Hot tin roof
I’m stuck indoors writing, and with deadlines looming, getting out less and less to find new buildings to share with you. I’ve recently been describing the unlikely surfaces and forms of the Guggenheim, Bilbao, and its wafer-thin titanium cladding, which curves this way and that like an overgrown eel that’s been put through one of those apps you get for your iPhone, which distorts photographs in disturbing ways. Not inappropriately, since designs like the Guggenheim are only possible with the most advanced software, not to mention the most costly materials.
And, stuck indoors, writing, I looked through my picture files to find something to share with you, and found this: a shed in Herefordshire with a corrugated iron roof. Notice how the surface curves this way and that, like an overgrown eel that…
I know, I know. This modest length of bent metal covering a knockabout structure of assorted brickwork and decaying woodwork is hardly the Guggenheim. But its use of corrugated iron is still rather inventive, the way it starts at one end as almost a flat roof and finishes at the other as almost a vertical wall. And are those openings skylights or windows? I’m sure there’s some logical reason for the way this roof has been built. Something big and tall that had to be accommodated in the far end that didn’t quite justify the time, expense, or whatever needed to build the brick wall higher. Perhaps it has something to do with the planning regulations. Whatever its raison d’être, it made one passer-by look up and smile.
8 comments:
Very impressive curves, I lived in Bromyard for many years. I love the agricultural buildings around that area have been left unmodernised. I lived with a local bricklayer. He built a spiral chimney stack on the memorial hall along the road that takes you onto the Downs road and The Royal Oak.
Good luck writing about The Guggenheim. Do you know the book Corrugated Iron by Adam Mournement and Simon Holloway from Ludlow?
Jane: Many thanks for your comment. I like the unmodernized buildings around Bromyard too, and the old shop fronts in the town. I have the book by Adam Mournement and Simon Holloway - it's good that people are treating this undervalued building material seriously.
I enjoy the way Bromyard's town centre is riddled with odd bits of light industrial activity, almost entirely housed in traditional buildings. I don't know of another town quite like it in this respect.
Gareth: Absolutely. I asked someone from round there what the buildings originally were, and he said he knew them as stables. Some certainly have what look like hay lofts. I think there was also a tanning industry there once. Now it's all sorts. I think it's fascinating the way it's all right there in the middle of the town.
Do you know Tinton Brothers, a joiners, on Broad Street? I always think that walking through the arch in the terrace, into their yard, which is overlooked by dwellings (and a masonic hall!), and out the other side into the road with the 'stables', gives one a glimpse of how we carried on industry before the modern era. It's very atmospheric.
No, I don't know this business. It sounds as if another visit to Bromyard is due.
What a wonderful organic curve to that roof - who knows what decisions were taken by a builder sucking his lip and saying "Oh, you don't want to do that."
Neil: Who knows, indeed. It would be interesting, too, to go inside and see what the carpenter had to do in the way of supporting timbers of varying lengths and heights, in order to achieve this curve.
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