QUILTY & HARDING AT TWEED GALLERY

The catalogue folder and some promotional cards were on the coffee table, so this scattering was browsed while we waited for our friends to get organised. Once matters had been arranged, everyone could settle down with a drink. We had been invited to dinner. The discussion soon came around to the Tweed Gallery.

“We went the other day.”

“There are some interesting shows on.”

We were told that the Quilty Afghanistan drawings and paintings were on display; and Nicholas Harding’s drawings and paintings of Margaret Olley were being exhibited too.

“The Quilty images were confronting, but still remarkable. The Olley drawings and paintings were excellent.”

Reference was then made to another show, one that was described vaguely as a re-assemblage of bits and pieces to make fantasy objects.

“It included strange vacuum cleaners and steam engines made from the most unlikely of found things.”

It reminded me of Mark Trotter’s work, his marvellous kangaroos and pelicans that come into being without diminishing the identity of the origins and functions of the various parts that now embody a different energy.

We had heard only recently from another friend that the caterers in the café had changed. Hopefully things were even going to get better at the gallery. We had to visit again: see - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/tweed-art-gallery-not-too-twee.html

A few days later the opportunity to go to the gallery arose, so we travelled over the border into northern New South Wales to Murwillumbah. It is a short trip from Burleigh Heads through classic Gold Coast clutter into some very pretty countryside dominated by Mount Warning, a peak aptly named by Cook on his coastal voyage of discovery, mapping, naming and claiming nearly 250 years ago. The high scenic rim, a rugged perimeter escarpment that spreads from Springbrook to Lamington National Park and beyond, frames this landscape. It marks the edge of the crater of the volcano of which Mount Warning is the centrepiece. These cliffs also define the border between Queensland and New South Wales that makes specific graphic detours on the maps as it approaches the coast at Coolangatta/Tweed Heads.

We squeezed into the parking area that had its access rearranged to accommodate the building works for the new Margaret Olley gallery. Construction work had just begun on this new extension that was to house Olley’s relocated studio, complete with what now seems to be only a selection of her shambles. There was a news report earlier in the week that told of the auction of many of her items. They all apparently sold well. One wonders just what criteria might be used to itemise the objects that will become a part of the permanent display that she envisaged and funded. Why has there been a cull? The idea of relocating a studio that Olley spoke about nicely in terms of its changing light throughout the day and its special relationship to the garden seemed odd.

The architectural drawings of the proposal seemed to follow the same pattern of display as was chosen for the relocated Bacon studio in Dublin: see - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/bacons-sacrambled-studio-francis.html  Here a separate space that could be peered into through sundry openings was embalmed in the gallery space as a time capsule, standing in a foreign place, isolated and separated like a mausoleum. One might have expected to see Lenin laid out on display, such was the alienation of this studio interior in Dublin. Bacon’s space was ghost-like; glimmering; glum; in a vague, surreal haze of artificial light that gave it a theatrical mystery. What commitment can there be to the real sense of place that this Olley studio must have held when it is being put into a different light, in a different region, in a remote and alternative context, with the objects all being very specially chosen to be scattered on display as though the self-conscious dispersal might be the real, authentic thing? These strategies of relocation for convenient exhibition truly have a significant problem that makes a mockery of origins by turning these work areas into a theatrical setting for gawking tourists. Intimate and real connections to the artist are strained and stressed into a new oblivion: but it is only ‘something different and entertaining’ that tourists are seeking, isn’t it? - see: http://springbrooklocale.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/who-or-what-is-tourist.html

After moving up to the entry level from the car park in the lift, we entered the gallery directly into the shop sales area. People were milling here as though it was more important than the gallery display zone. The front door was covered with signs, well, three signs that seemed to promote the worst of any ‘nanny’ state: PLEASE CLOSE DOORS; PLEASE USE THIS DOOR; CAFÉ OPENING HOURS. It was a strange welcome that was repeated in the toilet areas that unbelievably had signs advising one how was to wash one’s hands. Gosh, one was left wondering what other signs might be discovered in the smaller, more private toilet spaces! Do we really need these directions, this information?

One is advised to be careful when walking, perhaps because of the extensive use of tactile warning markers?

The turn into the gallery area took one into the first display of paintings on paper, complete with texts over images of persons and rabbits and sundry big forms. Was the spelling intentionally incorrect? Was this all part of the intrigue of the ‘art’? Why does art struggle to be different in such a mundane manner? The work was interesting but seemed to lack energy, to lack a certain vigour and rigour of commitment, honesty, even though the texts tried to suggest a link to meaningful, personal concerns. Sometimes meaning can try to grasp matters that are just too personal to be anything but an awkward embarrassment to others, creating a forced intimacy that estranges.

One moved on into the core display space. Here the Quilty paintings had replaced the usual portraiture display that the gallery is renowned for. This time it was portraits of soldiers in Afghanistan. Quilty’s portrait of Margaret Olley had been seen as the winner in the Archibald exhibition in Sydney: see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/surprizes.html  It was a stunning piece. Now these larger and grimmer pieces were on display. Something of Quilty’s time in Afghanistan was known from the Australian Story programme that had been played on the ABC TV a short time ago. Now the works could be seen in the original. There is nothing better than the eye seeing the paint and the surface it is on rather than merely the sheen of the fine dots of printer’s ink on gloss paper, or the glow of precise pixels on the slick screen. One needs to see original depth, gesture, texture and colour: to see the paint in its place.

The first work that caught the eye was an odd one. It held the introductory location of this exhibition, possibly because of its text that could be seen as a 'title' piece. What looked like a Streeton painting had high mountains on its horizon with a crudely lettered ‘Afghanistan’ roughed out across the lower hills in what looked like whiteout. What on earth was this? Had Quilty painted a piece ‘after Streeton’ or had he mutilated one? The text on the wall had to be read. Yes, it was declared as being ‘after Arthur Streeton.’ Quilty had painted the foreground in the delicate style of Streeton, with the high mountains of Afghanistan in the distance likewise, and then scrawled the letters ‘Afghanistan’ across these coloured slopes. Why? It seemed a very strange act: almost naïve. The lettering was messy with coarse, stuttering brush strokes that seemed to defy the flow that text needs. Why would one choose to paint after Streeton and illustrate the mountains of Afghanistan where the Australian Blue Mountains should have been? Why create this self-conscious collage in, as the text recorded, ‘oil and liquid paper’? The argument appeared to be that Quilty was establishing or referring to a connection between the countries: but did the liquid paper have any meaning other than its colour white - block out? Little wonder that the lettering was so rough. Liquid paper is difficult to control with its volatile solvent base. The idea of the juxtaposition and naming seemed too contrived to work with any emotive substance, symbolism, relevance or inherent meaning. ‘Crude’ seemed to sum up the idea and the feeling involved as well as the outcome, when it sought something more subtle and sublime.

Just whacking two things together in order to make a link appeared just too literal, as crass as the scrawling of ‘Afghanistan’ across the large mountains, in case one might not notice the change? Did this little painting say something about Quilty’s mental state? The TV programme told of his concerns with Afghanistan. This attempt to capture symbolic meaning and a feeling of nationalism in such a pedantic manner left one thinking that Quilty wasn’t bad as a creator of a fake Streeton, but was hopeless at symbolic references that could tear one’s guts apart, like Munch’s The Scream does; or make one shiver with emotional understanding as one might in front of a Goya or a Hogarth.

The concerns again became obvious in the other works that were not portraits. Quilty had attempted to display feelings in abstractions, illustrated as masses of dark blobs. There appeared to be a similar, self-conscious contrivance here, where Quilty seemed to seek out meaning in dark ‘black holes’ that were illustrated as such. Dark forms; and tortured feelings were documented as distorted, tortured oozings of murky paint in spreading blobs of coloured mess on mass. There was an armoured car hit by a bomb that had been illustrated as an abstraction of a shambles, an ad hoc swirling and pushing of grimly disturbed, gloomy oil paint. The work was barely articulate. These paintings all seemed to be searching for a way to express very complex feelings, but seemed to be just too literal to be as ‘gut-wrenching’ as Goya’s comments on war or even a Nash landscape documenting the outcome of conflict. Quilty was having problems here, in much the same way as his helicopter sketches were childlike scribbles struggling to achieve a match between line, form and perception. One could remember seeing better drawings by children. Have we been trained to accept nearly anything in art by abstraction?

Paul Nash 

The portraits worked much better. One was left wondering if Quilty’s style of brushing thick gestures of colour onto a naked canvas only works when one can recognise the eyes, the nose, and the mouth as a primordial response: the innate power of seeing things ‘as.’ Does the technique only come to life when the viewer is able to bring such intimate, native recognition into the understanding? It is known just how basic, primitive, the reading of a face is when one sees experiments with animals and babies. Do the Quilty brushed marks need this understanding and comprehension of the raw perception of ordinary existence to ‘work’? Is it like seeing a face or a form in a cloud? Whatever it might be, Quilty is a master of painting faces: yes, faces; he struggles with bodies too, those of people, planes and trucks. Hands are not his forte either. These turn out as messy fumbles. The eye does not seem to be as kind to bodies and hands as it is with faces.

Edvard Munch

Francis Bacon

Whatever might be the reason for this, one has to acknowledge that the portraits are marvellous. One sensed a Bacon at times; then a Munch: truly alive with feeling and being - inner presence. Perhaps these references were as contrived as the landscape and the blobs, for the distorted body poses and the wavy marks extending from the forehead did assist in the reading of these associations. But the faces told a story, as did the other more conventional poses. What is always astonishing with the Quilty boldness is how one can see the beautiful colours as unrecognisable paint marks close up, creating an abstraction of marking that is astonishingly reshaped and recognised with distance, not just as a face, but as a person, an individual, an identity. Just what distance is needed for this transformation to take effect requires some experimentation, but as soon as one achieves the right separation, the image congeals into presence, feeling, meaning and character. It is here that Quilty captures the feelings about war and the reflections on battle. Yet, in spite of their size, no portrait here came close to the power of the Margaret Olley representation that won the Archibald. This painting was a masterful array of minimal brushed paint marks applied with a knowing immediacy that completely captured Miss Olley’s being on blank canvas. Did these new works suffer from too much thinking? Was it the white painted canvas that changed the sense of the nonchalant gesture? Was there too much touching up; too much reverie; revision; reworking?

Nicholas Harding

One thought that one would come back to browse here as one strolled out into the corridor and into the Margaret Olley images by Harding. The rugged Olley face was so familiar one almost went away, but the interesting circumstance that held one’s attention was how each image was the same but entirely different, capturing a subtle change in feeling to highlight yet another aspect of Margaret’s character. The paintings had a ‘Quilty’ touch, but with a much more conventionally managed thickness and application. The drawings displayed a beautiful freedom of hand movement, a casual gesturing that the blobs of colour, inks and oils only exaggerated - a carelessness with the ‘art’ of these sketches. It was refreshing to see this attribute, but sad to see it managed, trimmed, mounted and framed for the art world. It seemed that mess might be part of the Harding work generally. One oil portrait of Olley was labelled as being ‘oil and cigarette ash.’ Was this Olley’s or Hardfing’s - both? Harding had sketched the Olley hand complete with ‘ciggy’ as well as her shoed feet. His was an interesting mind and eye, and a clever hand too.

All the work was of substance, but the visitor’s eye was caught by three pieces in particular - the two ink on paper interiors and the palette table painting. The ink on paper interiors were stunning. Quilty-like, they were a mess up close as one sought to determine the artist’s technique. Was the paper really rough or did the artist apply the ink and then scrape and/or rub the paper to give it a heaving, heavy texture? That such detail could be illustrated in such crude roughness was amazing; and that Harding could do this twice was even more astonishing!

The palette table was so thick with paint that one initially saw only masses of muddy thick ooze over the canvas: more than on a Quilty. This became the palette table when one moved away and looked back indifferently. It was as though the image itself was replicating the thick mass and mess of paint that the palette might have accumulated over time. Generally the Harding work was a surprise and displayed the broad skill the artist had in a variety of techniques. It was a refreshingly modest and intimate exhibition that showed the love and care between these two artists.

The stroll out into the corridor took one past glass box displays. A casual glimpse at these only intrigued. One had to pause, look, read, explore. The displays were wonderful, exhibiting the research on the various subjects that interested the artist. The display based on the thylacine clarified everything. One saw the relationship between the beautifully delicate drawings and the displays. The thylacine’s markings had been the inspiration for the works on the walls that were drawn Durer-like, with every hair on the skin carefully delineated. These works were wonderful in a careful and organised manner. They managed a delicacy within their self-conscious determination that one could only admire more and more as one looked more and more in disbelief. Returning to the boxed displays only gave added sense and satisfaction to both the drawings and the various collected items. This was a wonderful surprise that our friends had not mentioned.

A glimpse out of the end windows revealed the early construction works for the new gallery. The location of the columns had been marked on the road in blue. So the new gallery was to be here, twisting east over the road. A turn left took one into a space full of gadgets. The entry displayed a small box with handles that spun images. These sexually explicit illustrations alluded to the old Victorian penny perve boxes that had flip cards of ladies leaving their bath or undressing. It was a strange experience to see these images in such a public place, especially as one handle was very squeaky. That one might be carefully perusing every image in detail became explicit to everyone who could hear the noise of the turning that could only attract attention, such was the audibility of its nuisance squeak.

Moving on took one to an array of sundry items. The idea was simple - make images of gadgets, and stories too, out of sundry collected items. They all held their own intrigue. Some costume works were illustrated as photographs, models and the actual garments. Other pieces were old objects from another era that were examples of the sought-after style. It was as though the idea was to capture the feeling of this old design in new and quaintly interesting ways. The game was ‘to see the thing as’ in a very Wittgenstein-esque way: seeing as. The cutting of the books – a Jules Verne and the Scientific American - showed a clever technique of making a three- dimensional image out of texts merely by careful trimming, all the time maintaining the integrity of the leaves of the book, albeit hollowed-out leaves.

Back to the corridor and out to the café. It was lunch time. The experience did not start well. The table that we had booked was occupied by another. No attempt was made to remedy this mess up. We were told that another table had been held for us as the waitress covered the nameplate that said ‘Jones.’ Still, we stayed, and ate. While the staff had accents that Australians like to link with some mysterious quality perhaps because of the difference and deference involved, the service was poor. One was not impressed with the meal that was delivered not as described in the menu. We asked why. “We have run out of gas.” The kitchen had already run out of one meal listed for lunch, and now gas - at 12:30pm!

Well, one might only hope that the service and food might get better. Being offered a ‘salad’ that was a collection of six miniature lettuce leaves with oil dribbled on seems to be stretching the definition of this word. The explanation that this was “organic salad” seemed a very weak excuse for poor food and emphasised the carelessly rude service. The hope assumed in the early report from our friend, of change for the better, faded quickly. More things would have to change here if the gallery wanted to deliver a better quality of food and service than that one had previously experienced at earlier times.

It was a shame that the café did not live up to the reputation of the gallery. The exhibitions were excellent. Why can the café not be better? Gosh, even the shop was a pleasure to browse through. It had a variety of interesting publications and sundry items, and good information on the local art scene too. So, will one return? Of course, but maybe not to the café. Why is Australian service so poor? Is it that any complaint immediately turns one into a ‘winger’ - go away you bludger? Why should anyone offering a service be happy to have bookings disrupted and meals served in any ad hoc manner? One might have thought that the provider might be more than apologetic, and humbled; but it seems not to be so. One is expected to accept just any behaviour that suits the one who wants to be paid for the service without complaint. It is a real Australian mess. Is one expected to kow-tow to the accent?

That such a good gallery that has such quality exhibitions in such a density offers such a poor service with food in its leased café needs attention. One is not always going to accept this mismatch in quality in a forgiving way, accents or not. Do our immigrants rely on the “I know no-o-o-thing!” cry that we saw in Fawlty Towers? The café could only remind one of the farce in this comedy, but there was really nothing to laugh about here.

TOTAL DAZZLE PUZZLE

One of the images of the boat deck of the Small Boat Harbour in Lerwick during the recent high tides showed a puzzling portion of something that one had never seen before: see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/surprising-mareel-numbers.html  It looked very much out of character with the memories of Lerwick and the cruise ships and other boats that came into the harbour over summer. Now, in the middle of winter, a startling black and white banded shape could be seen to one side of the photograph. What was it? The Internet was searched. What else does one do these days when there is a puzzle to sort out?

There was really nowhere to start other than with some guesses. Maybe the ship was a smart cruise ship, albeit out of season? The search revealed nothing. Was it a visiting research ship? There was no harbour record identifying any cruise ship or research vessel in Lerwick at this time. So it was surmised that what looked like a ship might have something to do with accommodation for the new Total gas plant being constructed at Sullom Voe. This search brought up references to accommodation vessels, with the most interesting one being a similarly decorated vessel that had been used for accommodation for drug addicts and their rehabilitation in Arnhem, in The Netherlands. It was named De Boei. Might this be of some use?

The ship was searched. It had an end that looked the same as the portion in The Shetland Times photograph, and the circumstances appeared as though it could be likely that the vessel might now being used at Lerwick for accommodation. So with some hope, the buttons were pressed: nothing useful here. A collection of words was Googled: no revelations here either; so Images was clicked. An array of shipping photographs of all types and circumstances scattered over the screen. There in the middle of one row was the unmistakable image of the ship called De Boei with old Lerwick in the background. So it was the same boat identified in Arnhem. The image was clicked and an article from Shetland News opened. Here it was all explained. The vessel had been towed across to Lerwick to provide accommodation for the Total gas plant: see article below. In another location it was discovered that the De Boei had undergone a complete quality refit and had been renamed San Vitesse: see newsletter below.

What is interesting is not the process of discovery, although it is, but the striking contrast with old Lerwick in the Shetland News photograph. Gosh, what do the locals think about staring at this remarkable object? It is similar to the dazzle camouflage on WW1 vessels: see references below. The historic images are startling. Whether this decoration did in fact disguise these floating masses is unclear. The patterning certainly makes an interesting diagrammatic illusion that can be admired, perhaps for only a short period, in the same way as that on the San Vitesse itself can be considered.

If nothing else, the glimpse of portion of this black and white, randomly banded ship in the high tide - apparently it had to be moved to a safer location at this time, hence the tugs in the photograph - did remind one of the history of such decoration and the intrigue of illusions. Maybe we need more of this imaginative approach today? Maybe Lerwick does not?

Further research has discovered the full story of the ship, including a photograph of it prior to being painted black and white by an artist who, it appears obvious, was a great admirer of the older boats decorated in this manner. The change to the ship is stunning. The photograph in the newsletter shows that the patterning continues up and over the ship. Other items in the texts reveal some of the vessel's past. A few discussions tell of regular complaints from those who had to look at the banding every day when in Arnhem.

Information on the De Boei / San Vitesse can be reviewed in the following links:

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=1793771

http://uglyships.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/de-boei/

http://www.amstelbotel.nl/

and in this newsletter report:

Tugs, Towing & Offshore Newsletter

14^th Volume No. 56      29 September 2013  p.p. 6/7

http://newsletter.towingline.com/en/NewsLetterArchive

TOWAGE OF THE SANS VITESSE TO LERWICK

On September 21, 2013 was seen the Muller – Dordrecht; Netherlands tug En Avant 7 with in tow the accommodation vessel Sans Vitesse. Assistance, by a speed of 5 knots on the river, was given by the Muller – Dordrecht; Netherlands tugs En Avant 4 and En Avant 21. The Sans Vitesse is the former drug boat De Boei of the municipality of Arnhem; Netherlands. Chevalier Floatels BV have bought her last year on speculation. The ship is virtually completely stripped and rebuilt by Instalho BV in Werkendam; Netherlands. The ship now has 101 rooms with private shower, sink and toilet. All rooms have TV and internet. In addition, the ship has now a large restaurant with cafe area. There is a spacious kitchen with the necessary stores and a large laundry. In particular through the use of very high-quality materials at the conversion. Chevalier Floatels BV think it is the most beautiful accommodation ship in the world in terms of Interior (for the professional market). The ship is rented to Petrofac for a project in Lerwick. They build there a gas factory for Total and needed more hotel accommodation. The other Chevalier Floatels BV ship the Kalmar is also rented to Petrofac and berthed in Lerwick already. That ship has 220 rooms, restaurant, cafe, fitness, laundrey, and recreation rooms. (Source: Chevalier Floatels; Photo: Reinier van de Wetering).

On Dazzle Camouflage, see:

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

http://twistedsifter.com/2010/02/razzle-dazzle-camouflage/

and the remarkable collection of photographs and drawings that appear in Google Images with this search: Dazzle Camouflage.

On other possible uses, see:

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/on-bridges.html

This is the digital newspaper article:

Shetland News

Tuesday, 07 January 2014 / Written by Neil Riddell

Union row could halt work on gas plant

One of the accommodation barges in Lerwick Harbour. Photo: Ian Leask

TRADE UNIONS have accused Petrofac chiefs of “burying their heads in the sand” after members voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action.

It is part of a long-running dispute which centres on unrest about accommodation and travel time for workers helping to build French oil giant Total's new £800 million gas plant in the north of Shetland.

On Tuesday the GMB union, representing members employed by engineering firm Balfour Beatty, confirmed that a ballot had resulted in its workers joining their Unite counterparts in backing action. More than 90 per cent of ballots returned by members of both unions were in favour.

The unions want workers to be given an additional £50 a day to compensate for Petrofac's failure to provide suitable accommodation for those working on the new gas plant.

They are also seeking payment for those staying on accommodation barges in Lerwick, who face lengthy journeys to and from the construction site near Sullom Voe.

It is the latest escalation of a bitter row which most recently erupted in November as the GMB claimed 47 pipe fitters had been locked out because of the impending ballot. Petrofac insisted that the workers had simply been handed their notice as their services were no longer required.

Both unions are calling for more talks with Petrofac aimed at averting a strike, but are clear that the company must make concessions to prevent a walkout.

GMB said some workers employed by other contractors on the construction project were also involved in the dispute and would be balloted separately.

GMB Scotland's secretary Harry Donaldson said the union was seeking “urgent” talks with Petrofac “to convey to them the ballot results and impress on management” the need to resolve the dispute.

Donaldson said: “The employers need to sit up and take notice of this overwhelming vote and put forward an offer to resolve this long-running dispute.

“Petrofac have buried their heads in the sand for too long on important issues on this project. They have tried to bully and ride roughshod over standard industrial relations practices throughout.

“Even now, before this escalates further, TOTAL the client must stop Petrofac digging themselves into an even deeper hole than the intransigent one they are already in.”

Unite representative John Taylor said his members had voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action – though it is not, as yet, clear when any strike would take place.

He said part of the discontent was down to some workers having to share bedrooms with their colleagues. There is also unhappiness at facing bus journeys of around an hour each way.

Taylor told BBC Radio Shetland: “The accommodation issue is quite unique in the sense that most camps have single berth accommodation. This was built with two-man accommodation; it's virtually impossible for some people to get sleep.

“It's a safety issue – the company has recognised that in the sense that they've brought barges in, but there's still a large number of people that's having to share accommodation.”

A Petrofac spokesman said it took the welfare of its workers “very seriously” and was “committed to working with all parties to reach a satisfactory outcome while delivering the project successfully”.

He said the company was “surprised” by the outcome and questioned how high turnout for the ballot had been.

“Everyone who is provided with free shared living accommodation was made aware during recruitment and when offered the role that the accommodation provided was on a 'shared' basis," he said, "and they signed a waiver agreeing to this at the beginning of their employment.”

The spokesman said it formed part of a “very attractive package” offered to workers including higher salaries than they could expect for the same work on the mainland.

He added: “However we have always aimed to maintain a constructive relationship with the unions – and we'll be looking to meet quickly with them to see how we can move forward on this issue." 

The project, designed to process reserves from the Laggan-Tormore gas pipeline, began in early 2010 and is due to be completed by the middle of 2014.

However various problems encountered during construction, unrelated to the industrial dispute, mean it is expected that some work will continue beyond the summer.

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WHAT IS DESIGN?

It is an interesting question because today ‘design’ seems to be used to refer to so many diverse qualities and aspects of life that its meaning becomes diffused. The word itself is complex. In our general usage the concept involves a variety of subtle matters ranging from ordinary specific intent to the uniquely special shaping of matter. The basic notion holds some sense of predetermination, intent, that, in architecture, raises matters intimate and personal: what must I do?

Paul Jacques Grillo wrote a book with this title, What is Design? published in 1960 by Paul Theobald, Chicago. It is an interesting text that explores the idea of design with a creative breadth and sharp intelligence. The book was iconic in its day and needs to become a reference for this era, as does the marvellous Henry Dreyfuss study of dimensions: Dreyfuss, Henry. The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design, Whitney Library of Design, New York, 1959. Both books approach design with a similar astuteness. Without the understandings explored in these texts, design is in danger of becoming merely an elitist diversion to highlight an individual’s difference and cleverness, decoratively.

Grillo’s book was as memorable as the Dreyfuss publication. One can recall the Grillo diagram that highlighted the flaws in car design. This illustration had blazing suns in the sky above a car with angled rays reaching a vehicle, only to be reflected off in all directions, with one bold arrow pointing into the vision of a driver drawn in a vehicle behind. The point was simple and is still experienced daily by drivers as the nuisance of glare sourced from the gleaming surfaces of car and other designs.

Nothing has changed in spite of this critique that seems so clear and to the point. Perhaps things may be worse today? Why should we have to repeatedly suffer this distress when the problem is known? Is it that style has become more critical to commerce than performance is to ordinary comfort? Here style, it seems, overcomes function, overrules it. It was a circumstance once observed with the demise of International architecture. Sadly we seem programmed to keep repeating such failures in spite of our knowing about them and their causes. Has our current era fallen for the familiar trap of style, appearance, rather than attending to function and meaning? The stylistic drive for International architecture highlighted not only matters functional by their failures, but also issues of meaning too, by their compounded confusions. Now it seems that these core concerns again have become decorative items in the same manner as matters practical and semiotic were previously toyed with to favour the fashionable eye. So it is that the question needs to be asked once more: What is design?

There was another image that can be recalled in Grillo’s book: a photograph of a primitive hut that had a roof pitch that was identical to the slope of the mountain in the background. There was a core nexus suggested here between form and place. Grillo’s concept of design was holistic. It incorporated function and efficiency as well as emotion and experience Towards the rear of the book, in some of the few coloured images printed in this publication, aerial illustrations of the Amazon drawn by Grillo were included. He had sketched these while flying over this area. The images seemed to touch on the broader reference of our environment in design, our world, at a time when environmentalism was a glimmer on the horizon. The point was that landscapes of all scales had an important place in design too; indeed, that we could learn from nature.

While seeking to be articulate on design matters, Grillo also left space for intuition. Design might be seen as a self-conscious series of rational steps that can be identified and discussed, but it also involved issues that were more ephemeral and abstract, and personal. Whether Grillo self-consciously chose to isolate this somewhat contentious stance from the more clear concept of design as a logical determination of various aspects, almost a linear process of analysis using a series of straightforward rational decisions, or whether his separation of this aspect of his thinking from the body of the text was an intuition itself, is not certain; but it has occurred. In a preliminary statement to his book, on a page that carries no title, no number or any other reference - it is not even identified in the Index - and with a text in full italics, as if to clearly define its isolation, Grillo makes a personal statement about design as an intuitive matter, a personal inspiration that places intimate obligations on the individual. It is only in this informal prelude that Grillo raises this complexly subtle idea that is overcome, overwhelmed, by the remainder of the text with its persuasive illustrations in Grillo’s own hand, and its associated photographs. This personal overview holds some of the intimate sense of Frank Lloyd Wright’s writings that spoke of nature, love, beauty, and personal responsibility as all having significance in any design approach.

While it is the main text that stands out and becomes the book itself, the vision of what design is, this quiet personal statement lingers as a beginning, the ground of action that stands silently, modestly behind the ‘science’ of design. That design might have a science seems very contentious today when many other matters have become involved. Since the 1960’s, architectural theory has explored numerous strategies that incorporate social and experiential understandings as well as cultural and emotional matters, historical and heritage issues, and psychological and philosophical aspects too. Aldo van Eyck touched on this enrichment of feeling in his statement: ‘place, not space’ in Team 10 Primer. This was the time when the cold intellectual rigour of space as meaningful void, best identified in Bruno Zevi’s book Architecture as Space, was being questioned, challenged by things subtle and ambiguous. In amongst all of these positions stands the new technology of our times that has its own important impacts on approaches and outcomes, its own distractions, interests and methods.

The sheer physicality of design has taken a sideways step, if not a backwards one. How many of today’s designers have studied or ever referred to the Dreyfuss book? It is a sensible question because design involves people, and Dreyfuss has documented the dimensions of people. How can one design anything for anyone without knowing the sizes involved: the sizes and proportions of the body that moves through and resides in space and place? It seems a basic proposition. Is it too much to ask? Has the storytelling of emotive responses, or preferred ones – ‘my idea,’ even if it is not embodied in the work* - taken over from the simple necessities of fit? Has style, appearance itself, become more critical than ordinary performance? Corb’s man comes to mind and involves yet another rich aspect of understanding: mathematics and proportion.

When thinking of style, one immediately brings to mind the works of Gehry and Hadid. These schemes have become almost a cliché reference for recent extremism in design, its fashions. There are many more architects who are making things that are equally divergent, with equally challenging outcomes. It is as though design has become this excess of bespoke management of matter - matters to speak about and to be spoken about – see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/event-architecture.html  One only has to flick through a book on recent architecture to see these variations. Grillo’s concept seems to have been discarded, at least superseded, as something totally irrelevant, like the work of Dreyfuss. The question is: why? Why has this 1960’s stance not been incorporated into the new thinking? It is an inclusive process occurring in most scientific theorising that rejects the false hypotheses and encompasses the concerns that can stand scrutiny, and re-embody them in better ways in the search for, well, a more complete, more complex, more accurate understanding of wholeness - the truth, if one is able to label anything ‘truth.’ Paul Auster noted the problem: Even the facts do not tell the truth.

The issue is that Grillo’s writing and Dreyfuss’s work do hold substance even today, in spite of the changes over fifty years. Why are we so reluctant to acknowledge something this old as still being relevant, even with the aside that many other issues can still be incorporated without compromising any approach? It is not as though the new has to necessarily destroy, discard or distort the old. Progress does not come as a broom sweeping away everything in its path, even though we might be told to see it this way in advertisements and promotions that boast about the new as always superceding the old, making it essential for everyone to go out and buy the new item.

Lingering behind all of these thoughts is Grillo’s personal statement. Where might this hold some sense today? Ironically, this statement touches on some of the subtlety of the new thinking, but still stands as too strange, too esoteric, to be accepted as commonplace, or even to be considered today, let alone discussed. This prelude remains neglected, rejected as a personal oddity in the same manner as it has always been in the last fifty to sixty years. It appears time changes some things but it seems that other matters need much more than time to make sense. Is it that they need more catastrophic interventions for their meaning and significance to be realised?

Grillo’s philosophy sought its own internal integrity, a certain necessary rigour, as can be exampled in his ideas on simplicity.

Simplicity does not mean want or poverty. It does not mean the absence of any decor, or absolute nudity. It only means that the decor should belong intimately to the design proper, and that anything foreign to it should be taken away.

— Paul Jacques Grillo

Today there seems to be a full reversal of this idea in the apparent concept that ad hoc complexity means richness. The aim seems to be the inclusion of all and everything in design, (apologies to G. I. Guidjieff), foreign and conflicting, skewed and distorted; to create a whole exotic gathering in a managed clutter that can embody more and more ambiguity and uncertainty with a certain panache and bravura that can highlight ME and MY genius. The latent assumption appears to be that ambiguity holds value and meaning; that if one is unable to understand anything, then it must be mystically substantial: see - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/swell-sculpture-festival-2013.html

The experience of beauty does leave one struggling for words, but the struggle and inability to grasp words in a particular context does not establish any grounds for beauty. In the same way we can be left in awe by the wonder of things beautiful, but being awed, even startled, by a surprisingly unique difference does not guarantee its splendour. Beauty holds a primal integrity.

So, what is design? Has it got anything to do with beauty? Has it got anything to do with function? Tradition held that something could not be beautiful unless it was functional. What is our understanding today? Is the question what is design? at all useful?

One simple proposition to consider is that as thinking, feeling beings we have not changed much over the centuries, even though we might like to believe otherwise. So what has changed? There is a great difference between the new and the old in architecture. Has the idea of simplicity and efficiency become our excuse for lesser works? Might an understanding of this question assist us in knowing more about ourselves? When might we be mature enough to consider Grillo’s introductory statement seriously?

* I am reminded here of a recent statement by a commentator at the Sydney tennis being played on 8 January 2014: “She knows how well she can play but her body lets her down.” In the same way, there are many architects who know how well they can design - they frequently tell us - but their body, it seems, lets them down. The lady player being referred to had to retire because of an old injury. I don’t know the reason architects use for their failures. Maybe they are just never recognised or understood?