Victoria and Albert Museum

Howdy-doo, Americans!

Outside the V & A

Silver sculpture

Here's a cool (and free) place to check out in London: the Victoria and Albert Museum. The building it is currently housed in dates from 1899 and has a cornerstone laid by Queen Victoria, but they've been collecting since 1852. This museum is absolutely enormous and has galleries of pretty much anything imaginable, from huge marble statues to iron works to a long hallway full of things only made of silver.

Marble statue gallery

I went on a weekday and it wasn't crowded at all. I browsed around for a bit through the Greek statues, the jewelry room (no pics allowed, sorry), and the silver room before honing in on the modern furniture gallery. I have visited the modern furniture gallery of the art museum in Milwaukee, WI, but I wanted to see British modern furniture too. I like modern furniture and already have a '60s Space Race living room theme planned out for my first house. Anyway.

I discovered something awesome in the furniture room: the design of chairs evolves because of changes in society! I'd always thought that styles change because of some frouffy whims on the part of designers--like maybe they just switch things up every season so they can get you to buy all new stuff to be in style again. But no. Way more interesting reasons are behind the changes.

LCW and CTW

Check this out:

During the 1940s, chairs—as well as other furniture—had to be as utilitarian as possible so as not to waste desperately needed materials that could otherwise be sent to use in the war. An example of utilitarian furniture can be seen in the stark, waste-free design of the plywood table and chair set, the “LCW” and “CTW” from 1946-1949, by American designers Charles and Ray Eames.

Festival Pattern Group chair

There was actually a ration on furniture in Britain that didn't totally end until 1952, by which point British designers and consumers were tired of utilitarian design and began to take up the American styles of plastic furniture, futurism, bold colors like those of the Mod style, and mass production. An example of this new trend is a red plastic chair with metal legs that was made in Britain in 1951 for the Festival Pattern Group. The pattern of the holes in the plastic body of the chair, arranged in regular square intervals like the holes in a graham cracker, is derived from the x-ray crystallography of atomic structures. This is reflective of the influence that even emerging nuclear science had on fashion and design.

Single-piece chair and
yellow egg chair

In a later backlash against the mass production of furniture that had swept the globe after WWII, specialist industrial designers then began to generate new models and styles of chairs and other furniture, some of which are represented in the museum’s collection. An example is that of a bright orange chair from 1960 that was “the first plastic chair to be conceived entirely as a single piece”. Another innovation of the designers was the creation of the egg chair which is yellow plastic with a bright yellow cushion and looks as if the back could be folded down into the seat to create a little M&M-shaped pod. However, the futurist plastic furniture trend was laid to rest in the early 1970s as a result of skyrocketing oil prices that made the plastic too expensive, and fashion took a turn back toward more natural themes and materials.

So how was that? You just learned about world history through chair design. Are you jazzed? I'm jazzed. It's fun to see how the world works behind the scenes. That's why I like writing: I can show you the things you wouldn't normally see.

Cheers!

~Red

Sightseeing Walk

Hi-dee-ho, neighborinos across the pond!

Today we are going to talk about famous sites in London--the places you see on postcards.

Trafalgar Square monuments

When you go to London, there are certain sites that everyone and their dog wants you to visit. Even though they're mostly tourist traps, I still felt like I should at least see them for the sake of seeing them. So, during our second week here--that would be in late January--we went on a 7.7 mile walk and knocked out all the main sites in one spectacular, if slightly crazy, day.

During our walk, we passed numerous little fruit stands both on the street and outside shops. I saw one that had all the different fruits set up in plastic bowls for only £1 each! Fantastic deal--and I completely recommend buying from the vendors over buying in the supermarket if you can. Even better is that the fruit here is absolutely wonderful compared to fruit in the States. I actually just had some cherries and they were perfect: dark red, juicy, and sweeter than summer.

[from thaifood.about.com]

[Side note: there is a fruit called a lychee that seems to be at all the fruit stands. It's pinkish and spiky, and I have no idea how to eat it, but I'd like to try it.]

Trafalgar Square lions

Our first destination was Trafalgar Square. It's in a bustling area across the street from the Charing Cross Tube station. The National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery are on the north side of the square. In the middle, there are is a thriving population of mangled-footed pigeons, some fountains, and a tall, typically phallic monument surrounded by four enormous lions, which we climbed for pictures, naturally. From Trafalgar Square, you can see three Pret A Manger [preht ah mahn-zjay] fast food shops (it means "ready to eat" in French). Pret has freshly made, pre-packed sandwiches, salads, and healthy sides, like muesli and cubes of mango with a slice of lime. Their food is tasty and has "no added nasties" as they are fond of saying over here, and at the end of each day they donate all their unsold food to feed the homeless. I can't help but think that this business model would make a great replacement for the revolting fast food corporations in the States. Anyway, on with our walk!

Artsy shot of Parliament building

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

After Trafalgar Square, we continued south to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, passing by Westminster Abbey along the way. The buildings were done in intricate stonework and made for some beautiful pictures.

The Eye

Waffle with chocolate syrup

We stopped at a bench on the River Thames and looked out towards the London Eye, which is a giant ferris wheel that allows you to see over 45 miles away on a clear day. We walked across Waterloo Bridge to check it out, but it was a bit pricey at around £19 (about $30) per person, so we didn't go for a ride. By that time all the walking had made us hungry, so we stopped by the Eye for snacks. I got a waffle with chocolate sauce which was goodish, and all my friends got gelato.

River Thames

St. James Park

We decided to head towards Hyde Park, which I know from one of my favorite board games, 221b Baker Street, which is a super-awesome Sherlock Holmes version of Clue. We passed through St. James Park along the way, walking along the Princess Diana Memorial Walk. The park was nature-y and full of swans and angry geese, along with a large human presence, mostly mums pushing prams and couples. I have to say that I like the cultivated beauty of Regent's Park more though.
Then we walked down past Buckingham Palace, but it wasn't the right time for the guard change. That only happens on certain days at certain times, so you should really look it up before you go.

Our last stop of the day was Harrod's, the world's most famous luxury department store. We were completely overwhelmed by all the floors, and there were different rooms for almost every item you could imagine: a room full of only perfumes and cosmetics, a room of lingerie, rooms of men's clothes and hats, tons of rooms of women's clothes, several rooms of furniture, an art room, a chocolate room, a meat room, a cheese and deli room, a candy room..and all of it was connected by an Egyptian themed column of escalators with Harrod's sphinx heads. It was absolute debauchery at its finest. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed, but I'm sure your imagination will work just fine.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted, well exercised, and happy to have knocked out all the tourist sites in one day so I could move on to the more interesting parts of the city.

British Museum

'Ello, dearies!

Guess where I went now: the British Museum. Egypt exhibit. Oh yeah!

The Egypt exhibit is always my favorite part of history museums, probably because my dad used to read me National Geographic Egypt books when I was little. So here I got to see some mummies, look at some mummy skulls, and use my anthropology skills to look at the dentition and post-mortem skull fractures. I was completely geeking out. I even determined the sex of the mummy skulls that didn't have it labelled on their info signs. Thank you, Professor Hawks!

Mummy crania

In the Egypt rooms, there were a ton of little British school kids in uniforms on their field trips, and they all had adorable accents and were telling their friends about canopic jars. I also ran into some German-speaking college students in the Japanese art room.

Shabti tomb statuettes

Before we all left, we went in the Greek sculpture room and the large Egyptian sculpture room. We got to see the Rosetta Stone, Lely's Venus, and even some sphinx-type heads that were absolutely enormous.

Lely's Venus (Aphrodite)

On the way out, while I was waiting for our group to collect in the food court area, I saw on the museum map that they have an Easter Island statue! Easter Island and Stonehenge are my two favorite mysterious monuments, so I'll have to go back to check that out.

In the food court area

In all, it was a very cool museum, and like most museums in London, it was free!

Camden Market

What's up, America-type people?

First of all, I should tell you that over the last 5 days, we have walked a crazy amount. Like imagine medieval peasants walking around between villages with heavy sacks over their shoulders. I've been trudging about in the misty rain with a heavy messenger bag for the last few days, and I'm getting really strong. I'm halfway to a neck like Daniel Radcliffe.

So to alleviate this problem, I bought a small black leather purse in Camden when we went to the Camden Market. I bartered for it! Camden Market is actually very sketchy and not particularly fun. It's all the same super chintzy dresses over and over and harassing-type salesmen, but that's to be expected.

However, the town around the market is crazy-weird-cool. It seems the main economy comes from selling piercings and tattoos. Imagine this: the whole street, both sides, is lined with goth clothing shops and men hold signs advertising piercings and tattoos outside the stores. One girl from our group got her ear pierced in the basement of one of the shops. It seemed clean enough, and she hasn't died yet, so... heh.

Anyway, this goes on down the entire street as far as the eye can see. Then, inside the shops, there are some other things like London souvenir bags, smoking and hookah paraphernalia, and bags of--seriously--shrooms and Super Skunk. What a place.

(Here's an article about the history of Camden Market.)