Eden Project Cornwall

Abandoned clay pit: the site of the Eden Project ------Tim Smit the creator of the project

FORERUNNERS OF THE EDEN PROJECT

Great conservatory, Syon Park by Charles Fowler (1629-33) planned in a Palladian manner (left) and the Great Stove, the palmhouse at Kew Gardens by Decimus Burton (1845-6)

THE EDEN PROJECT, NEAR ST AUSTELL, CORNWALL OPENED 2001

Tim Smit's modest ambitions in 1994 were to build the largest greenhouse in the world, to restore the despoiled landscape of an abandoned china clay pit, and to teach us what we can do to save our planet from ecological disaster. The Eden project shows how his dreams were brought to life with the help of the architect Nicholas Grimshaw and a huge team of experts in many disciplines.
Who would guess that this tropical rain forest, complete with giant trees, a waterfall and a river, as well as dwellings from South East Asia and Africa, exists inside a humanly made structure? We can walk through this hot, steamy forest, beneath a giant roof and feel as if we are deep in a real forest. We perceive the humid atmosphere becoming more intense as we reach the highest point on a winding path. We can focus on the treetops that almost obliterate the structure above or look down to enjoy the beauty of brilliant flowers.

There are many demonstrations of ecological principles and pointers about what we need to do to create a healthier balance in the way we live. Many small displays that don't seem to interrupt the grand scheme tell us about how we can improve the lives of small farmers and at the same time help the survival of the planet. Other exhibits warn us about our misuse of resources and the causes of environmental degradation.

A few days after my walk through the biomes in Cornwall I was at Kew gardens and was able to make comparisons. The Royal Botanical Society has not just created a large, pretty garden, but also a vast scientific organization working all over the world both to study plants and to help them to flourish in their natural habitat. They even have a vast seed bank to store seeds of plants that may become extinct. I went on a guided walk, eloquently led by Mrs. Insall who focused on plants from olive trees to neem that have changed human life. Many of her examples were plants with medicinal use. So I discovered that Kew and Eden have much in

common. In the Palm house, a great design by Decimus Burton (1845-6), I found a big difference. While at the Eden Project we can experience the illusion of complete environments in the hot humid tropics or in Mediterranean climates, at Kew we only find a neatly arranged collection - though a fascinating one - of different species. I remember feeilng enthralled when I first saw the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew by Gordon Wilson (1986) which recreates the plant life of different climatic zones from desert to rain forest. But now, after seing Tim Smit's creation in Cornwall, it seems quite limited.

I found it amusing to note that the slightly earlier Great Conservatory at Syon Park (1839-31) by Charles Fowler is arranged on a Palladian plan with a central, glass-domed structure symmetrically flanked by curved links to wings on eithers side. The architect of this innovative structure could not shake the desire to follow a sanctified historical type

Baroque ecstasy in the Asamkirche, Munich

The brothers Asam, leading architects of late Baroque Bavaria, bequeathed this church (1833-46) to the city of Vienna. It stands right next to the family residence of Egid Quirin Asam, built in 1733-4 on the Sendingerstrasse. The church occupies a narrower street frontage than the architect's house, but what the religious building lacks in width, it makes up in interior height and drama. The voluptuous figures flanking its doorway to the house, echoed by sculpture in lower relief on the walls above, show the florid taste of the Asams. The classical allusions in secular sculpture on the facade harmonize with the images on the church.

Baroque churches in Rome such as Bernini's Sant' Andrea al Quirinale, and Borromini's San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, occupied restricted sites, but employed ingenious design strategies with eye catching, curving projections into the street. The Asam brothers followed the same method of drawing attention to the church in their narrow thoroughfare.
The interior must seem shocking to
people with a puritannical outlook. Those who feel a greater spiritual connection to the neo-Romanesque Annakirche in Munich of 1892 (right) may be nauseated by the apparent excess in the Asamkirche.
However the purity of the Anna Kirche evokes an appearance that
was rare in the 11th century.
We must remember that many Romanesque churches were originally covered with frescoes. Since a dominant theme in the Romanesque era was the last judgement, parishioners may have stood for hours gazing at the horrors of hell. Those who built the Anna Kirche seven centuries later were probably reacting to the florid character of the German Baroque. They preferred plain, whitewashed walls to terrifying images of hell. In contrast, the Asamkirche is a product of the counter reformation a period in which architecture was intended to fill the hearts of the faithful with a feeling of religious ecstacy. Their eyes were lured up to heaven not down into the inferno. Saints gesticulate, spiraling columns soar upwards, gilded rays of light radiate from windows, and the vault offers an image of heaven.

Hundertwasserhaus Vienna

Vienna is a gray-white city, lacking the warmth and variety of Prague and Krakow. The regular, symmetrical architecture of the Habsburg era was challenged at the end of the 19th century by secessionist architects like Otto Wagner, but their predominantly white buildings were planned as rectilinear blocks too.

So the wild, colorful forms of Friedensreich Hundertwasser appear extraordinary in the Viennese cityscape. At first sight they may recall the work of Antonio Gaudi in Barcelona, for some of the surfaces are covered with ceramic tiles; but they do not possess the underlying structural order on which Gaudi insisted They are more anarchic, somewhat in the manner of Lucien Kroll. I wish I had had the opportunity to go inside and talk to some of the residents. I am sure that it embodies a different kind of community from those stolid Austro-Hungarian blocks or the serious worker housing of the thirties. It must be a fun place to live. I only hope that the roofs of the tall trees on the upper terraces and the vines on the walls don't tear it apart.

Red Vienna and Habsburg Vienna

Karl Marx Hof the living emblem of Red Vienna Schonbrunn Palace gardens, Habsburg Vienna

KARL MARX HOF 1927-1932

The largest courtyard is open on the north side to a street. Other courts are entirely enclosed

On the north side of the block with a closed court (above), apartments face a tree shaded street. On the south side of the large central court, broad arches lead through to the U-Bahn Station.

I ended up my first full day in Vienna by taking the U bahn out to the end of one line to see Karl Marx Hof, the best known of the public housing projects of Red Vienna. It is exactly opposite the U Bahn station at Heiligenstadt, and therefore easy for residents to reach. It is beautifully integrated into the city with large courtyards as well as a park open to a street on one side of the central block. The strong geometry gives it a monumental character , but the balconies that contribute strong horizontals are of course for the enjoyment of families living there. The broad arches beneath the upper stories create frequent links to the park.

Karl Marx Hof was built between 1927 and 1930 by Karl Ehn, a student of Otto Wagner's, as a socialist enterprise of over one thousand apartments for workers with many amenities, such as gardens, playgrounds, laundramats, baths, a library, etc. In the February uprising of 1934, it was seen by the new Fascist government as a hotbed of Communism. When the workers barricaded themselves into the building the Fascists bombarded it with artillery and. It was finally repaired in the 1950s.

Schonbrunn Palace

I enjoyed comparing The Karl Marx Hof with enormous Schönbrünn Palace which I saw the next day. I found this rococo palace so disconnected from real life that it oppressed me. I think it also oppressed Empress Elizabeth, wife of Franz Josef I. She said that at the age of fifteen she was forced to make vows she did not understand and had to live with for the rest of her life. She was a strong and independent woman, who managed, in some ways to break the protocol of the Hasburg court . It took several hours every day to care for her ankle length hair, so she spent the time learning languages so that she could communicate with a broader range of people. She escaped as much time as possible from Schönbrünn and particularly enjoyed spending time in Hungary.

The palace and gardens are obviously based on Versailles, but architecturally weaker. The park seems to include even vaster expanses of gravel between the geometrically planted parterres, and endless arid vistas. No wonder they needed fountains with writhing human figures, giant fishes and rearing horses among splashing water. I struck me that the people in the palace were forced into the most voluminous and constricting clothing, but were allowed to look at all that naked flesh in the garden


In France, the architect, landscape architect and interior designers Le Vau, le Notre, and Le Brun pointed the way in the design of Baroque palaces. First at Vaux le Vicomte, then at Versailles they created a formula that was copied at countless palaces and gardens, such as Schönbrunn. It perfectly expressed the absurd concept of the divine right of kings. At Vaux the idea of the landscape showing human domination over nature is perfectly realized with a powerful design. There is more drama in the palace at Vaux than at Schönbrunn.

Louis XIV was captivated by Vaux-le Vicomte, arrested its builder Nicholas Foucault for embezzling state funds, and hired the same team to design Versailles. He wanted them to "forcer la nature." But Marie Antoinette, a Habsburg princess was oppressed by the regularity at Versailles and commissioned a more natural Jardin Anglais. She would escape there with her ladies-in waining dressed as milkmaids to enjoy the farm and dairy of the Hameau.

Maybe if Red Vienna had not been suppressed by fascists, the city of Vienna could have integrated public housing into the gardens at Schönbrunn and turned some of the parterres into community gardens. If Michelle Obama can invite children to help her grow vegetables in the White House garden, why could it not happen in the gardens of many palaces.

Vienna on the Quick

So little time and so much to do. But everything is made easy by the nature of Vienna. I have a quiet comfortable place to stay(pension Kraml); the transportation system is marvellous, very easy to understand; the streets are pedestrian and bicycle friendly; cafes are enticing; the skies are clear, but there is a refreshing breeze; I was able to get tickets for a Mozart concert and Faust by Gounod at the Opera House in a few minutes; art museums are less exhausting than most because one can lounge on velvet upholstered sofas with backrests while listening to eloquent commentaries whispered in the ear, there are great art collections.... and so I could go on.

I developed a time and cash saving formula of eating a generous breakfast at the pension, enough to take me into afternoon, when I have coffee and a snack (for example fabulous apfelstrudel at the Cafe Demel and Sachertorte at the Kunsthistorisches Museum) Then I can last until dinner.

On my first full day I decided to focus on Otto Wagner and the Vienna Secession, but of course I saw other things along the way. In a short walk from the pension I saw two apartment buildings by Wagner, one of the known as the Malolicka Haus. As I went there , I passed many ponderous buildings with ornate facades, with pedimented window casings, florid sculpture showing a lot of nude flesh, even atlas figures straining under the weight of the bourgeois life they were supporting. Compared with these Wagner’s flat facades with two dimensional, or lightly applied abstract decorations look extremely bold.

Wagner seemed to be sweeping away the stolid Austro-Hungarian appearance for something light and free. I walked on to the Olbricht's Secession building and was struck by the formal link to Wright's Unity Temple. But the golden dome is something quite different. Then I walked across the old town to Wagner' Postsparkasse (post office savings bank) Wagner has transformed the formal, symmetrical administration building representing the state into a place that is serious and imposing on the outside, but filled with light, and unencumbered with derivative 3-D decoration. Wagner declares - and it is written on a wall - WHAT IS IMPRACTICAL CAN NEVER BE BEAUTIFUL The main banking hall makes Chicago' atria under light wells, built only a few years before look positively archaic.

Two huge art museums, two palaces Brueghel, Klimt, Schiele, Kokoshka

The opera was musically fabulous, visually pauvre. Mozart was the hits, but what hits.

The Isfahan of Shah Abbas

The British Museum is showing a suberb exhibition on the reign of Shah Abbas and the city of Isfahan, the greatest manifestation of his long reign in the late 16th and early seventeenth century. He has been described as ruthless, but unlike Persian rulers of earlier times, he did not attempt to increase his empire beyond its boundaries in the time of his grandfather. He only recaptured areas lost to the Ottomans and invaders from the East. In this respect he differed from his Ottoman contemporaries with their constant campaigns of conquest. He was also unlike those today who seek world domination.

Rather he opened up trade and diplomacy with China, India and Europe. He took advantage of an English nobleman as a roving diplomat, in his attempt to court European nations as allies against the Ottomans.

Shah Abbas commissioned architects, calligraphers and artists to show his piety and power, but, above all, it seems to make Isfahan the most beautiful city in the world. When I was there thirty eight years ago, I was convinced that he came close to achieving his aims. If only today's empire builders would concentrate on art architecture and trade.

Off to London, Vienna and Munich!

Today is the first post for my trip to Europe. I am planning to look at RED Vienna, Vienna Secession, etc. More to follow!