BAGDContext CSM

This is a post about the English illustrator, Edward Bawden, and the poster for the Ealing film comedy, The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953). It’s also a post about films (culture) and politics in Britain after WW2. As you can see from the poster, the railway engine looms large in the story…so, it’s also a post about trains.

You can watch the whole film on the internet…

Edward Bawden

Edward Bawden was an English artist and illustrator working in the middle part of the 20C. He attended the Royal College of Art where he was taught by Paul Nash and became friends with Eric Ravilious.

Bawden was an artist who was happy to work across different fields. His style of illustration was derived from his interest in lino-cutting and often features elements of Victorian typography and folk-art. The link to the comic and nonsense drawings of Edward Lear is evident. It was natural, in the circumstances, that Bawden should produce book illustrations, posters and advertising material throughout his career.

Ealing

Ealing has a special place in the history of British cinema with an association dating back to the earliest days of cinema in Britain. Will Baker established a studio in Ealing at the beginning of the twentieth century. By 1912 the studio was possibly the largest in Europe and certainly the largest in Britain.

Will Baker had begun making films on a Lumiere hand-cranked camera at the end of the 1890s. His first efforts were of the Mitchell and Kenyon topical kind. These films required a minimum of post-production and were therefore economical. At Ealing, Baker’s productions became more ambitious and the studio developed large glazed stages to accommodate the theatrical and historical epics produced before 1920.

The early history of the commercial exploitation of cinema is fascinating. The technology of cinema was developed, more-or-less simultaneously, in France, Britain and America. Business people whose skills were in theatrical presentation, distribution and production succeeded the early pioneers.

In the 1920s there were large industrially organised film production facilities in France, Germany, Britain and the USA. The story of how Hollywood came to global dominance combines commercial ruthlessness, political expediency and ineffective policy-making decisions.

Michael Balcon became Head of Production at Ealing Studios in 1938. The glory-days of the studio date from 1943 through to 1959, when the studios closed.

Films and Comedies

The term Ealing is usually synonymous with a distinctively English form of light-hearted comedy satire. The force of these films comes from them being simple exaggerated extensions, in the tradition of Dean Swift, of everyday realities.

Goodness knows, the circumstances of war, austerity and reconstruction provided plenty of scope for satire. This was especially the case in relation to the extension of state powers in the guise of progress and welfare provision. This extension was often presented as well intentioned but muddled, and as always unlikely to deliver the benefit as planned. Usually, the muddle is resolved by appeal to common sense. Nowadays some of this survives in the concept of the nanny state.

There are probably about six really well known Ealing comedies: Passport to Pimlico (1949), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) and The Ladykillers (1955).

The comedies were not the only films made at Ealing. There are social-realist and police investigation films. But, with one or two exception, it’s the comedies that are remembered.

Titfield Thunderbolt

The story of The Thunderbolt is straightforward. An underused rural branch line is threatened with closure. Railway administrators and unscrupulous bus operators collude in a progressive rationalisation of transport so as to kill off the railway.

The local people are outraged by this plan and gather forces to make their case. In the great tradition of Ealing, the ancient forces of land and church combine. Usually, the local community meet at the local pub. In The Thunderbolt, the forces gather in the restaurant and buffet car!

Ealing Posters

The posters for these Ealing films are remarkable. The posters were produced, from 1943 onwards, under the direction of S John Woods who reported directly to Michael Balcon. Woods had trained as an artist and graphic designer. He assembled a stable of artists and designers to make posters for the studio’s films. The process was made possible by Woods extensive list of friends and contacts and his ability to match artist and theme.

Some of the artists recruited by St John Woods include John Piper, Edward Bawden, Barnet Freedman, John Minton, Mervyn Peake, Edward Ardizzone, James Boswell and James Fitton.

The Ealing film posters are remarkable on two points. Firstly and against all the odds, they are recognisable works of art by artists whose work extends beyond the usual concerns of graphic design, cinema and fine art. Secondly, they embrace and give expression to the political dimension of satire and social-realism in relation to post-WW2 reconstruction and the prevailing ethos of relentless progress.

The Thunderbolt story was played out across the country through the rationalisation of the railway network in the 1960s.

Here is a fabulous film by Jean Mitry called Pacific 231. It’s a film sequence of trains edited to the music of Arthur Honneger. The film is from 1949.

This film essay is in two main parts.

The introduction has scenes of make-ready with engines and rolling-stock being moved about against the background sounds of metal, steam and machine. The industrial noises of the machinery are a kind of music. There’s a wonderful sequence of images of the engine on a turntable.

The second part of the film is of the engine at speed and its journey. The train leaves from the Gare du Nord and is the northern express towards Lille. I’m guessing that, based on my knowledge of the shape of the train shed canopy in the film.

The second part has the musical soundtrack by Honneger. Honneger’s music is an orchestral evocation of the power and speed of the train. It’s the music of industry and engineering and speed…

You can find out more about Honneger, here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Honegger

and about Pacific 231, here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_231

It turns out that Jean Mitry was one of the first people to write about film and cinema in a seriously academic way. His work covers aesthetics, psychology, semiotics and analysis. There’s a little about Mitry, here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Mitry

Honneger was not the only person to be thinking of the musical quality of industrial noise. The connection goes right back to the beginnings of the avant-garde and the willingness to interrogate the formal and structural qualities of art, music and literature.

The poetic experiments of the Italian Futurists kick it all off with Marinetti’s Zang Tumb Tumb (1914). The experiments of concrete poetry and everything else followed.

It wasn’t long before the musical avant-garde adopted the Dada strategy of making art with whatever was to hand. That opened the door, so to speak, for a repertoire beyond the established instruments.

It’s amazing how difficult people find it to accept “noise,” or even silence, as music. In the end, it comes down to a kind of political tolerance.

In the UK, this gave us the experimental music movement of the 1960s and the “scratch orchestra.” This was a kind of musical “flash-mob.” In Germany, Kraftwerk recorded a piece of music called Kling-Klang (1972) and gave the name to their recording studio.

If you watch the Mitry film titles, you’ll see that the sound recording is by “Klang-Film.” So, “Klang” is a sound that’s loaded with meanings.

I’ll be posting more about art, films, trains, music and sounds…There’s more of it than you think.

This is a post about the Euston Arch.

The Arch was the gateway to the old Euston Station and, in the other direction, to London. Here it is, in 1955; black and impressive. It no longer stands.

The Arch was pulled down in 1962 as part of a scheme to redevelop and modernise Euston Station. This was interpreted as an act of spiteful administrative and political vandalism. This kick-started the popular architectural conservation movement in Britain.

Recently, there have been plans to rebuild the Arch and integrate it into the proposed improvements to Euston. See http://www.eustonarch.org/

So, the Arch was both a bit of architecture and a symbol…and it became the symbol of something else too. Its destruction set a fault-line for British architectural debate for the next 50 years!

You can interpret the story of the Arch as a series of shifts in its meanings. First, as a symbolic gateway. Second as a symbol of the old and, in its absence after its demolition, as a symbol of modernisation, progress and a movement forward. Thirdly, as a sign of synthesis and compromise between past and present.

Background and Geography – The Old Euston

Euston station was the conceived as the London terminal of the London and Birmingham Railway Company. The station opened in 1837.

The LBR was the first major railway into London.  The scheme was constrained by the difficulties of access to the metropolis, the political problems of redevelopment, and the costs of compulsory purchase etc. These issues forced the railway to approach London obliquely and from the west and to use tunnels under the London hills. This line of approach provided a severe limitation on the possible choices of site for the station.

In the event, the site for the station was distinguished by its small size and the narrowness of its approach. Accordingly, the railway architects were obliged to scatter facilities where they could. In the end, the station was developed as a series of separate facilities laid out along the line – the entrance, the waiting room and the train shed.

The engine shed, where engines were steamed-up and made ready, was located some distance north of all this, at Chalk Farm, Camden. This is now called the Roundhouse.

Furthermore, the immediate exit from the station forced the trains up quite a steep incline. In the first instance, engines had to be pulled out of the station on ropes and chains! Later, engines would double-up. By the 20C, powerful steam engines could slowly make the climb; but only by blowing out lots of steam and soot! This was all very dramatic, but it reduced the surrounding area to slums. Drummond Street, Camden, Chalk Farm and Primrose Hill were only rehabilitated after the clean-air act and the electrification of the railway during the early 1960s.

It’s amazing to think of these areas of London as so recently blighted. The first people to move into the area were media professionals from journalism, TV and the stage.

The Arch

The Propylaeum is a special kind of monumental arch associated with the classical architecture of ancient Greece. It’s big and it’s usually the doorway to something important.

It was entirely appropriate that, given the tastes of early Victorian England, the Directors of the London and Birmingham Railway should choose this kind of structure to be the gateway of their railway and to the metropolis.

Reyner Banham described it thus.. (Philip) Hardwick’s Propylaeum, completed 1839, is very Early Victorian and represents an attempt to express a progressive theme, the London-Birmingham Railway, in an idiom of an accepted high style of architecture, Greek Doric. The structure served no operational railway function but gave monumental form to an impressive sentiment.

As an exercise in style it was faultless. It’s giant scale gave it a gravitas that grew daily more austere (and) commanding as the soot settled blacker on the stone. One could say that it was more perfect even than the Parthenon – a mortuary perfection.

The Arch was one of those building that got better with age. As it got dirtier, the hulk of the structure became more imposing. The gilded sans-serif letters of the inscription became more impressive against this sooty backdrop.

The Demolition

The scheme to redevelop Euston involved pulling everything down and starting again with shops, offices and a station combined.  The opportunity to link the redevelopment of the station to commercial property development transformed the project. The project got hi-jacked by the special interests of the property speculators. In the circumstances, the Arch was never going to survive.

The demolition has passed into folklore. The contractor, Frank Valori, was so upset by this destruction that he offered to rebuild the arch. Although his offer was rebuffed, he numbered each piece anyway. Eventually, the stones were dumped in the River Lea. Dan Cruickshank found the stones in 1994.

The New Euston

The new station was conceptualised as an office development fronting the Euston Road with a functionally designed, international style, train shed behind. In principle, the narrowness of the site required that the station facilities be stacked one-on-top-of-the-other. The engineering complexity of this, expressed as costs, meant that the station remained a long, flat shed. All the money went on the offices. It was entirely appropriate that, some 40 years later. the privatised railway company, Railtrack, had its offices there.

There’s a wonderful document about the new station, here

http://www.eustonarch.org/britishrail1968.pdf

Anyone who is familiar with Euston, as is, will be struck by the fantasy of this shiny future. It’s a kind of airport – without the glamour and style. However, the redevelopment was instrumental in bringing together a number of architects – amonst them Theo Crosby and the founders of Archigram.

You can see what a properly vertically-integrated transport hub look like in Berlin. I posted about it, here http://areopagitica.blog.co.uk/2010/09/18/moscow-berlin-paris-and-new-york-cities-and-people-9415018/

The Debate

The decision to pull down the Arch was roundly condemned. John Betjeman became a sort of spokesperson for the conservationist movement. Many architects also opposed the scheme. Alison and Peter Smithson published a book as a memento mori of the Arch.

The debate became polarised between traditionalists and modernisers. In the context of the 1950s and 1960s this was described by Michael Frayn as a battle between herbivores and carnivores. It’s not always as simple as that though – some modernisers are roundheads and some are cavaliers. Some of the rationalists are gentle herbivores and some are brutal and puritanical carnivores. These cultural labels cut across the usual class and political demographics of British society.

To their credit, the next generation of modernist architects embraced the sense that buildings were about feelings as much as function. The puritan business culture of Britain remained suspicious of the hedonistic feelings associated with the counter-culture. In this context, the ideas of Archigram were rejected in favour of a disciplined, but generic, form of commerical development. Mostly, this expressed itself as a kind of shopping mall.

The ideas of Archigram, expressed theoretically through the fun palace, were eventually realised in the Beaubourg Centre in Paris, France, by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. Elsewhere, these ideas were theorised in Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi.

Bibliography

Banham, Barker, Lyall and Price (1996) A Critic Writes – Essays by Reyner Banham Berkley CA, UCP                                                                                                                                   see Carbonorific p.79-80 reproduced from the New Statesman 1962

Betjeman J (1972) London’s Historic Railway Stations London, John Murray

Sissons M & French P (1964) The Age of Austerity London, Penguin                               see Frayn M Festival p.330-352

Smithson Alison and Peter (1968) The Euston Arch London, T&H

This is a coloured photo-litho print of the LNER A3 Pacific Class Flying Scotsman.

I think this was made as a carriage print – it’s about the right size in landscape format.

The engine was built at Doncaster in 1923. You can find out all about it on the www and from the National Railway Museum in York. The engine has been restored and is currently painted in matte black, as during WW2. It’s quite impressive like that.

Here’s the cover of the Southern Railway staff magazine from 1935. The design is signed with the initials VR. That’s Victor Reinganum. You can find out about him, here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Reinganum

I bought this in a second-hand bookshop. It was really inexpensive, but I liked the integration of image and typography in the design. The gothic tracery of the rails is terrific.

There was a charming TV film last night about the Tanzania and Zambia Railroad Authority. You can watch it here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s6bgw/African_Railway/

The systemic dysfunction revealed in this good-natured film is testimony to the difficulties of railway planning. It’s not just people, it’s the culture that is required.

The TZRA is a freight line that ships copper from its land-locked origin to the ocean. It is now an entirely owned subsidiary of the Chinese government. They buy all the copper.