The islands have always been connected by ferries. Ships service the islands from the Scottish mainland, and smaller boats link the separate land masses of the Shetland Islands that form the most northerly portion of Britain. This is the set of islands that usually find their way into an insert box to be located anywhere to suit the cartographers graphic layout. The inter-island ferries were once basic boats with a simple cabin for shelter. It was not until oil was discovered in the North Sea in the 1960s that the Shetland Islands had the money and enthusiasm to change these sweet, homely cruisers into RORO ferries - roll on, roll off - meaning that, for the first time, one could drive from Saxavord to Sumburgh without getting out of the car.
Yet getting out of the car when on the ferry was always something to look forward to. One could stand on the deck and enjoy the seascape, feel the salt air on the face, and admire the soft interplay of layered hills between sky and water. No one objected to this enjoyment, but things changed with the onset of COVID restrictions in 2020. The rules were to stay in the vehicle at all times unless it was essential to get out: so one was confined to the car.
This was not too bad on the smaller ferries where glimpses of the passing panorama could be gained between the bulkheads, through various openings for ropes, anchors, and drains, and over the raised vehicle ramp. It was on the larger ferries running between Yell and Mainland, Ulsta and Toft, that one found oneself in a car surrounded by walls six metres high, a true enclosure. There was no chance of a glimpse of anything here with this confinement. Passengers were once encouraged to move up to the lounge where seating, tables, soup and coffee, and toilets were available, as well as the marvellous vistas of the surrounding islands.
Finding oneself hemmed in like this for the twenty-minute crossing left one staring at what was nearby - other vehicles and the ferry itself. So it was that the eyes wandered and settled quizzically on a window detail on what turned out to be a nearby Ford, a Ford Tourneo Connect. Why might the pillar be shaped in this way? The division between the driver's door and the one behind it was a vertical black band that splayed out at 45 degrees at the base. One wondered how the window might wind up and down. It could only be that this splay was merely a stylistic device that formed a shroud over the vertically sliding glass panel. There must have been a similar form inside to complete the tricky illusion.
The eyes moved to the rear door on the driver's side; how was this detailed? The pillar between the door and the rear fixed glass panel looked identical to that between the doors, but here a fine dividing strip was located just beyond the splay, carefully avoiding it in order to 'square up' a panel for the vertical slide of the glass window. A narrow strip of fixed glass was fitted into the truncated shape underlined by the splay that seemed to be a solid frame here: there was no illusion. One wondered why the detail had been varied. Why was the rear splay not the shroud that it formed over the sliding glass of the driver's door? It seemed that there was an admission here that the driver's detail was a tricky fake; that it was simpler to fit the rear door, where the full glazed width need not open, with one splayed fixed panel, and one sliding window panel - even if it meant breaking the glazed area into two separate pieces. One might have thought it more convenient to keep the detail the same as that on the driver's door.
The eye moved on and surprisingly noted that the profile of the rear fixed glass panel framed by the body of the vehicle, was identical to that of the two black, splayed pillars, but now the shape was a panel of the body, painted in the pale grey-blue of the car. It was an interesting array of similarities. One could envisage the designer working on the side elevation of the car and developing a profile that was so 'satisfactory,' so stylish, that it was replicated as a formal theme for all of the openings.
With the eye wandering over the rest of the vehicle, another detail caused it to pause. The petrol access flap had a small, raised finger recess moulded in it, to allow easy opening. This protruding dimpled form sat exactly in the swoosh that swept down the full length of the vehicle as a crease in the panels, a depression that looked purely decorative, 'speedy,' in its intent. The designer had developed a theme here too, with both door handles located on this swish moulding, aligning perfectly with it, in the same way as the finger flip of the petrol flap did. The arrangement was deliberate, self-conscious, and determined. One again envisaged the designer working hard on the appearance of the elevation. The car was being styled, shaped by aesthetic preferences, creating pleasing 'whizzy' appearances irrespective of function and purpose.
The eye isolated the petrol flap as a separate item. As the swoosh extended to the rear of the vehicle, it found itself close to the swelling around the rim of the wheel shroud. It was here that the petrol access hatch was located too. The flap was located not only in the swoosh, but also sliced into the swelling made for the wheel, meaning that the tiny panel was no simple flat element: it was rectangular with curved corners in elevation, but was, in section, a complex moulding shaped to sit flush with and to continue the profiles of the swoosh and wheel swelling with no interruption to the profiled surface of these shapings. The declaration of, and the precise locating of the finger recess seemed strangely at odds with the suppression of the expression of the flap.
It was clear that the most important matter in this design was not function or fabrication, but expressive and impressive style, a shaping for an emotive desirability, with the only purpose accommodated being the attractiveness of the vision - it had to look good irrespective of the complications this strategy caused for function or fabrication.
Moving around to the ferry's detailing, the eye settled on the sliding door to the passenger lounge. Above this door was a steel panel that had a perimeter of wing nuts, some two dozen of them, with two D handles welded along its centre line. It was a puzzling sight that slowly made sense. This panel provided access to service the sliding mechanism. The detail told the story: the wing nuts could be removed, the handles pulled, and the panel could be lifted away to give access to the workings of the door. One could clearly envisage the adequacy of everything for the actions involved. Here function and its purpose were the only concerns that gave this detail its intelligence.
The eye moved along the steel wall and paused at a vent. It was a protruding pipe, mitred to face downwards away from the weather. A hinged flap with a seal hung below it, with a threaded rod with a wing nut screwed to a steel flat on the wall. As the detail was pondered, it was realised that the flap was fixed, held open to stop it moving, clanging with the wind or the sway of the boat. When it needed to be closed, it could be unscrewed and swung up over the end of the pipe where there was another flat located to allow the wing nut to be fitted to fix the vent flap closed. It was elemental design, with everything explicitly made and shaped for a clear purpose that became self evident, crystal clear to the observer. Intriguingly, all the body movements were itemised in the pieces, clearly described by them.
Directly below this vent, some 400mm off the deck, was a square bar bent into a sloping U welded to the wall, and painted black. It was soon realised that this was the step that enabled the seaman to reach the high flap. Just off to one side, about two metres off the deck, was a D shaped white tube: this was the handle that allowed the seaman to climb and steady himself for the task of closure as he reached up the wall. Everything on the ferry was made of steel, and was hand crafted for the purpose. No consideration had been given to any concept of style, just function.
There is little wonder that the modernists became so excited with ships. The detailing throughout was all just like this: even door hinges and locks were all fabricated for the particular purpose. What looked like an array of odd bits and pieces could all eventually be made sense of as part of a functional story: the grips for the ladders; the breaks in the rails; the protective tube shrouds on sharp edges all made their purpose self-evident: the hook that held the door open; the lever that turned all the tongues locking the door. The wonder of the inventive door lock became evident when the door stood ajar. There was explicit itemised thinking and logic at work here.
One found oneself looking for the story behind the shapings and makings of all the parts of the ferry. Frequently the function was identified by a label: 'Fresh water vent;' 'Hydraulic oil;' etc. It was a completely different experience to looking at the car. Both the ferry and the car told stories, but the stories had nothing in common. Two completely different design strategies were evident here. One had forms shaped by functions; the other had forms imposed on functions. One held a rigour in its clarity, the other a rigour in its exclamations, its amazement. One strategy was all about elements, the pieces and their functional relationships with each other and the body of the user; the other was all about surfaces, shapes, appearances presented for the eye of the user irrespective of any of the implications of making or functional purpose; here everything was subservient to style, to aesthetic ambitions. With the ferry, the final appearance was that determined only by the making and the function. There was no cheating in the ferry; the car was all about accommodating the stylistic preference, even if it meant awkward complexities and cunning fudging. There was no way that a flap on a ferry would ever be shaped like that for the access to the petrol cap of the car.
These two last characteristics, 'awkward complexities' and 'cunning fudging,' can be seen to be the hallmarks of much of the architecture today that is concerned solely with expression and the impression it makes. The ferry displayed more of a Gothic spirit, an elemental clarity in purpose, an honesty without apology to style. Somehow one can sense a purity in one approach that the other lacks in its pretentious display of elusive and effusive style. One can experience the delight of those who struggled towards a new architecture, away from the fudges, the sneaky tricks seen in the florid excesses of Victoriana. Louis Sullivan writes about his experience of seeing huge pediments, parapets, and classical annexures that were there purely for style and expression, nothing else: it is similar to car design today. Now, in architecture, we find ourselves deep in this charade again, where the most important matter is for the assertive announcement to be seen, all prompted by the desire for self-expression with a stark and startling difference, a unique, bespoke 'creativity.'
What might make us see differently yet again? Can we learn anything from ships and silos once more? Our technologies today do little to help us see the world with their secret mysteries of itemised information that prompt personal indulgences, and promote self-importance. Maybe nature itself might become a guide again as it was for Sullivan, who wrote of the form of the rose as being the function of the rose, and vice versa. Have we been changed so much by our era that we can no longer understand, let alone appreciate what these words mean? Have we been so transformed that we know nothing of the experience the Psalmist wrote about with the words: 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help'? Psalm 121, KJV.
We need to look more at roses and hills to discover just what the words allude to, then we might see through the flimsy whimsy of fanciful style, that ad hoc shaping highlighted by its difference, its stark contrast with the rigour of the work of the ship's welder, and its bland indifference to what Kandinsky called 'internal necessity.'
P.S.
As the cars drove off the ferry, one discovered that the designer's theme had been carried through to the rear window of the Ford Tourneo too. Each lower corner of the back panel had been carefully truncated to continue the 'swishy' theme.
An aggregation of necessity.
19 FEBRUARY 2021
The difference in the design strategies is highlighted in Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim. In Ovation’s DVD set, Architecture, the diagram of the Gehry museum shows how the top one third of the mass could be removed without altering any function of the building. There is not much that could be removed from any boating detail.
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