beton brut – Where is Phil now?

Oxford Brutalism

Oxford – Saturday 15 February 2025

A couple of posts ago I noted that I’m going to ‘practise’ being on my own before I spend solo time in Delhi as we make our individual journeys home from New Zealand. Eleanor and I fly to Auckland on 5 March and spend a week there before we’re joined by a London friend, Paula. The three of us will road trip down New Zealand to Dunedin, where we then separate. I fly to Brisbane for a night to see my family before going to Delhi. Eleanor and Paula spend a few more days in New Zealand then go to Sydney and Tokyo. I have 10 days on my own; and most of that will be spent somewhere that is different to the London I call home. Very different indeed.

I’ve not done the solo travel thing in a while and know I’m going to find aspects of life in Delhi challenging. I want to avoid finding aspects of being on own challenging while I contend with the challenges of Delhi. If I can manage the things I can control then I will be better positioned to manage the things I can’t. That is the theory anyway. Understanding more of what I feel I can control has been an objective of the last few weeks.

To help this I decided to taking a night away by myself and I chose Oxford. It’s not too far from London, it’s always busy with students, their visiting families and other tourists, and it has a good mix of historic architecture with a tiny bit of mid-century concrete mixed in. Other than its cold right now in the UK and Delhi will be hot, I’m going to find the Oxford experience will be just like Delhi, right?

I travelled up on Friday and though it was quite cold the sun was shining and it was a nice day to walk around semi-aimlessly taking photos of buildings of various ages.

Overall, it was a successful couple of days and I enjoyed myself and learned a more about how I react to being by myself and working with crowds and busy tourist venues. I will cover more of the two days in the next post, along with photos of the ‘proper’ Oxford. Today, I’m going to share photos of the limited number of 60s and 70s brutalist buildings to be found amongst the ‘old shit’.

Hilda Besse Building, aka the Common Room and Dining Hall at St. Antony’s College, was the most visually interesting of the brutalist buildings I wanted to see. A number of the concrete buildings, and seemingly a third of Oxford were surrounded by scaffold. A full refurbishment of Hilda was completed in 2021, and thankfully the building has remained true to John Partridge’s original 1971 design. The interior is supposed to be lovely, but like everywhere these days you need a pass to get through the security barriers. I love the window frames and have not seen the like before. They look so much like wartime bunkers I expected to see gun barrels poking out of them.

Just around the corner is the Denys Wilkinson Building, the astrophysics department of Oxford University. Its neighbour, the Thom Building, is being renovated and there was scaffold all over the place and a number of the paths around the building were blocked which was frustrating. I’m learning to accept that not everything is going to go to plan when I travel, so this was good. I also was trying to memorise directions between places, a ‘skill’ I feel I’m losing as I’ve become reliant on my phone to always be there to give me directions. This worked well so was I pleased to find I can do it with little effort, and getting slightly misplaced is often part of the enjoyment.

The Philip Dawson design Nuclear Physics Building first opened in the late 60s and was renamed The Denys Wilkinson Building in 2001 to honour the famous physicist, (and no, I don’t know physicists, famous or otherwise; being interested in brutalist architecture teaches you many things). The fan building houses a Van de Graff Generator.

I know nothing about the Oxford Centre for Innovation building other than where it is, and that it was difficult to photograph as it’s partly wrapped around Oxford Castle Mound and the castle butts up against the back of it.

It was raining on Saturday, and windy, cold and quite unpleasant, so after photographing the innovation Centre I took myself to the Ashmolean Museum, stopping for an excellent coffee in the most unfriendly and pretentious café I’ve been to, and I’m unfriendly and pretentious so have some expertise in this field!

I arrived at the Ashmolean soon after it opened and it was nice and quiet. I had a look around most of the galleries; there is a lot of pottery, something I have very limited interest in. I was seeking out galleries that housed North Indian and South East Asian collections as I’m still fascinated by the complex ancient history of these places as well as the religions that were so key to the buildings and art that were created hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. I was momentarily distracted in the Egyptian collection and this magnificent relief on the side of the tomb of Nubian King Taharqa who died in 664BC, he is believed to have been the last black pharaoh of Egypt. The detail is stunning!

The Indian and Asian galleries were interesting, with some lovely Buddhist and Hindi artefacts. I was especially interested in this beautiful 16th bronze of Saint Tirumankai Alvar which is soon to be returned to it’s home in the Tamil Nadu region of India. While it’s not know whether this statue was stolen, it also can’t be proved that it wasn’t so the museum is returning it. Much as I like to see these lovely objects in UK museums they should be returned to their traditional homes.

As the weather hadn’t improved while I was in the museum. I caught the train back home to London where Eleanor and went to a fantastic restaurant in Stoke Newington to not celebrate Valentines Day.

The next post will be all about the Hogwartsean, Disneyesque Oxford we all know and love.

The Barbican

Saturday 6 January 2024 – Barbican, London

Happy New Year!

Another year has ended and a fresh one has begun; maybe this one will be better than the last, or maybe it will be worse, who knows? Not me. There’s an extra day this year so that could be the impetus for something positive happening; like an election in May for instance, and after 14 years we can have a more caring government in the UK.

Anyway, to be more positive; I’ve booked or planned quite a few activities for 2024 and already had two booked for January (A brutal day out and a first visit to Glasgow) before I last minute booked a two hour guided tour of the Barbican for Eleanor and I. I love the Barbican. It’s close to, if not the, top of the list of my favourite places in London. I love the architecture, the design and the build of the theatre and art centre, that its clean and tidy, that the cafes and bars are decent, albeit not cheap, and that there is no hassle from security for photographers. The last point being the most important.

The tour started at 3:00pm and there were about a dozen ‘tourists’, our guide was the best I’ve ever experienced. Knowledgeable, interesting and engaging; but not over the top, if you know what I mean. I really enjoyed the walk and learned a few things, most of which I’ve already forgotten. To be fair this isn’t supposed to be an architecture blog, though I guess it must feel like that sometimes; and yes the next post is also going to be loaded with photos of buildings made of concrete. I seem to have turned into a city-scape photographer. Roll on more travel in 2024.

We started the tour with a brief history of the estate and an introduction to the architects who designed the complex, a lot more of its interesting history was shared as we walked and the guide had some great photos from the past. The most interesting part of the introduction was the choice of materials used to surface the buildings. The original design called for white marble tiles, but the architects managed to dissuade the council who own the estate that concrete was the way to go; in polluted rainy 1950/60s London marble was not going to stay white and unstained for very long.

In a short passage behind a locked door was a concrete ‘sample board’; a long wall of different styles of concrete panels. This was used to influence the chosen ‘skin’ for all the buildings. We also learned that the concrete panels were cast on site then hand battered and drilled to provide the textured surface we see today. It was horrifically expensive in man hours and extremely damaging to the health of the men that did the battering and drilling.

20240106_152628

As the tour was quite late in the day, and it’s winter in London, daylight disappeared quite soon after we started. I took a few photos as we went, but ended up shooting so slowly it was hard to retain any focus. Having said that I have taken loads of photos here in the past, and am sure I will do so again so I wasn’t too concerned. I would quite like to come back for a night shoot, but suspect those friendly security folk will take a different view if tripods were involved. I’m going to add it to the list of possible shoots to do with my brutalist photography buddies.

So here are a small number of Barbican photos. The first camera outing of the year; there will be a few I hope. I’m planning on replacing my camera this year as I’m sick of lugging an old Canon 5d around with me. I love it as a camera, but it’s heavy and big and it’s time to downsize.

The Battleship Building

Tuesday 25 April 2023 – London.

If I count weekends then this is day four of ten days off between jobs; next Monday is the May Day bank holiday in the UK. I’ve prepared myself a massive list of things that need to be done while I have both time and the mental capacity available. There is a massive backlog on the to-do list that I hope to get through, and getting though it will release the weight I feel building on my slowly sagging with age shoulders.

The break isn’t just going to be work and today I popped my camera into my day bag and caught the tube to Liverpool St just after 9. I was after some photos from the interior of the Barbican Centre and (forlornly) hoped that by getting there soon after it opens at 9:30 it would be quiet; I was then going to go on and find the magnificently named ‘Battleship Building’, which is located somewhere behind Paddington Station.

Arriving in the Barbican Centre I was frustrated to find it busy, with people huddled in conversation or slumped over expensive laptops in every corner and on every photographically nicely spread-out set of table and chairs. I should’ve realised this would be a popular place for remote workers and those who want to be seen hanging out in a creative environment. I bought an expensive coffee and took one of the few empty seats and joined those getting in the way of anyone who had the same mis-thought idea as I did. Perhaps we are all frustrated photographers waiting for space to clear?

I wandered about and took a few photos, though I didn’t really find much that excited me and just wished I had the wide-angle lens as it would have been useful; even more so at the Battleship.

The men’s bathroom is fantastic though, very mid-century modern. It must be one of the best looking urinals in England. Fortunately no-one was in here, or came in while I was taking this photo.

I hopped onto the tube to Paddington Station and found the Battleship Building easily enough, only taking one wrong turn down a dead-end street. It was cold among the mid-rise building canyons that have, and continue to be built behind the station.

The Battleship building was constructed during 1968 and 1969 as a maintenance depot for British Rail but was converted into offices in 2000. It sits under the very noisy (and equally iconic) Westway section of the A4 motorway. I might do a Westway photo-walk one day, it could be interesting, or equally it could be properly dull.

IMG_4725-Edit

It was difficult to photograph with a standard 50mm lens as it is crowded between other buildings and a slip road; as I said just above I wished I had brought the wide angle lens with me as well.

The building isn’t particularly brutalist and doesn’t appear on the main Brutal London maps, though it has some classic brutalist features and is, in part, lovingly made from concrete; perhaps it’s too curvy, too faux art-deco? It’s a great looking building though, just difficult to photograph. Those concrete towers are great.

IMG_4727-Edit

IMG_4728-Edit

IMG_4730-Edit

I passed this great derelict frontage on my walk from Paddington to Oxford Circus to get the tube home, though I don’t recall where it is; my path was rather meandering. To meander is the best way to traverse inner London.

MeetUp Barbican photo walk

Saturday 11 March 2023 – Barbican, London.

We’ve been back from the sabbatical in New Zealand for just over a year, and the year seems to have completely disappeared. I haven’t shared a lot of news over that time, in some ways it felt like not much happened that was worth reporting; however, when I put everything down on ‘paper’ it was a very busy time indeed. In no particular order we’ve;

· Both had at least one (thankfully) mildish dose of Covid.
· Eleanor sold her house of 26 years in Walthamstow and bought another one in Leytonstone.
· We’re in the middle of having the kitchen replaced and have been microwaving and air-frying dinner in the sitting room and washing dishes in the bathroom for the last three weeks.
· There has been a lot of work being done on the building my flat is in and as director of the residents association it was a very busy, and stressful time.
· I’m trying to rent my flat so I can save some money when my mortgage goes up in June.
· I’ve got a new job that I start in May.
· Eleanor’s one year contract has been made a permanent position.
· I turned 60, (sad-face).
· We’ve taken two short and enjoyable breaks in Europe.

We want to do more of the European thing; and if I can rent the flat and save some money then European holidays will be definitely be on the plan over summer.

In the meantime, other than being busy with house related things and going to concerts I’ve been trying to beat my lethargy and get out and do more photography. I’m also keen to meet some new people and expand my friendship group a bit beyond the group we mainly hang out with now.

With those things in mind I signed up for a MeetUp Photography walk in the Barbican, which I think is one of the best places for brutalist architectural photography in London. I was hoping to be shown some new spots to take photos and had my fingers crossed I would meet some other photographers interested in walking round taking photos of buildings and things while not talking about camera kit as we go. I’m not that sort of photographer; I like the exploring and act of taking photos rather than all the technology that goes with it.

The Barbican Estate was constructed between 1965 and 1976 and comprises of some 2,000 flats and houses across three towers and some low level blocks. There is also the Barbican Centre mixed usage venue which has a fabulous mid-century interior. I’m planning on going back just to take some photos of the interior, a lot earlier in the day.

The whole thing is comprised of lovely concrete and to my constant surprise is mostly open to the public and the security guards don’t stop people taking photos. I hope this never changes.

It was an enjoyable three hour session, there were about a dozen of us photographers led by Alex from the London Centre for Photography who shared a few ideas and things to look out for to make the most of the environment we were in. We had 20 minute sessions across a number of zones in the Barbican precinct and I was shown couple of places I hadn’t been to before. Objective one met. I can’t believe I missed this place before.

While objective two was to meet more photographers I pretty much spent the three hours shooting on my own, which is I must confess, absolutely my preference. I chatted to people when we all got together between assignments and I did share Instagram names with a couple of people, one who I got on well with and had similar photographic inspirations to me. The rest of the group were really nice, but I didn’t specifically click with anyone. I will do one of these again though as it was fun and interesting and most of the things I wanted from the day.

After the session ended I went off with a couple of photographers to a nearby parking area to take these two images. we were so lucky this taxi was there and the driver was more than happy to move and stop under the light well. This is my favourite from the day.

I was really pleased with my photography though, liking most of the images I took. I am a fairly selective photographer and tend to shoot like I was still using film and rarely taking more than one photo of any given subject. I have been very happy with the standard of photo I’ve been taking lately and I take that as a good thing.

Here are the rest of the images I took. I’ve converted most to black and white as that format perfectly suits 60s and 70s architecture.