Thriller

Ok, so I'm happy to admit to being really quite inordinately thrilled about this. The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson (Zero Books) is available for pre-order at Amazon. I have a contribution - about correlations between the design of Neverland and the transformation of Michael Jackson himself- in this collection of essays about MJ. Much more excitingly it includes contributions by Ian Penman, Barney Hoskins and Chris Roberts, as well as a host of excellent writers from the blogosphere including Dominic Fox, Evan Calder-Williams, Robin Carmody and Sam Davies. You could even buy a copy.

Many thanks to the editor Mark Fischer and to Owen (also contributing) for including me in such a fine array.

Ok, gush over. Back to business. (Straightens tie. Goes back to reading RIBA Standard Terms of Appointment).

Object(ion) of the Week

In the various descriptions of Gordon Brown's conference speech one small detail stuck out for me. Apparently Gordon had a full sized replica of the conference podium set up in his hotel room to practice with. Tony Blair always had one too, although in his case you can imagine it wasn't just at conference time.

It's a tragic image though, Gordon standing impassioned in his pyjamas on his fake podium, frantically rehearsing his big ideas of clamping down on binge drinking and incarcerating fallen women to an audience of three snoozing aides.

It raises some interesting questions too. Is it exactly the same as the real one or is it a mock up made from cardboard and sellotape? Does he bring it with him? And who designed it? This is an object which, along with the rest of the conference interior, carries a significant amount of symbolic weight. And yet they are rarely discussed in design terms.

Make no mistake the podium itself is a fucking ugly object, like a huge plastic mushroom with an unpleasant foreskin fold halfway down its length. The whole thing is hydraulic too so the top half actually lowers down at the end of the speech in an unfortunate display of political detumescence.

It's difficult to know where the styling is coming from. There is a touch of the X-Box display stand about it and, obviously, a lot of the pulpit, both of which are probably deliberate. Political symbolism in this country is generally pretty clunky and gauche though from the Conservative's Caran d'Ache oak tree to the Liberal Democrats golden Phoenix rising from the ashes.

At the party conferences such insipid bits of graphic branding are combined with Spearmint Rhino lighting and a love of Union Jack emblazoned plasma screens. It makes for a queasy spectacle, a mix of faux self-effacement, orgiastic self worship and jingoistic mania. I'm not sure it would be preferable if it was well designed but - the vacuous populism of the content aside - its difficult to imagine a more alienating spectacle than the modern party conference.

To The Birds

(Ron Onions' Pigeon Loft, Albany)

I've always loved allotments and, in particular, the little sheds that are built on them. These are artful assemblages of as-found building components; old doors, windows and timber panels lashed together to make hybridised, miniature houses.


(Joe Bridges's Racing Loft, Timsbury, UK)

The same strain of home made ad-hocism exists in the world of the pigeon loft only with the added interest of the obsessive pigeon fancier thrown in. The photographs accompanying this post are taken from here - a South Western Australian pigeon fancier's (who knew?) website, cataloguing lofts from around the world.


(Graham Britton's Garden Loft, Newborough, UK.)

They are a lovely collection, a group of miniature buildings ranging from the almost Miesian simplicity of the one at the top of this post (owned by the fabulously named Ron Onions) through Mittel European style chalets to the (slightly decrepit) LA poolhouse style loft below.


(Fred Thompson's Poolside Loft, Western Aust.)

There is a strong sense that the lofts are far more expansive and luxurious than required. They are clearly an expression of the owners obsessive love of racing pigeons and the dedication it takes to train them. In the world of the pigeon fancier the birds are the 'talent' and these lofts are their Bel Air mansions. They're a far cry from the terrace rooftop lofts of the Northern England stereotype anyway, and the term loft is a bit of a misnomer. These are houses in their own right.


(Advanced Pigeon Loft diagram, Via)

The site also contains detail of each fancier's dietary and training regime should you be interested. Each one has a personal profile offering an insight into a remarkable world of obsessive feeding patterns and slightly obscene sounding terminology ("widowhood cocks"). Like most hobbies it is a sort of parallel universe, one where humans build houses for birds to live in that are quite probably a lot nicer than their own.

(Joe Baker's Racing Loft, Hereford, UK)