There are several things I want to respond to in Alison's and in David's
posts. However, I'll keep my replies short so as to allow further responses
to my original post and so as not to divert the thread before it's hardly up
and running.
David's comments about Leicester being innocent of its history resonates for
me because it was quite literally true when I was growing up there in the
1960s. There's not that many old buildings left there although the city has
ancient origins. In the 1960s most of them were in a right old state and
nobody cared. I later worked for a chap whose first job had been in the
planning dept in the 1960s. His boss was I suppose out of the
Pevsner/Betjeman mould and decided something needed to be done so he sent
out my boss and a colleague with a simple instruction: if it looks old, if
you know it's old, then slap an order on it. That's the only reason that the
Georgian crescent at the top of King Street is still standing today. I don't
mean to exclude non-Leicester people by this reference. I think it's
something that happened in a lot of British cities at that period. Leicester
got it half-right; some places did better; others much worse. And if you end
of living in a place which seems past-less maybe that affects 'what you
think with'.
Alison's post also resonates with some ideas I have about my own practice. I
too aim for work which isn't obviously tied to anything except what prompted
it and its own processes.
But enough digression: let's get back to 'your place'!
Cheers
David
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|