroom, formerly the hotel’s main dining room, which features a cantilevered second-story balcony with ionic columns featuring capitals and accents clad in gold leaf, decorative trim and panels clad in gold leaf, a wooden parquet floor, and a vaulted ceiling, and a room in the mezzanine with well-preserved carved wood paneling and black marble fireplace surrounds. Other spaces, including the lounge, tea room, cafeteria, swimming pool, and turkish baths, have not been preserved in as intact of a condition.
The hotel began to see a decline in occupancy with the onset of the Great Depression, with several of its 1,100 rooms regularly sitting vacant. As a result, it began to see portions of its interior converted into office space, which accelerated after the opening of the WBEN TV studio in the building. The Statler hotel chain was bought out by Hilton in 1954, which continued to use the Statler brand on hotels that the chain had already built, but eventually phased it out. The hotel finally shuttered in 1984, with the building being renamed the Statler Towers. The building became largely vacant, with only the lower floors being occupied, with the highest occupancy being in the street-facing retail spaces. In the 2000s, the building was slated for conversion into a hotel and condominium, but this proved unsuccessful when the entity that owned the building went bankrupt, leading to a foreclosure and the building being threatened with demolition. Preservationists worked hard to save the building, leading to it being auctioned to a developer in 2010, whom started to stabilize the structure and address its deferred maintenance, reopening the event spaces on the lower floors in 2011, with plans to eventually renovate the rest of the building with an incremental, multi-phased approach. After that developer died, the building was sold to another developer, whom has announced plans to convert the base into a combination of parking, meeting and event space, amenity space, and retail space, with 600 apartments on the upper levels, with work being well underway in 2022.
“There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest clothed to its very hollows in snow. It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.” ~ William Sharp
Okay, feeling a bit of nostalgia today...two weeks from today, we will be headed to our "home away from home" to ring in the New Year....can't think of a better way to spend the holiday than being with my soulmate in one of the most magical places we've ever visited. And as I was going through some of my archives from previous winters' trips, I came across one of my favorites....it was a dark, gloomy, snowy, & bitterly cold January day, but that always pales in comparison to being surrounded by such incredible natural beauty.
Have a fabulous Thursday...and thanks as always for stopping by to visit :-)
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the 3rd week of December, 2016.
On occasional check on works on-going close to the centre of Bray itself, in and around the Bridge.
This is a section of the flood protection scheme that I haven't covered in any great detail. Inconvenient for me to access, and others cover it much better.
Check out 'Turgidson'.
Looking upriver, towards the People's Park, standing on the 'Fran O'Toole Bridge' with the new boardwalk under construction.
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Bray gets a riverside boardwalk as part of the final element of the River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
The boardwalk - similar to the one along the River Liffey in Dublin city centre - will be incorporated into the wall beside the Fran O Toole Bridge.
It will connect Castle Street to the Peoples Park and will be a welcome added amenity for Bray.
The boardwalk forms part of the final large works package for the River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
This part of the scheme runs from the People's Park to the Railway Bridge on the Little Bray side of the river.
The works consist of curved sheet piled walls approaching the railway bridge which will be faced with masonry and the construction of footpaths in this area.
There will also be a stone faced sheet pile wall along the Lower Dargle Road from beside the Fran O'Toole Bridge to the Peoples Park.
The work is very timely as part of the existing inner wall alongside the Lower Dargle Road was severely undermined and collapsed during a storm which occurred just before Christmas.
When the project is completed, Bray will be protected from a one-in-one-hundred year storm, including all the floods of the sort that would have ravaged the town in the 20th century, and a one-in-200 year tidal event.
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These images shows the skeleton of the structure 'hanging' from the upgraded stone-clad wall, adjacent to Upper Dargle Road.
This part of the scheme runs from the People's Park to the Railway Bridge on the Little Bray side of the river.
On this particular day, the high water mark is actually caused by the high sea tide, pushing upriver from the Bray harbour estuary. This is not the result of waters running down-river from the nearby mountains. Hence the calm still appearance.
Fishing pier at Arrowhead Marsh
The telephoto lens compressed the perspective. Before they replaced and clad the pilings in concrete, shipworms had almost eaten through.
MLK Shoreline Regional Park, Oakland, CA
Bain News Service,, publisher.
Ice-clad whaleback on lakes
[between ca. 1915 and ca. 1920]
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.
Notes:
Title from unverified data provided by the Bain News Service on the negatives or caption cards.
Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).
Format: Glass negatives.
Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication. For more information, see George Grantham Bain Collection - Rights and Restrictions Information www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/274_bain.html
Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Part Of: Bain News Service photograph collection (DLC) 2005682517
General information about the George Grantham Bain Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain
Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.31625
Call Number: LC-B2- 5328-14
Klyngehuset Kronjylland is a modern community centre serving 13 villages near Albæk in Jutland, Denmark - the striking timber architecture features three independent volumes joined by a large circular roof, providing versatile spaces for events and gatherings, embedded in a lush biodiversity landscape park.
Architecture & landscape: C. F. Møller Architects, 2024
Por favor, no use esta imagen en los sitios web, blogs u otros medios de comunicación sin mi permiso explícito - Todos los derechos reservados © OLPHO Rodolfo Velasco.
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission - All Rights Reserved © OLPHO Rodolfo Velasco.
Mi web: www.rollcreativo.com/
Detail of the Cedar cladding on the exteroir of the Hopkins Architects designed London 2012 Velodrome.
From Wikipedia : "In 2009, at the time work began on the construction of the velodrome, the estimated cost of that facility alone was £105 million. Work on the velodrome was completed in February 2011, and was the first Olympic Park venue to be completed. The roof is designed to reflect the geometry of cycling as well as being lightweight and efficient reflecting a bike. There is also a 360-degree concourse level with windows allowing people views of the Olympic Park. The velodrome is energy efficient—rooflights reduce the need for artificial lights, and natural ventilation reduces the need for air condition. Rain water is also collected, which reduces the amount of water used from the municipal water system."
K190 has recently had new boiler cladding applied. Apprentice Fitter Tim takes a well-earned rest amongst the humidity to have a chat to the Secretary.
Text Copyright www.serpentinegalleries.org 2018
“Serpentine Pavilion 2018 designed by Frida Escobedo
Summary:
Architect Frida Escobedo, celebrated for dynamic projects that reactivate urban space, has been commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2018. Harnessing a subtle interplay of light, water and geometry, her atmospheric courtyard-based design draws on both the domestic architecture of Mexico and British materials and history, specifically the Prime Meridian line at London’s Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
Detail:
Escobedo (b. 1979, Mexico City) is the 18th and youngest architect yet to accept the invitation to design a temporary Pavilion on the Serpentine Gallery lawn in Kensington Gardens. This pioneering commission, which began in 2000 with Zaha Hadid, has presented the first UK buildings of some of the biggest names in international architecture. In recent years, it has grown into a hotly anticipated showcase for emerging talent, from Sou Fujimoto of Japan to selgascano of Spain and Bjarke Ingels of Denmark. Serpentine Galleries Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO Yana Peel selected this year’s architect, with advisors David Adjaye and Richard Rogers.
Escobedo’s Pavilion takes the form of an enclosed courtyard, comprised of two rectangular volumes positioned at an angle. While the outer walls are aligned with the Serpentine Gallery’s eastern façade, the axis of the internal courtyard aligns directly to the north. Internal courtyards are a common feature of Mexican domestic architecture, while the Pavilion’s pivoted axis refers to the Prime Meridian, which was established in 1851 at Greenwich and became the global standard marker of time and geographical distance.
British-made materials have been used in the Pavilion’s construction, chosen for their dark colours and textured surfaces. A celosia – a traditional breeze wall also common to Mexican architecture – is here composed of a lattice of cement roof tiles that diffuse the view out into the park, transforming it into a vibrant blur of greens and blues from within. Two reflecting elements emphasise the movement of light and shadow inside the Pavilion over the course of the day. The curved underside of the canopy is clad with mirrored panels, and a triangular pool cast into the Pavilion floor traces its boundary directly beneath the edge of the roof, along the north axis of the Meridian. As the sun moves across the sky, reflected and refracted by these features, visitors may feel a heightened awareness of time spent in play, improvisation and contemplation over the summer months.
Escobedo’s prize-winning work in urban reactivation ranges from housing and community centres to hotels and galleries. In 2006, she founded her practice in Mexico City, with significant national projects including the Librería del Fondo Octavio Paz and an extension of La Tallera Siqueiros gallery in Cuernavaca. Her designs have featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2012 and 2014), the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2013), and in San Francisco, London and New York. Recent projects include Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and social housing projects in Guerrero and Saltillo, Mexico. She lectures nationally and internationally, and has won multiple awards and accolades.
The Serpentine Pavilion 2018 will once again be a platform for Park Nights, the Serpentine’s annual programme of experimental and interdisciplinary evenings on selected Fridays. Practitioners in the fields of art, architecture, music, film, theory and dance will be commissioned to create new, site-specific works in response to Escobedo’s design, offering unique ways of experiencing architecture and performance, sponsored by COS. Building on its 2017 success, Radical Kitchen also returns to the Pavilion on selected Thursday lunchtimes, inviting community groups, artists, activists, writers and architects to form connections through food. This programme of workshops, performances and talks will address geological time, empire and movements, inspired by the ideas behind Escobedo’s Pavilion design. The Architecture Family Pack and Programme, sponsored by COS, will give children and their families the chance to explore the Serpentine Pavilion from playful and original perspectives.
"I think one needs to plan for change. Make everything more flexible in every way, so that the building become more like a palm tree and less like a completely rigid structure, because that’s the one that will fall down. Rigid things collapse. The rest can move, yes, it transforms, it may lose sections, but its spirit will remain." Frida Escobedo in an interview with The Fabulist. On the occasion of the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, the Serpentine has partnered with Aesop to co-present a special issue of The Fabulist that explores the themes of the Serpentine’s summer season and celebrates Aesop’s support of Live Programmes at the Serpentine.
Serpentine Pavilion Architect's Statement
The design for the Serpentine Pavilion 2018 is a meeting of material and historical inspirations inseparable from the city of London itself and an idea which has been central to our practice from the beginning: the expression of time in architecture through inventive use of everyday materials and simple forms. For the Serpentine Pavilion, we have added the materials of light and shadow, reflection and refraction, turning the building into a timepiece that charts the passage of the day. “
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we have headed south-west across London, away from Cavendish Mews and Mayfair, over Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to the comfortably affluent Kensington High Street. Here, amidst the two and three storey buildings that line either side of the street, Edith, Lettice’s maid, walks amidst the other pedestrians with purpose. Dressed in her three-quarter length black coat which she bought from a Petticoat Lane* second-hand clothes stall and remodelled herself, and wearing the black straw cloche decorated with purple satin roses and black feathers she picked up from Mrs. Minkin’s - a Whitechapel haberdasher recommended by Lettice’s char**, Mrs. Boothby – she tries to blend in with the other affluent local women on pleasant pre-Christmas shopping outings. However, if she is concerned about how fashionably she is dressed, no-one else around her seems to give it a thought. Christmas is not far away now, with only a few weeks until Christmas Day, and signs of festive cheer abound with bright and gaudy tinsel*** garlands and stars cut from metallic paper hanging in shop windows on either side of the busy thoroughfare. The windows themselves are full of the latest fashions, toys and gadgets for the ladies of Kensington to choose their perfect Christmas gifts from. The shops are busy, and the pavement is crowded with meandering shoppers and window shoppers alike. Yet as her heels clip along the footpath, Edith has no time to tarry admiring window displays. She has an important errand to run in Kensington on her Wednesday off before heading north to the working-class London suburb of Harlesden, where she will pay her usual weekly visit to her parents.
Finally Edith reaches the splendid blue and white tile decorated façade she has been walking brusquely towards. Stylised and elegant gilt lettering on the windows to either side of the central double doors reads: ‘Langham’s – meat, fish, poultry, game and ice’. She peers through the large plate glass window at the splendid Christmas fare on display. A huge turkey sits in pride of place on a large silver platter, decorated with ornamental feathers and surrounded by greenery and raw vegetables. She sighs and walks quickly through the door of the butcher’s shop. The shop bell releases a cheery tingle as the wood and glass door closes behind her, shutting out the constant chugging of the engines of passing traffic and red double-decker London motorbuses, and the burble of human traffic passing by, and enveloping her in serene silence. Edith closes her eyes for a moment before opening them again. As her eyes adjust to being indoors the now familiar layout of the butcher’s shop emerges. Edith remembers with awkward embarrassment the first time Frank had brought her into Mr. Langham’s butcher’s shop and how intimidated she was by it. Unlike Mr. Chapman’s, the local butcher’s shop in Harlesden where she grew up, which has a warm and cosy feel to it, Mr. Langham’s establishment is spacious, stylish all about show. The floors are tiled in luxurious black and white chequered linoleum, just like the kitchen floor at Cavendish Mews, with not a wood shaving**** in sight, as most of the butchering is done by Mr. Langham and his sons out of sight of customers in a back room. The walls are lined from floor to ceiling with white tiles with a few bands of decorative green ones, and hung with brightly painted metal signs advertising condiments. Rather than a wooden counter like Mr. Chapman’s, which encouraged shoppers to lean in and tarry for a gossip, Mr. Langham’s counter is made of panelled glass and filled with the most wonderful displays of meat, fish and poultry. Yet as soon as Frank introduced Edith to his friend Percy, dressed in a uniform of a navy blue vest and a blue and white striped apron just like Mr. Chapman’s, her nerves fell away. He smiled at her broadly and welcomed her warmly, even if she was most likely the only girl from Harlesden ever to be served by him in his establishment. A mature, rather portly man with a jolly disposition to match his apple cheeks, Mr. Langham was delighted to meet his friend Frank’s young lady, and was only too happy to be of service to her once Frank explained what Edith’s plans were. And ever since then, a fortnightly ritual had occurred where she visited Mr. Langham before going on to see her parents on her Wednesdays off.
“Well, if it isn’t my favourite maid from Mayfair!” Mr. Langham remarks with his usual smile and easy manner from behind the counter as he sees Edith walk through the door.
“Oh Mr. Langham!” Edith blushes at his compliment. “You do know how to make a maid feel like a lady!”
“Come to get away from the Christmas rush out there then, have you, Miss Watsford?” the butcher chortles as he carefully adjusts the position of a fat turkey on a white raised platter on his counter, fussing over several large feathers used to decorate it until they fan out perfectly.
“Oh yes,” remarks Edith with a timid chuckle. “It’s so busy out there this week.”
“Never get between a Kensington housewife and her Christmas shopping, Miss Watsford.” Mr. Langham says jovially. “That’s my advice.”
“And very wise and welcome it is too, Mr. Langham.” Edith replies with a sigh as she walks up to the counter.
Over the ensuing months since Frank first brought her to Mr. Langham’s butcher’s shop in Kensington, Edith has discovered, much to her delight, that whilst it might be glass and used for the successful display and promotion of his fare, Mr. Langham’s counter is every bit as welcoming as a place to perch and chat as Mr. Chapman’s is in Harlesden. Edith places her green leather handbag across the glass countertop and hooks her black umbrella over the slightly raised maple edging and she leans in to peer at what lies under the glass. Trays of fat sausages and rich beef mince sit alongside steaks and chops, whilst a whole boar’s head with an apple stuck in his mouth peers back at her from another raised platter with squinted eyes and a broad smile.
“Fancy having that sitting in the middle of your Christmas table, Miss Watsford?” the butcher says in an ebullient voice, noting where Edith’s eyes have strayed to.
“No fear, Mr. Langham!” Edith replies, holding up her purple glove clad hands in defence. “I’d rather not have my meal looking at me as Dad prepares to carve it!”
“Well,” Mr. Langham says, looking down upon the boar. “He’s destined for a house in Rosary Gardens in Chelsea next week for a pre-Christmas dinner party. Mrs. Phyllida Cavendish is hosting a cocktail party, and he is to be the centre of her light buffet supper. To amuse her guests, he will be sporting a festive Christmas crown that she is making for him,” He sniffs. “Or so I have been told by Mrs. Cavendish several times.”
“That sounds positively frightful, Mr. Langham!” Edith pulls a face.
“Quite so, Miss Watsford.” agrees the butcher. “But then again, Phyllida Cavendish is an artist, so no doubt she and her odd bohemian friends will find some macabre humour in it. Perhaps they shall dance some pagan rights with him in her rear garden after midnight.”
“You do have some odd customers, Mr. Langham.” Edith remarks, clasping at the scarf at her throat.
“Only the ones from bohemian Chelsea.” he replies with a chuckle.
“Well, I think I’ll just stick to a nice old fashioned and succulent turkey from your shop this Christmas, Mr. Langham.”
“Come to pay off the final instalment have you, Miss Watsford?”
“Just as we agreed, Mr. Langham.” Edith nods cheerfully.
“I’ll just go and fetch my accounts book from the office.” he replies as he moves away from Edith, almost gliding across his elegant black and white linoleum floors as befits the owner of this elegant establishment.
As he does, Edith smiles to herself. How surprised her whole family will be when a fine, fat turkey arrives at her home in Harlesden just before Christmas, big enough to feed her parents, her brother – who will be home for Christmas on shore leave, Frank, Frank’s Scottish grandmother Mrs. McTavish and herself, and have leftovers for after Christmas. Christmas in the Watsford household has never been a lean one, even during the Great War with rationing, especially with her father’s canny ability to procure certain foods at a reasonable price, like the smaller turkey he acquired two Christmases ago, and her mother’s ability to make a feast out of anything left laying around her kitchen. However, even with those skills, George and Ada have expressed concerns about being able to feed everyone sufficiently on Christmas Day, even with Mrs. McTavish suphome-madee of her homemade Christmas puddings. Edith had caught her mother looking through old recipe books for imitation foodstuffs to supplement or replace real ones usually used by her at Christmas, and seen her carefully count the housekeeping money, scrimping and saving where she feels she can, to allow for extra expenditures for Christmas. Despite her mother’s refusal to take any of her wages from her, Edith wanted to contribute to Christmas this year especially since it was she who had suggested inviting Frank and his grandmother to Christmas lunch. When Frank mentioned how Mr. Langham was a butcher friend he had, and it was from him that he procured a small roast chicken for he and his grandmother every year, Edith knew immediately how she was going to contribute to Christmas 1923.
“Well, Miss Watsford,” Mr. Langham announces as he returns with her account. “I’m very pleased to accept your final payment for your family’s Christmas turkey. And a fine one he is too, if I may say!”
“Thank you, Mr. Langham. You may.” Edith replies with pride in her voice as she fetches out her small reticule***** from her handbag and counts out the last few shillings payment for the turkey.
“No, thank you, Miss Watsford, for being such a polite and promptly paying customer. I wish more of my customers were like you.”
“Oh I’m sure the likes of Mrs. Cavendish spend far more than I do.” Edith replies, indicating to the boar’s head.
“Oh, Phyllida Cavendish is very good at filling up my account book, but she is far less prompt paying what she owes.” Mr. Langham says with a cocked eyebrow and a knowing look. “No,” the butcher continues cheerfully as he accepts Edith’s shillings and pops them with a clink into his gleaming brass till. “I wish I had a daughter like you. It isn’t every day a daughter buys a turkey for her whole family for Christmas.”
“Well,” Lettice replies, blushing again. “Langham and Sons sounds and looks far more impressive over the front door than Langham and daughter.”
“Be that as it may, I’d give anything for my lads to offer to pay for our Christmas turkey, Miss Watsford, let me assure you!”
“Will you be supplying your own turkey then, Mr. Langham?”
“If not me, then who else, Miss Watsford? Mrs. Langham is expecting a fine turkey this year, and that is what she shall have if I know what’s good for me and want a peaceable festive season.”
“Oh you are a wag, Mr. Langham!” Edith laughs, flapping her hand at the middle-aged butcher. “I’m sure Mrs. Langham is the most charming and delightful wife in Kensington.”
“That she is, Miss Watsford,” agrees the older man. “But if you don’t mind me saying, she isn’t half as pretty as you.”
“Oh Mr. Langham!” Edith puts her hands to her cheeks as she feels the warmth of the colour filling them.
“I know! I know!” Mr. Langham raises his hands in defence. “You’re spoken for. That Frank Leadbetter is a lucky chap, stepping out with a girl as thoughtful and beautiful as you.”
In an effort to change the subject, Edith asks, “So the turkey will be delivered on what day, Mr. Langham?”
“Friday the twenty-third, Miss Watsford,” the butcher replies. “To the address you’ve given me here.” He taps George and Ada’s address in Harlesden on the top of Edith’s account with his grey lead pencil. “When will you tell your Mum?”
“Well, now that it’s paid off, I might tell her today.” Edith contemplates. “I’m off to visit her now. And,” she adds. “If I tell her and Dad today, then Dad won’t go and organise something else in the meantime, like he usually does.”
“Good thinking, Miss Watsford.” Mr. Langham replies cheerily, tapping his nose in a knowing fashion.
“Well, I must be going, Mr. Langham.” Edith announces, taking up her handbag and umbrella from the shop counter. “I have to get over to Harlesden, and that’s no short trip from here.”
“Well, you must take a slice of Mrs. Langham’s Christmas fruit cake for the journey.” the butcher replies, indicating to four thick slices of cake encased in a thick layer of white royal icing sitting on a tray directly below one of his wife’s beautifully decorated Christmas cakes on a raised platter sitting on the counter next to the till.
“Oh I couldn’t possibly, Mr. Langham!” Edith declines vehemently. “They are for your customers to promote your wife’s excellent baking skills. Have you sold many of Mrs. Langham’s Christmas cakes this year?”
“Quite a few as a matter of fact.” he announces proudly. “Certainly enough to have had her baking a few extra cakes in the last few months.” He smiles at Edith. “But at this late stage in the lead up to Christmas, no-one is going to want to buy one of her cakes now. Those slices will only go to the children who visit me with their parents, or go to waste as they dry out sitting there.” He goes on, “And since this will be the last time I see you before Christmas, Miss Watsford, consider it a Christmas present, and a small token of both mine, and my wife’s esteem.”
He picks up the square silver dish and holds it out to Edith.
“Well…” Edith acquiesces hesitantly.
“That’s my girl!” Mr. Langham’s eyes light up. “Take a slice for your Mum too. I’m sure it isn’t every day she gets the treat of a cake baked by someone other than her.”
“Indeed no, Mr. Langham. She taught me how to bake, but even I don’t dare serve her one of my cakes. She’s a seasoned baker is my Mum.”
“Well, so is Mrs. Langham, Miss Watsford.” He smiles broadly. “I’ll just wrap them up in some brown paper and twine. Merry Christmas Miss Watsford.”
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Langham.” Edith answers happily.
*Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
**A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
***One of the most famous Christmas decorations that people love to use at Christmas is tinsel. You might think that using it is an old tradition and that people in Britain have been adorning their houses with tinsel for a very long time. However that is not actually true. Tinsel is in fact believed to be quite a modern tradition. Whilst the idea of tinsel dates back to Germany in 1610 when wealthy people used real strands of silver to adorn their Christmas trees (also a German invention). Silver was very expensive though, so being able to do this was a sign that you were wealthy. Even though silver looked beautiful and sparkly to begin with, it tarnished quite quickly, meaning it would lose its lovely, bright appearance. Therefore it was swapped for other materials like copper and tin. These metals were also cheaper, so it meant that more people could use them. However, when the Great War started in 1914, metals like copper were needed for the war. Because of this, they couldn't be used for Christmas decorations as much, so a substitute was needed. It was swapped for aluminium, but this was a fire hazard, so it was switched for lead, but that turned out to be poisonous.
****Regardless of where the butchers shop was, whether a suburban or up-market shop or a small concern in a village, the standard practice was to dust the wooden floorboards of the shop behind the counter where the butchering was done with sawdust. The idea was that the sawdust would sop up any spilled blood or dropped offcuts of meat that was easy to sweep away and helped prevent slips.
*****A reticule also known as a ridicule or indispensable, was a type of small handbag or purse, typically having a drawstring and decorated with embroidery or beading, similar to a modern evening bag, used mainly from 1795 to before the Great War.
This smart and stylish upper-class Edwardian butchers is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The dressed turkey on the counter and the stuffed pig’s head and trays of cuts of meat inside the counter come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The joints of meat in the background, on the bench, in the meat safe and hanging from hooks above it also come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.
The cranberry glass footed platter on the counter is made of real, finely spun glass, and comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The beautifully decorated Christmas cake atop it is a 1:12 artisan miniature which also comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The slices of fruitcake in front of it on the silver plate is a 1:12 artisan miniature I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.
To the left of the photo is a food safe. In the days before refrigeration, or when refrigeration was expensive, perishable foods such as meat, butter, milk and eggs were kept in a food safe. Winter was easier than summer to keep food fresh and butter coolers and shallow bowls of cold water were early ways to keep things like milk and butter cool. A food safe was a wooden cupboard with doors and sides open to the air apart from a covering of fine galvinised wire mesh. This allowed the air to circulate while keeping insects out. There was usually an upper and a lower compartment, normally lined with what was known as American cloth, a fabric with a glazed or varnished wipe-clean surface. Refrigerators, like washing machines were American inventions and were not commonplace in even wealthy upper-class households until well after the Second World War.
The shiny metal cash register comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The red and black painted scales and weights, I have had since I was a teenager.
Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. The black umbrella came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.
The advertising signs in the background come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.
I found the under construction glass clad building on Washington Street a neat night time photo subject. It's no Louvre, but those exposed lights and big windows really pop at night.
The Standard Hotel in the upper right straddles the High Line. I recall when the hotel opened, that some guests flashed onlookers from their windows, but I haven't heard anything about that in awhile.
More photos like this one are in my set
More photos taken with the Nokton 17.5mm are in my set
Date of Interview: September 23, 1929 (2012)
Interviewer: Zoe Foodiboo
Sein Loire (photographer)
Interviewee(s): Dora Duchamp Mills
Location: Home of Dora Duchamp, Behrenstrasse 3, 1920s Berlin Project (owned and managed by Frau Jo Yardley), Second Life.
Abstract: A tenant of 1920s Berlin for nearly two years and the wife of Herr Aldo Mills, Dora Duchamp Mills is a member of the dance troupe ‘The Flapperettes’ as well as the founder of two groups: the Berlin Ladies’ Social Club and the Jazz Babies. Her other projects include organizing a men’s leg competition and hosting two baby showers. She is the founder of Jazz Age Music, which releases music collections for the recently released Matova Vintage Radio. The Stephanie Helstein case is also mentioned. Other tenants mentioned in this interview include: Aldo Mills, Taena Matova, Frau Jo Yardley, Crispin Sturges, Cuthbert Helendale, Morganic Clarrington, Sonatta Morales, Aloysia Moyet, Pola Solo, Desireme Fallen, Wulfride Blitzen, Adele, Kling, Luzie Cheng, Tequila Mockingbird, Sasa Steigerweld, Victoria “Lulu” Weibes, Zeno McAuley, Gustov Chesnokov, Paul vonTrumper, Sein Loire, Max Beckert, and Annett Jameson (Boehme).
**********
Zoe Foodiboo: Alright. So how did you discover Berlin?
DoraDuchamp: I heard about it from a friend...
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: She only came in once or twice but when she told me about it I felt I had to come and investigate. (I will put ooc [out of character] stuff in parentheses)
ZF: perfect
DD: (As a kid I always wanted to be a flapper...so how could I resist a 1920s Berlin sim?) I came in January of 2011 and was immediately hooked. I got an apartment right away...my first place was 7D Frederichstrasse...really a dump...the attic of the building.
Zoe Foodiboo nods and scribbles
DD: The apartments in that building are quite nice, but not mine.
Zoe Foodiboo chuckles.
DD: It was just one sparse room. I met Zeno [Zeno McAuley] my first couple of weeks and he gave me an old bed he wasn't using anymore.
ZF: kind of him!
DD: Yes Zeno was very kind to me from the beginning. The only other furniture I had was a table, and a rug with some throw pillows, and a chair. Before I came here I was in Paris - (that is backstory not SL reality)- staying with my cousin, and then I came here. My friend Taena [Taena Matova] followed shortly (we knew each other from other sims)
Zoe Foodiboo smiles, remembering her own humble beginnings in Berlin
DD: she was my roommate for a short while until I met Aldo [Aldo Mills]
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: ...then I moved into his place which was a couple doors down on Frederichstrasse
ZF: How long were you there?
DD: The second place? Oh I can't recall exactly..not that long
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: I met Aldo at Der Keller. He pretty much swept me off my feet.
Dora giggles
Zoe Foodiboo snuggles in, ready to hear a good love story
DD: Yes well I did not plan on getting married...but it just happened. I always say dancing is dangerous because it can lead to marriage.
Zoe Foodiboo grins
DD: He also rented a castle at that point
Zoe Foodiboo eyes widen, "Oh my!"
DD: Anyway he was courting me and proposed to me...twice actually. Once at the castle, and then once in the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
ZF: A castle? He must be someone important...?
DD: Well he's an Italian nobleman. (he actually comes from a noble family in real life)
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: ....his family is not all that wealthy. They have some money but you know the gentry are not as well-off as they once were. They have business interests in Italy.
ZF: So you stayed with him at the castle...
DD: In any case he proposed at the Eiffel Tower, and I said yes...and we were married April 1. Well the castle was more like our vacation house. The apartment here was actually quite humble. Once we decided to get married we figured we'd get a nicer place. And here's a funny story...
ZF: Would you describe the apartment a little? Where you got your furnishings...
DD: Oh...Aldo's apartment...Haha...It was fairly small. I can't really remember that well we didn't stay there all that long. I remember it being small and very gray inside.
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: ...and he had a red leather sofa and a round table for eating. It was tastefully decorated but definitely a bit of a bachelor pad.
Zoe Foodiboo giggles
ZF: Needed a woman's touch?
DD: The castle was much nicer...Yes! So once we decided we wanted to move into a bigger place, there was of course the usual race for Berlin Real Estate. We were checking the gazette on a regular basis. Oh I want to say one other thing about when I first came here...
ZF: sure
DD: Everyone was so helpful. People were very nice and welcoming - like Zeno. And they told me about the gazette which is how I got my first place. So anyway we were checking the Real Estate Gazette on a regular basis and entirely independently of each other we ended up putting a down payment on TWO places!
Zoe Foodiboo laughs
DD: Aldo found this place, and I found a really nice apartment in the Bauhaus building. The rent was the same. By this point Taena was living in my old place on Frederichstrasse...which she HATED. She comes from an affluent family in Russia...
Zoe Foodiboo: ah.....
DD: So Aldo and I decided to keep the villa and give the Bauhaus apartment to Taena. Naturally she fell in love with it immediately.
ZF: Interesting!
DD: Well I wanted a garden....and also this is a quiet, private street, suitable for a married couple. And there's the park which is lovely.
ZF: yes, very lovely
DD: So that's how we ended up here. We decorated together initially...with the red leather couch. :)
ZF: hee hee
DD: and then eventually I decided I wanted to redecorate the whole place.
ZF: of course. Did you use any RL resources as reference?
DD: I needed an outlet for my creativity. Oh...haha not really except the kitchen. I was thinking about going for a modern, Bauhaus style
ZF: And what did you model the kitchen after.....tell me again?
DD: I probably would have done that if we ended up taking the apartment ((The kitchen is actually modeled in part after my rw kitchen when I lived in New York in an old railroad flat. It also fits my backstory))
ZF: ((perfect))
DD: The kitchen is very typical of a New York design with the stamped tin ceiling and hexagonal tile floor...you see that in apartments throughout New York.
Zoe Foodiboo nods and flips her notepad
DD: After we announced our engagement we had a big engagement party at the castle....most of Berln was there. Then we let it go since this place was so much more expensive than the old one...well he let it go...it was his castle really. ;)
ZF: who catered your party?
DD: Oh that's funny...the engagement party we did ourselves I think. But the wedding was catered by Morgy [Morganic Clarrington] of course
ZF: tell me about the wedding....
DD: The castle was on a beach so that was a beach party. Well we got married in the church of course. It took a lot of planning - Taena was a big help with that. Aldo took care of the judge and the priest and all that. I more or less handled everything else.
ZF: Judge and the priest were not from Berlin?
DD: My dress was a white evening gown of Sonatta's. Oh yes they were both from Berlin
ZF: Do you remember their names?
DD: Father Cuthbert [Cuthbert Helendale] blessed us. The judge is the woman judge who works here...and I apologize but I've completely forgotten her name.
It might be in the album.
Zoe Foodiboo grins
ZF: I'll check
DD: (she's based on a real woman judge from the period) Frau Jo [Frau Jo Yardley] will know.
ZF: okay. and your dress was a Sonatta Morales? How chic!
DD: Yes...well, originally I had wanted Aloysia to make my dress...but she never got around to it. So I had my eye on this gown at Sonatta's. I purchased that and then after searching high and low found a veil to go with it. (I should tell you some rl background that is relevant...my grandmother was a seamstress...and the dress I wore was very similar to the wedding dress she wore when she married my grandfather, which she made herself)
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: (You sometimes hear me talking about my ic mother...that character is a french version of my Italian grandmother)
ZF: ahhh
DD: (I weave a lot of real life references into my backstory)
ZF: fabulous
DD: So the wedding was at the church and then the reception took place at the Adlon. I decorated the church with white and purple roses to match the bridesmaid dresses, which were from Curious Seamstress. I wanted them to have gowns they could wear on other occasions. I have one myself! ;)
ZF: :)
DD: I bought all the dresses for them. One vivid memory I have...
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: When we were getting ready for the ceremony all the bridesmaids and myself gathered in the library, we were peeking out the windows trying not to be seen. Taena was outside orchestrating everything and sending me messages when relevant.
Zoe Foodiboo flips a page
DD: So I have fond memories of that library
Zoe Foodiboo grins
DD: (I've never been married in rl and have no intention to do so, so it was sort of fun to see what that would be like)
ZF: Who were your bridesmaids and groomsmen?
DD: Oh I mentioned the bridesmaids...Aloysia (which is Pola's [Pola Solo] alt, my sister (rl), my friend Katherine Barthe (both sl and rl friend), and Taena
The groomsman was...oh dear! I can't remember how silly of me!
Zoe Foodiboo giggles
DD: This is all the bridesmaids [points to a photo in her wedding album]
ZF: Did you reference any RL resources for your wedding?
DD: See there we are in the library waiting for it to start. Oh yes!
Zoe Foodiboo looks carefully through the album
DD: (Well I used my grandmother's wedding dress as a reference but I spent hours looking at 1920s wedding dresses...)
DoraDuchamp squints to see if she can find the groomsman
DD: As you can see Taena took a lot of these photos
DoraDuchamp frowns...maybe there was not a groomsman
Zoe Foodiboo nods
ZF: Aldo was new to Berlin when you two met?
DD: Fairly new...I think he was here about a month or two before me
ZF: Were there any SL limitations/challenges during your wedding?
DD: I think there must not have been a groomsman otherwise he'd be in that photo. Well the poses...Aldo took care of all that - he had to find good poses
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: That was difficult. Taena helped him with that too. The reception. [points out another photo in the album] He danced with Frau Jo
ZF: Who else attended your wedding?
DD: Anyway I will close this you can look at it later. Oh wait there is one picture I want to show you. This one! This is my favorite picture.
ZF: cute!
DD: On Aldo's motorbike in our wedding duds. Anyway you have one... :)
[Dora shows me a photo of her and Aldo on a motorbike in wedding attire]
...Can you excuse me one moment I have to powder my nose!
ZF: sure
DD: back. Haha...oh this song... [stops to hum along with a song on the radio]...it's called "redhead"
ZF: Great. Now that we've talked about one big Berlin event...let's switch gears to another. The Stephanie Helstein case.....What do you remember about that?
DD: Oh...before we talk about that...I wanted to say one other thing that's very important
ZF: Sure.
DD: One of the things that brought Aldo and I together was our love of Berlin. When we were courting and even after we got married we had a lot of adventures in Berlin together. On one date we took a rowboat down the spree and discovered the crypt under the church...
ZF: oh?
DD: ...then we made our way up the church tower all the way to the top and rang the church bell. We explored the warehouse district and various other nooks and crannies...and always went to the carnivals and such
ZF: any favorites?
DD: So our romance is very much tied to Berlin. Well we loved the carnival and the first year Morgan had it he made a poster for us. The married couple joined at the hip - "Doraldo" - he was the one that coined that nickname for us. Anyway...
ZF: Were you the first married couple in Berlin? or the first wedding, rather?
DoraDuchamp looks a little forlornly toward the foyer. No we were the second
DD: Zeno and gStone [GStone Turas] were the first. They were already divorced by the time I came here.
ZF: Ah. Enough said. :) So you were saying....
DD: Anyway...Aldo has not been around much lately as you know. He has been detained in Italy dealing with political and family matters. I see him rarely.
Zoe Foodiboo pats Dora's hand
DD: I hope he will come back soon, but in the meanwhile I keep myself busy with creative projects...and mysteries! :)
Zoe Foodiboo smiles
DD: Stephanie Helstein for instance!
ZF: You were friends with her?
DD: Yes very close friends...she confided in me often. As I've lived here a long time and people are so nice to me I try to make a point of welcoming newcomers
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: Stephanie and I became friends and she confided in me that she had escaped from...was it Breman? I can't remember which town...that she had run away from an abusive husband.
ZF: oh dear.....
DD: Yes....Also I think that experience made her have a preference for ladies....she would tell me about women she liked in Berlin.
DoraDuchamp smiles
Zoe Foodiboo returns Dora’s smile
DD: As it was all told to me in confidence...I kept it to myself. Annett was quite close to her as well...
ZF: Of course :)
DD: in some way I think her death brought Annett [Annett Jameson née Boehme] and I closer. Yes so Stephanie and I became friends and then one day a body was found underneath the bridge, badly beaten to death...it was very violent
Zoe Foodiboo's eyes widen
DD: I was very upset to learn that the body had been identified as Stephanie's and I immediately suspected her husband. Annett also had gotten some threatening letters telling her to stay away from Stephanie....
ZF: oh my!
DD: I went right down to the police station and told them all I knew! And I did suspect her husband all the while only because of what she'd told me...he was violent and was a brownshirt.
ZF: hmmmm
DD: The sad thing was that no one claimed the body from the morgue. So Desi [Desire Fallen] and I got together and claimed the body and arranged and paid for the funeral...Desi paid for most of it. Desi who lives next door
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: I can't remember if that was before the divorce...anyway there was a lovely funeral in the church...a number of people came. Then we had a luncheon catered by...who else...Clarrington! [Morganic Clarrington]
ZF: Did Father Helendale give the service?
DD: Yes. I read the Eulogy. I may have a copy of it...I wrote it myself. Father Cuthbert [Helendale] would not do the ceremony for our wedding, but he did it for the funeral. And he's done it since I think.
ZF: ((she actually gave me some documents and I can't find them in my inventory...I met her when I first arrived))
DoraDuchamp shuffles around in a drawer
DD: Here you go.
ZF: Perfect, thank you.
DD: Yes well there were some newspaper articles and eventually what happened was that the husband was arrested in the town they were from for bribing a police officer. Then he was charged with the murder of his wife. So as I suspected all along it was the husband.
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: (But here is the interesting part!)(A few months before this happened Morgan [Morganic Clarrington] and I were in Der Keller talking to Frau Jo and we suggested it would be fun to have a murder mystery in Berlin! I found out a few months after the Helstein incident that the whole thing was entirely planned by Frau Jo!
ZF: Interesting!
DD: (Stephanie was brought in as a special RP person to play the story out...and it was based on a real murder case). (YES) (What was amazing was to find myself at the cetner of it!)(I don't know who else was in on it, I suppose the police were, but it was a load of fun)
Zoe Foodiboo smiles
DD: Did you have any other questions about that?
ZF: None that I can think of....What happened to her husband? Was there a trial?
DD: Oh well he never came here but there was a newspaper article circulated that he was arrested and convicted of the murder. Not in Berlin...just the newspaper story.
ZF: ah...
DD: There have been other trials here but I have missed them all!
Zoe Foodiboo nods
ZF: Now, I have in my notes that you organized some sort of competition for the men of Berlin?
DD: Yes! Haha that was going to be my next topic.
ZF: Tell me about that.
DD: Yes well...It all started because I was spending a lot of time at the Eldorado...and always on stage there were scantily clad ladies....
Zoe Foodiboo chuckles
DD: ...and then one day I was talking to some folks about this at Der Keller...and I hatched a plan together with Crispin [Sturges] (the truth is it was really HIS idea!)
Zoe Foodiboo is not surprised in the least
DD: ...to have a men's leg competition. Everyone loved the idea except of course Frau Jo who thought we were all a bunch of perverts ...she's so Victorian...and Sonatta agreed immediately to host it at the Eldorado
ZF: she can be a bit stuffy...
DD: My theory was that men should be treated equally as sex objects to the women
ZF: I agree!
DD: So each of the men came and had to show off their legs and do a little routine of some sort. Aldo actually came which was hilarious. He showed a Rosecrucian tattoo he has on his thigh
ZF: oh my!
DD: And let's see who else...
DD checks some notes in a notebook
DD: (I'm looking in inventory since I still have all the tip hats!)
Zoe Foodiboo grins
DD: We put a tip hat in front of each contestant and the winner was whoever got the most tips! all the proceeds went to the sim! It was a benefit. We made a nice chunk of change...I can't remember exactly how much but it was a couple of thousand lindens. Here is the lineup: Sturges [Crispin Sturges], vonTrumper [Paul vonTrumper], Mills [Aldo Mills], Loire [Sein Loire], Gedenspire [Desmond Gedenspire aka Desireme Fallen Gedenspire]. Gus [Gustov Chesnokov] didn't participate sadly. Rose [Rosemary Thyme Chesnokova] said he could but he couldn't make it. Anyway you probably know that Sein won! We still tease him to this day about it!
ZF: Well, he does have stunning legs :) Gedenspire...Desireme.....as "Desmond", right?
DD: Oh...That's right, it was Desi! haha! Crispy was second...he wore stockings and a garter belt, which I thought was quite bold...Crispy has nice gams too!
ZF: I believe Wulfi [Wulfride Blitzen] helped him a lot with his costume...
DD: It was very close between the two of them. I'd already seen him in his liederhosen.
ZF: ((Yes, I was dumping gobs of money in both!))
DD: Anyway that was a lot of fun...I want to do another one. That was really my first Berlin project. Now I have two more....
ZF: Oh?
DD: the radio project and the Flapperettes.
ZF: Ah. Which shall we talk about first?
DD: The radio I think. So that is Taena's project....
ZF: Is that a prototype in the corner there?
DD: Yes exactly...the final looks nothing like that. There's the final vendor art...that's what the final one will look like
Zoe Foodiboo: thank you!
DD: Frau Jo and Taena made it together. Frau Jo wouldn't let us use this one because she felt it was not authentic 1929
ZF: It's smashing!
DD: So Taena did all the engineering...she's a genius! She came up with the system to play songs as sound effects and we iterated and tested it to death.
I spent hours listening to it and taking notes and sending them to her and I was put in charge of music. So we will have four collectsions, Broadway 1 and 2 and Cotton Club 1 and 2
ZF: Very nice!
DD: It can hold up to 50 songs! It's a technical marvel. I also did all the graphics and logos and the ad art
Zoe Foodiboo looks visibly impressed
DD: :) Yes I'm very proud of it...it's taken ages to finish. I think it will be out soon though...just in time for Christmas! Haha. We started on it last summer!
ZF: lovely!
DD: and Taena worked on it before that. DD: Now in terms of your earlier question, I did a TON of historical research on this. The music of course...I spent hours in song archives
ZF: online or in person?
DD: Online. And then also did a ton of research to get the graphics right
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: I also have a friend who is a 78 expert and he has re-released a number of 20's albums. I will use his stuff for the next set of collections. I also researched the graphics...I really wanted the graphics to be authentic
Zoe Foodiboo nods
ZF: So the Flapperettes...
ZF: Tell me about them?
DD: Yes so the Flapperettes...Zeno sent a call out for auditions for a dance troupe...it never even crossed my mind to audition...
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: but then he contacted me and told me he had hoped I would audition. I was quite flattered. Adele [Kling] and Tequila [Mockingbird aka Krovac] were both it it as well. We are good friends and neighbors
ZF: perfect!
DD: Adele more or less talked me into it! So the way it is working now is that the three of us are more or less running it. I do all the music, Adele interfaces with Zeno on booking gigs and publicity. Tequila does the choreography and the sets. And all three of us work on costumes. I'm also the stage manager so I boss people around on stage. hehe
ZF: You make your own costumes?
DD: ...and call all the queues. No no...we buy them all. Zeno has a budget
ZF: Nice.
DD: But the sets are all made by Tequila
ZF: wow!
DD: I also book the DJ's and such. And then Sasa [Sasa Steigerwald] and Luzie [Cheng] and the three of us are the "Principals" and we have some understudies
Zoe Foodiboo nods and scribbles
DD: Right now we have Lulu (victoriaweibes)and we will probably add one or two more. I think Annett will join after she has her baby...which I hope is soon!
It's fun being a Flapperette!
Zoe Foodiboo nods and smiles
DD: Zeno always said he would make us big stars...we do get a lot of attention
ZF: If anyone can, it's him!
DD: We are doing our first show outside of Berlin on October 11. I've also thrown a couple of parties. We had a Baby Shower for Rose at Tequila's and one for Annett here
ZF: how lovely
DD: (Now the only problem is that I found out AFTER I'd gotten them all organized that baby showers didn't really start until later)(apparently they had parties after the baby was born since the infant mortality rate was so high...it wasn't until later...I think the 40s or even 50s that they staarted having parties before the birth)(BUT...my invitations are authentic...I did a ton of research on those) :)
ZF: Oh I think I remember having that discussion with someone....
DD: I really love doing graphics and old timey images
Zoe Foodiboo nods
DD: Here is our wedding invitation(I hope it's okay I'm giving you all this stuff) That was my own design but based on graphics of the time and fonts and such. I spent hours and hours collecting 20s appropriate fonts. (You can tell when you look at the graphics) Oh and I started two groups:
ZF: sure, I’ll pass them on to Sein
DD: The Berlin Ladies Social Club, and the Jazz Babies group which is for 20s aficionados
ZF: What sort of activities do these groups do?
DD: Haha..well the baby showers were Ladies Social Club events. We haven't really had any others although we've talked about having "teas"(where we drink martinis) but I suppose I ought to do something with it eh? The Jazz Babies group is more for announcements like dances and such
Zoe Foodiboo grins
DD: And then I also do something I call the Berlin Breakfast Club. I noticed that people are in Berlin between around 7 and 9pm SLT. So if I come in and see a lot of people online I go over to the Cafe Elektric and announce the Berlin Breakfast Club is meeting there. Usually anywhere from two to five or six people show up
ZF: Nice!
DD: I haven't done it in a couple of weeks but it's become a little late night event...early morning Berlin time...sometimes we sit there until the sun comes up
ZF: Sounds marvelous!
DD: Is there anything else you wanted to ask me about?
ZF: hmmm.....I can't think of anything....is there anything else you'd like to share?
DD: Nothing that I can think of....
Zoe Foodiboo smiles
DD: I think I told you I volunteered to take over the museum
ZF: Well, this has been fascinating, Dora - thank you!
DD: I hope Frau Jo agrees! :) ...but that's the future! Thank you Zoe....I'm glad we finally got to do it!
ZF: It's always good to have something to look forward to.
DD: Yes!
Zoe Foodiboo drains her drink
DD: Well I really love Berlin...I think you can see that!
DoraDuchamp smiles
ZF: Indeed. Well, thank you again. I won't keep you any longer.
DD: I was so thrilled when you started the project and the archive. Thank you so much for coming over!
ZF: Oh it's been wonderful! I just adore Berlin!
DD: Yes it's a wonderful place. Have a nice evening! I look forward to hearing from you with the results!
DoraDuchamp waves
Zoe Foodiboo smiles and waves
DD: Ciao
ADDENDUM:
*Herr Mills was subsequently overtaken by the realis vita virus and never returned to Berlin. The two were divorced a month following this interview.