Whitehall and Churchill

Essentially adjacent to Westminster sits Whitehall, a large governmental administrative sector, including 10 Downing Street, home of the Prime Minister. The area is appropriately impressive but also not the sort of place you would ‘hang out’.

The buildings include, however, a fascinating museum, the Churchill War Rooms, on a lower level of one of the buildings, reached via a small, contrasting entrance – below.

These were the rooms from which the British government directed its forces during WW II.

Incredibly, an entire extra floor structure (red beams above and heavy concrete slab above that) was inserted into the existing buildings above the control center to protect it from damage from aerial attack.  Equally incredibly, the building was never hit. The story is that many of the artifacts (notepads, etc) are those that were left there at the end of the war.  Not sure how true that is, but am fairly confident that the soldier is a mannequin.

The careful maintenance of the day to day environment effectively conveys the mood of the rooms, though I’m sure that there was a lot of hustle and bustle that we no longer see.  Staff worked long hours there, with breaks but without any ability to see out.

And Churchill himself spent extensive amounts of time working in a hands-on manner with the staff.  While he did not officially reside there, the space was set up for him to stay there whenever he felt he needed to.  Here’s his dining room.

All the comforts of home !

Many of the spaces focused on intelligence.  Here’s a map room.

Lots of telephones but no computers or cell phones.  It seems like a long time ago.

For a fine detailed exposition of the history of this space, go to:

The secret Cabinet War Rooms

On the Thames

As we headed downriver towards central London, it was only a matter of time before the smaller scale of Kew fell away and was supplanted by more contemporary constructions.  This charming older building marked the transition.

Of course it’s easy to forget that this building may have been seen as an outrageous incursion or a delightful addition in its own time. Have to do a lot of research to determine that.  In any case, around each bend in the river, new examples of the 21st century came into view, in this case a campus of office buildings.

And then a sports club, complete with sail-shaped solar protection.

But a lot of what is now being built is high-end housing, drawn to the allure of a river view and a sense of open space.

Some of the structures have more formal bravado than others.

And there are the occasional bridges to provide some visual variety to the ride.

One strikingly different building offered some contrast – an abandoned power plant.  This structure, much like the one in the south bank area of London that is now the Tate Modern, is in the planning stages of a new development.  I’m not sure what the scope of that plan will be; but I’ll bet that a view of the river will have something to do with it.  Hopefully they won’t tear it down, but find some way of incorporating a bit of London’s industrial past into its future.

Otherwise everything will end up looking like this – for miles and miles.

At the end of our ride, the views became familiar, of both the old and the new.

A bridge detail from a period in which sculpture and engineering mixed, and then Westminster seen from the river, our low vantage point foreshortening Big Ben’s tower.

And, framed by yet another bridge, the London Eye.

All in all, a refreshing finish to our day in Kew.

Victoria & Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A), London, is the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The V&A is located in the Brompton district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area that has become known as “Albertopolis” because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Royal Albert Hall. We happened to approach the museum from the science wing (brick) side.

 

Then we discovered the much more imposing entrance in the building housing design and decorative arts.

We felt at least a bit connected to the museum when we discovered the Chihuly glass sculpture hanging in the main lobby.  He’s the best known of a large group of NW glass artists and has been featured internationally.

The ‘collection’ of 4.5 million objects owes its size to that period of time in which International powers like Great Britain tried to collect one of everything they could find in their far-flung empires.  So there are one or two things here that we won’t try to show.  On the other hand, the museum has continued to collect objects in the areas it began so that there is a definite sense of continuity in the materials presented.  In addition, and not often seen in museums, there are displays of the techniques by which the various items have been designed and fabricated.

And in case you’ve forgotten who built the museum, the designers included a marble logo to help remind you.

So – a brief look around.

Top-lighted galleries like this really show off the three dimensional qualities of sculpture.  I should mention that the V&A is NOT air conditioned so the temperature on the day we visited was easily in the 80’s and higher on some of the upper floors.  A challenge to museum-going patience.

The museum features an extensive collection of ceramics, perhaps because ceramics from the orient were so novel but also likely because they were so collectible.  This view is admittedly a bit confusing because I’m looking the long way through a series of reflective glass display cases; but I like the way it gives the sense of a collection as more than individual objects.  It also gives an accurate sense of the place as being ‘stuffed’ with things to look at.

Here are a couple more contemporary examples.  The tea set is from Japan.

 

And to show that the collection is not just about tableware, this bust:

Here’s an example of the educational approach, in this case about ceramic glazing.

It was also fun to see some terracotta similar to the work Jack Mackie included in a Seattle Bus Tunnel Station.

For those who haven’t worked with it, terracotta came into popular use as a less expensive substitute for carved and painted stone. As a clay-based material it can be molded in a wide variety of shapes and glazed in exotic ways.  Very popular in the US in the early 20th century.  The collection of glass was also extensive – almost overbearing, especially the glass railing.

The design of the building also featured glass, especially in the architectural additions made in modern times to aid circulation.

Of course, the architecture hadn’t shaded the glass much, so it was a very warm elevator ride.  And speaking of architecture, the museum also included a somewhat casual collection of models and drawings about buildings.  This was not nearly as international nor as broadly cast as the other collections and so felt weak by comparison.  Here’s a display panel explaining improvements to one of the city’s train stations.  While it provides a good general picture, it doesn’t convey the kind of conceptual underpinning that one might expect for a museum level presentation.

Here’s an earlier hand drawing ‘shewing’ the construction of St Paul’s Cathedral. While I think the drawing is terrific and fascinating to architects, it needed to have more of the story of the cathedral accompanying it.

Finally, on our way back to the main level, we passed through an area featuring jewelry – very delicate silver here.

Just in the last few years, the museum has developed the courtyard that sits between the two large wings of the V&A.

Part of it has been dedicated to a cafe – well used on this warm day.  And the rest has been set aside as open lawn area with a large reflecting pool.

It appears that, with the shallow steps designed in around the edge of the pool, the intention was to allow wading – or at least not to prevent it with a railing or barrier.  On this day, young Londoners with families were putting it to good use.