Loitering in tents
The Cheltenham Festival of Literature has just been on. A large tented village appeared – or rather two tented villages, filling two of the gardens lined with terraces of Regency houses that are among the highlights of Cheltenham’s town centre. As the canvas was alternately heated by the sun and buffeted by the wind, thousands of us sat around while hundreds of authors got on their hind legs to entertain and instruct us on every subject from the Spanish Civil War to the history of the bathroom, from Charles Dickens to Eric Gill. Most of the tents used at the festival are standard-issue white canvas jobs of various sizes but, as I discovered when I went in search of a coffee between events, one of them is nothing less than a Spiegeltent, one of those early-20th-century rococo confections imported from the Low Countries as palaces of entertainment or boudoirs of burlesque.
Spiegeltents originated in Belgium and now a number of these antique structures have been restored and are on hire to those who want a venue a cut above the usual marquee. As I went for my coffee I understood the attraction. Gilded fronds and curlicues run up and down the walls, putti and scrolls hang from columns, surfaces are covered with bits of mirror or painted in a fairground palette. Carefully positioned light fittings accentuate the glitter. The richly coloured canvas roof completes the exotic ensemble. Now, I was here in the morning, so did not experience the joys of Kiki de Montparnasse or the provocatively named Ophelia Bitz, two entertainers I believe were billed to appear later in these seductive surroundings. But the rococo environment still delighted my eye as I sipped my coffee and waited to return to the more elevated matters on offer in the rather puritanical white marquees.
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Apologies for my quick-fire iPhone photo, taken on the hoof and somewhat blurred, but atmospheric nonetheless, I hope.
You can find more about Spiegeltents and see more images of them here.
5 comments:
Thank you very much. Great pictures of Kew! I've added a link in the right-hand column of the blog.
I've never come across a spiegeltent before and it looks amazing. When I first saw your photo I thought it was the elaborate interior of a restaurant!
I didn't make it to any of the Festival events this year, although the Eric Gill one sounded interesting and I had thought about going to this, but I just plain forgot about it.
VK: I think you'd have liked the spiegeltent. With a bit of luck, they'll have it again next year, when perhaps you can have a look. The Eric Gill event was good – the Cribbs' book on Gill is worth seeking out if you've not seen it. It has lots of interesting illustrations of Gill's work in a variety of fields (less on the typography than on all the other areas in which he worked).
Philip, this looks fabulous. I too had not heard of Spiegeltents but the whole idea looks fabulous. I would so loved to have been at that festival.
I think I need to get myself a dictionary of architectural terms. Some of the words are wonderful and hint at meanings which may differ from the correct ones.
Click here for Bazza’s Blog ‘To Discover Ice’
If you're looking for a dictionary of architecture, the one by John Fleming, Hugh Honour and Nikolaus Pevsner, published by Penguin, is good. It includes short biographies of major architects as well as architectural terms.
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