Dundee City

For New Year's/Hogmanay, I went to stay with some friends in Dundee. I think it was either New Year's Day or 2nd January, but one of the days of the trip, Raven and I went for a wander around the city. There's a lot of very pretty architecture there, and an interesting cemetery in the city centre. Raven and I were on a quest to find a specific restaurant, so most of the pictures were just snapshots, and I didn't get a chance to look at what they actually were, and with this being exam season (and with me having been generally extremely busy with college this spring) so there's not my usual historical and architectural context.

Quiet Dundee Streets

The one place I have some context on is the Howff Burial Ground. It is urban, bordered on two sides by walls and roads, and on the other two by the rear walls - and windows - of tall Victorian buildings, including the former newspaper offices. There's a windowed tourelle on one of the old newspaper offices that seems to be firstly an afterthought, and both leaking and leaning precariously, which seemed expected - the whole cemetery seemed like a bubble within the city that was in a different time and a little bit like a different world. Even the trees there were tangled, winding and strangely shaped! The burial ground was originally part of the grounds of a Franciscan monastery, and I think the wall with the arches dates from 1601!

Tangle-wood tree

I don't know if this is is a specific species of tree that grows like this, or the result of some kind of pruning technique, but this tree just grew in knots and tangles and lumps and snags. I've never seen a tree like it, but there were at least two in Howff Cemetery. There were no leaves or flowers on it so I, who am no expert on trees, didn't even have that to go on to identify them.

It is possible to do a virtual cemetery tour if you look up 'The Howff' in Dundee, Scotland, on Google StreetView. Apparently it was uploaded by a Google user (a Kevin Reid) - I didn't even know that was possible! It looks like it was done with one of those 360° image cameras or something, as a series of "image spheres" at locations all around the cemetery paths. I don't know how you link to a specific place in Google StreetView, so I won't add the link here, but I do recommend looking it up. 

Neoclassical tower

Near the cemetery was this rather large and fancy Neoclassical building - I didn't catch what it actually was, as I was walking within the cemetery walls, not without, and didn't actually walk past the exterior of whatever it was to see a sign or anything. Whatever it is, it's a very ornate and grand building, and the light on that wintry day caught it beautifully. I looked it up on Google StreetView, and it looks like a concert hall or theatre. 

Church tower, one of a pair

I liked this church, but it was hard to get a god photograph of it because there is a bus stop right in front of it. It is on Panmore Street and has two of these towers and a charming rose window. I thought I'd take one of its 'witches' hat' roofed spire. I love the vents - possibly to help the sound of bells escape. 

McManus Galleries

I had a walk around the McManus Galleries - an amazing Gothic Revival building. I didn't get to go inside them as they were shut, but I took several photographs of the exterior. I would love to do a photo-shoot on the fabulous steps - I wonder if that could be arranged! I also think the steps - in Baroque swirling design - work really well with this otherwise very Gothic design. It's an altogether fabulous, magical-looking building... 

Steeple under rainy skies

This is the steeple on a rather interesting building. In the centre of Dundee is a building that, at first glance, would look like a cathedral. It is huge, old, and Gothic and very definitely the size and shape of the average cathedral. However, it is not a single-purpose building. It has been subdivided, and done so historically. There is the steeple, shown above, which I think is a municipally run clock tower, and at least two churches and a youth group using the rest of the building, with the spaces subdivided for these uses. Apparently subdividing the building became a necessity centuries ago, as there have been several serious fires in the building. The history of the site is very long with the earliest church on the site being from 1192 - a time-line of history of the building can be read ::here::. It's currently surrounded by a shopping mall!

The observant will have noticed that some of the photographs -specifically the ones of  buildings and monuments - are watermarked 'Architecturally Gothic'. This is one of the two Tumblr accounts I run. ::Architecturally Gothic:: is  my architectural photography Tumblr. It's mostly my own work, but I reblog a lot of other people's architectural photography too. 

Edinburgh City Part 2: Hanover St. Bank

While Gothic and Gothic Revival styles are my favourite, I don't mind a bit of Neo-Classical architecture now and then. 

These photos happened because I had to sit around and wait on the Saturday. K. and her friend Clark had to get their student bus passes, and I wasn't feeling well, so didn't want to go indoors where it might be stuffy to wait with them. Edinburgh was a lot warmer than Inverness was when I left, and even having taken off my scarf and jacket I was over-heating, plus I did not realise just how crowded central Edinburgh would be on a Saturday afternoon - I am not used to big cities and masses of people, and do not cope well with crowds. I was feeling pressed in and getting faint with the stress and the heat, and had nearly fainted in a heap outside a fast food restaurant on Prince's Street! As such, while K. and Clark sorted there bus ticket, I parked myself under the grand facade of this bank. 

It's currently a bank and a branch of the TSB, but I do wonder what this building was built for. Its temple style make me wonder if it was a Neoclassical chapel of one of the Christian denominations that shied away from the Gothic style for their chapels, or whether it was always a bank and that the severe lines of the Ionic Order were a statement of security, stability and seriousness. Either way, while Neoclassical architecture is not my favourite style, I rather liked this building, and while I waited, took these photographs. 

As I was right up close to the building, sitting on a ledge and trying not move around too much, I have not got any photographs of the building as a whole, but the entire building seems to be of a design quite directly inspired by Classical temples, although the colonnade here is only a portico, rather than supporting a roof and arcade down the sides of the building. The next building down hill also had columns, hence the photographs taken looking down one set of columns to the next in different style. 

I know that usually my architectural photographs are in black and white, but with the stone of this building being such a pale grey anyway, I thought it would be better to take some colour pictures, that and I wanted to capture the fact that it was actually sunny in Scotland (just in case nobody believed me! :P ). The day after the weather went back to cloudy and dreary, so it was short lived, but it was actually sunny for a whole afternoon. 

Columns, Sunsets and Skies (and no zombies)

I haven't died! I haven't been abducted by aliens! I haven't been turned into a zombie! Don't panic!

I have not been posting much recently because I have been really busy with my professional art and even busier at work - especially in my new role as choir mistress, as we now have Christmas celebrations coming up and I am running them through traditional carols. Running a choir is a LOT of hard work! 

I had so much Hallowe'en-related stuff to post that I never got around to that I have decided to schedule it all for next Hallowe'en instead. I made very easy folded paper leaves (they are so simple that they don't count as origami!), made several designs of paper-craft cards, made my own Halloween wrapping paper, designed the pumpkin (which features a portrait of my cat), dressed up in two different costumes (including turning up at work dressed as a pirate for not one but two Hallowe'en parties I helped at), done my own fancy make-up, and decorated the house for the occasion. I was also going to write about Samhain, which is what I actually celebrate... Expect all that next year instead. 

I also have excellent news - I am now an aunty! My little sister gave birth to a baby girl last week. She's really cute in all the photographs, but I haven't been able to travel to England to see her in person yet. I am very excited to be someone's mad aunt :-3

I also have the grumpy news that I have a stinking cold/possibly the flu and am hiding in bed where my anger at being ill can't be taken out on anybody too much, although I am driving poor Raven up the wall. I might as well do something useful, and post something that people will appreciate, and I intended to put these up last night, but they're going up here today instead. 

Architectural Photography

I went out a couple of weeks ago and took these pictures. I really liked the light late in the afternoon. The nights are drawing in early, and it starts getting dark at around 15:30hrs, and even before then the light is already dimming, and it gets light quite late, too. Soon the days will be very short indeed.

Anyway, as you can see I have been out enjoying the autumn evenings. I love taking photographs in the evenings, as the shadows really bring out the various planes of the buildings. Buildings are often made up of lots of flat planes, especially modern buildings that focus more on form than ornament for visual interest, so they can look flat and dull, more like a pattern than a three dimensional structure. I have no idea what this building is called or who designed it, but it is overlooking the main street towards the bridge and is fairly recent. I saw the sun gleaming off the balcony railings and just had to take a photograph of this moment before the sun shifted and the gleam went. The sky was blue with perfect fluffy clouds. 

This used to be the Inverness branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland but is now The Caledonian, a Smith & Jones pub (Raven went there for part of a night out partying for Hallowe'en, it's apparently quite nice.). The building in the foreground is the Town House, which I have featured before in ::this:: post. Unlike most Invernesian buildings of that period, it is Neoclassical rather than medieval inspired Gothic Revival or Scottish Baronial. There are other Neoclassical buildings in the city (notably chapels) but in general pointed arches prevail over fluted columns. Of course, Neoclassical has been a preferred style for banks seeking a style that embodies balance and order, unlike the fancy and fantasy and spiritual (church) connotations of Gothic Revival architecture. Famous banks built in that style include the Bank of England building in London by Sir John Soane. Oddly, I always thought that the pub had previously been a theatre, until I saw an old photograph from when it was still a bank. 

The pink around the window frames is from the coloured lighting they have to illuminate the building at night. Something similar has been done with buildings around the railway station and the library, both also Neoclassical architecture. While it is very pretty, I do wonder about all the electricity used, and ponder about if such lights should be turned off at about 22:00hrs, but I'm perhaps being the overly-green fuddy-duddy. Anyway, I like the columns - it's a facade in the Corinthian style, with acanthus leaves on the column capitals, fluted columns and an entablature and pediment with figures in the tympanum, but I didn't get a clear photo of that part of the building (I will have to try again). 

I would really like to find out more about the history of this building, who designed it, when it was built, etc. but am not sure where to look. I'd also like to find out exactly what the statues in the tympanum depict. My first port of enquiry will be the local library, and then the museum. 

The Caledonian is not the only Neoclassical building in Inverness, as I have previously mentioned. This building is on the corner of Academy St. and Baron Taylor St. (or the next one over) and is a mixture of Art Deco and Neoclassical sensibilities. There's probably a name for this sort of style, but I regret to admit that I don't know it. It's quite ornate, but all the forms have been simplified. This is actually the one of the first photographs (all of this building) I took on that afternoon, and the sky was still quite blue. 

Hopefully my next blog entry will be a little more Goth, rather than just some photographs of interesting old buildings. While I really would love to learn when various local buildings were built, in what order, and with what modifications, I'm not sure that everyone else reading my blog would be interested, and if I wanted to go down that path, I would be better off starting a blog uniquely about architectural history.