John Madin, architect

Another obituary of an architect this week– John Madin. He was the designer of the Birmingham Library which contains the Paradise Square shopping centre I referred to last week. Madin was another architect who made a significant impact on modern design, although his Wikipedia entry (link here) references several of his buildings that have already been demolished. How does an architect feel when his work is pulled down?

As well as the rather brutalist library, Madin was responsible for a range of buildings from the Birming Post and Mail skyscraper (now demolished) to a holiday village in Malta. On the web site dedicated to him (www.john-madin.info) is a downloadable e-book with lots of detail from which some of these pictures have been taken.

St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross

An obituary in the papers last week reminded me of an amazing ’60s building I had seen on TV a while ago. The obituary was for Isi Metzstein, one of the architects of St Peter’s Seminary. Metzstein is credited with having a major influence on postwar ecclesiastical architecture.

St Peter’s was completed in 1966 as a Roman Catholic Seminary. However, it was never fully occupied and was eventually abandoned in the early 1980s. It was the first building in Scotland to receive a Grade A listing – and now it’s a ruin. Even in its present form, it’s possible to see what a striking building it must have been.  I’ve tried to find some images of what it looked like when it was first opened. The best I have found are from the Jan-March 1967 edition of the Concrete Quarterly from the Cement and Concrete Association.

The ’60s saw the use of unconcealed shuttered concrete in buildings. This is still very visible in the National Theatre on the South Bank. It was also used in the new halls of residence at IC – I was never a resident in these but several of my friends were. However, these were demolished a few years ago. All this is very apparent at St Peter’s and may have speeded its demise: it’s not the most popular of finishes and, I think, has just about been abandoned. There’s another example in a shopping arcade in Birmingham which has a very bold design rather spoiled by the very dull finish: They’ve tried to revitalise it by calling in ‘Paradise Circus’

However, look beyond the surfaces and there are some fantastic spaces and shapes in St Peter's. What a shame that, in spite of several attempts to reuse it, it still lies empty.

For more info and pictures today,  look up “St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross” on Wikipedia

The full Concrete Society journal can be downloaded here

Bureaucracy and ’elf ’n’ safety

The bank has relented and is now being sensible about opening the account! So fight silly bureaucracy if you get an opportunity.


I’ve been told I spelt it wrongly – it’s ’elf ’n’ safety!  Here’s a story where some sensible precautions would make sense – not bureaucratic HSE nonsense. I’ve abbreviated the story a little to copy it here. It starts with a man painting a church clock:

But the ladder isn’t just a long one from the ground:

And even this isn’t the end:

You can see the full story here: http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/13244/


Now, wouldn’t some simple Health and Safety precautions make sense here?

Bureaucracy

I had fun yesterday fighting jobsworth bureaucracy! The Church is trying to open a new bank account – I won’t bore you with the reason. Churches have had charitable status for some time but only recently have we had to register with the Charities Commission. The bank as part of its processes wants to check the trustees of the charity. This is a reasonable procedure for small charities: I work with a few that are quite genuine but have a small group of trustees and operate from someone’s house. Our trustees are the members of the PCC and the bank was querying that the names supplied in the application form (in excess of 20) didn’t quite tie in with the list on the Charities Commission web site: correctly so because the site is as at the time of the return whereas the current membership of the PCC is slightly different. I couldn’t see why  a slight variation in the names made us a significant risk to the bank and so I challenged them. I was told that they needed the exact list and this was an FSA requirement. It was suggested that an alternative would be for our accountant to verify the list of trustees. When I said that we don’t have an accountant but asked if the Bishop could verify the list I was met with a stunned silence – then denial unless the Bishop is FSA registered!


So I phoned the FSA. The nice man there did some research and confirmed that there is no FSA requirement for banks to validate the full list of trustees: it’s a purely commercial decision. I reported this to the bank who is still trying to sort itself out. I’ll let you know the outcome.


But it’s like ’elth ’n’ safety: blamed for everything and causes common sense to go out of the window. Surely an established Church of England parish that has been around in some form for hundreds of years and can provide at least 20 names of its trustees can be trusted!

Good press for youngsters

Amid all the bad publicity that the youth seem to get these days, it was great to hear the item on Saturday Live last weekend about Joseff Edwards, 18, who drives the school bus to his school at Whitland, Carmarthenshire, then joins his passengers in the 6th form. You can hear the item here – sorry, BBC, this is probably copyright! There’s a picture on the Wales online web site.


I get cross that youngsters never seem to get anything but bad publicity yet most of the ones I meet are well behaved, committed and hard working. I did some practice interviews of potential 6th form candidates just before Christmas. Most of them were very impressive: one lad spoke in well-formed sentences (none of the “er... like...init.. stuff), one girl liked art (but not the really modern stuff, more the traditional old masters) and wants to be an engineer, and another, when asked what she did in her spare time said she writes: stories for children! 

23 December – Enjoy

Some of the family have arrived. They helped to make mince pies this afternoon.

What more could anyone want?

I think with the imminent approach of Christmas – and the rest of the family, there’ll be no more ‘Do Nothing...’ So, see you in Church at Christmas, or on the blog in the new year

22 December – joy

Driving round the Chilterns today (last-minute shopping!) resonated with the suggestions for the day: moments that are inexplicable wonderful. The shops weren't quite as good but even here, things seemed less rushed than usual at this time of year!

Tomorrow: enjoy what you have

21 December – Faith

Will I go to Church this Christmas? Yes, at least three times. Will I be able to participate in the worship – rather than worrying about all the arrangements? I hope so! And I hope the grandchildren will go to one of the crib services – either here or in Tring. I don't expect they'll make it on Christmas Day – too busy opening presents!

Next: joy

20 December – Father Christmas

No question here: the grandchildren are very young – Father Christmas is real! I remember in primary school having doubts when I saw, under the red cloak, shoes and trouser turnups that looked exactly like those of one of the teachers.

Next: faith

19 December – family again

Again, not too difficult! And ‘Take yourself less seriously’ – I don’t think I’m too serious: perhaps that’s a problem! We have had some fun with the family today: one grandchild asked for a box for his sticker books and another has requested silent crackers.

Next: Father Christmas

18 December – family

This shouldn’t be too difficult! The implication on today’s ‘Do Nothing...’ is that family Christmases are stressful and full of disagreements. Luckily we’re not like that – or at least to date we haven’t been. But we will plan lots of joint activities so that we’ll do things together. As for a Boxing Day walk: let’s hope the weather is better than last year:

Next: family again

17 December – people

Well, I do know my next door neighbours’ names – and most of the people in the village, but that’s another advantage of living in a small community. We don’t see each other much apart from passing on the double bend or over the occasional village lunch – harvest was the last.

Stephen Cottrell talks about networks: I’m chatting to daughter Lucy as I draft this entry. And Alvin, next-door neighbour is online, too. I’m also trying to connect with an ex work colleague but she’s not watching her PC! These networks do keep us together. Ah – Ewa has woken up – she’s in Warsaw. So as well as drafting this, I’m chatting to Tring and Warsaw. The world has shrunk. I still tell the story of one of my IT Friends whose Skype webcam I helped to set up. I had an e-mail from her on Christmas day saying that she had seen her grandson in New Zealand opening his Christmas presents. Great!

The question in ‘Do Nothing...’ that asked ‘Do I only ever mix with people like myself?’ made me think. I remember having a pub lunch with a group of work colleagues on one project a while ago. I had recruited all the colleagues to the project. Over lunch it suddenly struck me that these were people just like me: perhaps it was just that we were all had similar skills. Or was it more than that?

Next: family

16 December – Charity

Choosing charities to support is a challenge: do I go for national ones or small? Ones that support local activities or abroad? I think I tend towards local ones and ones that connect somehow. What I do object to is the practice of sending cards or labels or similar ‘gifts’ on spec because although I understand the thinking behind these, I’m sure they make lots of people think they are under some obligation to support the charity. I’m afraid they go straight into the recycling bin or on the fire.

Looking back on the charities I’ve supported with my computer work, these have either been very local (youth work in the Church, Wycombe Winter Night Shelter) or ones that friends have been closely associated with (Midwifery with Altitude, Kidney Research)

And I do have some standing orders for charities, although having checked, I think I need to review the list!

Next: people

15 December – Christmas lights

I had planned to try to find some houses with extensive Christmas lights but I ran out of time (so much for ‘do nothing...’) I don’t think the extra lights temporarily installed in Church to help the choir read their music counts as Christmas lights.

Instead, I’ve done a little research into LED lights – we’re encouraged to replace our Christmas lights with LED ones. These (LED lights) have developed enormously over the last few years and are now available as replacement light bulbs for household use. I was surprised to see that the first observation of electroluminescence was made by a British researcher in 1907, well before semiconductors became widely used. The physics is fairly simple: when a current is passed through a semiconductor diode, electrons combine with holes in the material and the result is the emission of energy in the form of photons – light. The engineering is a little more complex: getting the right wavelength of the light and making the light usable isn’t easy. However, recently we’ve seen a plethora of LEDs in everyday use – as well as Christmas tree lights.

LED lights are still not as efficient as fluorescent ones – but are better than incandescent lamps. They do, however, switch on very rapidly. You may have seen recent cars with brake lights that come on very quickly, much faster than ordinary bulbs which have to warm up. There are also LED traffic lights which can be seen to switch quickly. Their life is considerable, too, provided that the operating conditions are observed: typically 35,000 to 50,000 hours compared with 10,000 to 15,000 hours for fluorescent lamps and 1,000 to 2,000 for incandescent bulbs. I’m suspicious of the compact fluorescent  lifespan: I’ve had to replace several on our outside lights, although these may be suffering from significant temperature variations.

LEDs are currently very expensive although the lifetime cost may be less than other light sources. In our kitchen we have downlighters set into the ceiling (which is low to match the rest of the house) I;ve replace some of these with compact fluorescent reflector bulbs which are fine when they are warmed up but do take 10 minutes or so to get to working condition: not very convenient when we want to pop into the kitchen to make a pot of tea! I’m looking out for LED replacements – but not at a price between £100 and £300!

If you want to read more about LEDs, I suggest you have a look at Wikipedia. And of course there’s a web site selling LED lamps - www.ledbulbs.co.uk

Incidentally, we still have incandescent lights on our tree – because they haven’t failed yet – but the lights on the porch gable are LEDs.

Next: charity