All Things Considered

More from Toby Morison
Posted by Simon Lewin

Just back from Toby Morison's exhibiton of Indian watercolours at The Coningsby Gallery. Highly recommended.

If you're in London, you can visit the exhibition until 13th March 2010 at The Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ. Visit their website to view further images.

Posted by Simon Lewin on March 9th, 2010

Indian Spring – Toby Morison
Posted by Simon Lewin

Illustrator Toby Morison has an exhibition of Indian watercolours opening at the Coningsby Gallery in London next week.

The thirty images were painted on the spot in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujaret.

Toby Morison studied at the Royal College of Art. He was a founder member of the influential Big Orange studio and has worked internationally as an illustrator for the past twenty years. He is the author of Little Louis Takes Off (Simon and Schuster 2006).

Toby has always travelled widely - often with a sketchbook as companion. He has an abiding fascination and love for India. These images were painted on streets and from rooftops and balconies - often with a small audience in attendance. From a teeming Delhi through the holy town of Pushkar, to the blue washed city of Jodhpur and the boat building port of Mandvi on the shores of the Arabian Ocean these images reflect the vibrancy, ingenuity, colour and humour of India.

The exhibition runs from 8th March 2010 until 13th March 2010 at The Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ. Website

Posted by Simon Lewin on March 3rd, 2010

Dieter Rams
Posted by Simon Lewin

We're hoping to get along to the Dieter Rams exhibition at the Design Museum in the next few days. First became aware of his work through Vitsoe (we've developed a bit of an addiction for his shelving system) though as a kid I remember Dad having one of his Braun alarm clocks.

Particularly like Dieter Rams' Ten Principles of good design:

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.

The exhibition runs at the Design Museum until March 2010 (if you visit before the end of January you'll also be able to see the show about the work of architect David Chipperfield). Here's a film about Rams' work for Vitsoe:

Posted by Simon Lewin on December 30th, 2009

Cairn Daimh
Posted by Angie Lewin

Just back from another stunning walk up to the top of Cairn Daimh. One of those hill walks that suddenly reveals all once you're at the top, with views to Ben Rinnes and the rest of Moray on one side and the Cairngorms on the other. Glorious. It's one of the many waywarked walks on the Glenlivet Estate.

Posted by Angie Lewin on November 15th, 2009

Gavin Maxwell
Posted by Simon Lewin

Caught most of a programme on Radio 4 this morning, presented by Terry Nutkins. I have memories of him presenting Animal Magic and the like.

I hadn't realised he had spent time working with Gavin Maxwell, best known for Ring Of Bright Water - a book about his love for otters and wildlife in general.

The programme was an intriguing and very personal profile of a clearly 'complex' man, but it left me feeling drawn back to the Highlands - but the almost cliff-hanger ending suggests that next week's episode will explore a slightly darker side to the story. This second episode will be broadcast on Friday 23rd October. You can listen to the first episode via the BBC website for the next few days.

Posted by Simon Lewin on October 16th, 2009

Bauhaus Proud
Posted by Matthew Loukes

In his first contribution to All Things Considered, Matthew Loukes reports on a recent visit to Pension Briol - a hotel we've been keen on visiting for some time...

It’s not hard to find representations where modernism and 20th century design are seen as being all about synthetic materials, science and hard surfaces. Concrete, glass and steel, allied to some vaguely expressed but sinister ideas of monochrome socialism and uniformity. ‘Egg boxes’, scoff the readers of mid-market newspapers, while stepping into their grey cars that are only distinguishable from one another by the badge on the front. A visit to Pension Briol; some four thousand feet up the rocks that separate (but hardly divide) Italy, Austria and Germany ought to put paid to that lazy notion. The building itself remains defiantly modern (even though it went up in 1928) but emphasises wood as much as stone, grass as much as concrete and looks far less out of place on the side of a mountain than something mock Tudor does beside our own unlovely A3 trunk road.

One can get close to Briol by road, from Innsbruck or Munich, by rail from Verona or, as we did, from the hilariously over-done yet impressive Milan train station – a place that would look ostentatious in Las Vegas. But whichever way you choose, you can only get close. The last lap is done on foot and takes an hour or more, or by jeep which is faster if on the hair-raising side of things tearing up roads made from mud and adrenalin. The first sight of the building is both dramatic and charmingly homely. A line of bright white washing flaps in front of a yellow and dark wood facade; both sitting in front of an alpine scene that would have Julie Andrews clearing her throat. As soon as we step out of the car, we’re grinning stupidly, eyeing the wooden terrace, the furniture and the paint on the window frames. I can tell this place is special because my partner nudges me in the ribs. “Look at those chairs!” (continues below)

Hubert Lanzinger designed pretty much everything about Pension Briol, from the cutlery and crockery (still in use today) to the furniture, which looks like the sort of stuff Marcel Breuer might have done when there was no tubular steel handy. The owners smiled indulgently while we took photos of light switches, door handles and window catches. Johanna, descendant of the original owner, and her wonderfully named husband , Urban, are pleased to find enthusiasts but this is a working hotel and there are guests to book in, towels to wash and chemotherapy-strength schnapps to hand out. I stand on the terrace with a buzz that’s part alcohol and part wonder. Behind me is a mountain range of great beauty and majesty. That’s all very well, but in front of me are a solid wood supporting column and a coffee pot that are breaking my heart.

In the rooms the theme of modernity allied to more or less natural materials continues. The beds are wooden and screech like turkeys when you sit on them (or do anything else).  I find it hard to put down a backpack made from a by-product of the oil refining business. It just feels out of place. Part of me wishes I’d come with a leather suitcase, a hawthorn walking stick and socks made from goat’s wool. There aren’t any private bathrooms just a white tin jug and bowl for a quick splash. The shared facilities are the one part of the place that has been modernised and are beyond reproach. Sneaking a look into the other rooms on our floor (there are maybe five on each floor) the layouts are a little different but all the details are the same, from the bedside lamps to the designs on the shutters. Turns out that I don’t really mind homogeneity; as long as it meets my taste. (continues below)

Mealtimes at Briol revealed that although the place is nominally in Italy, this area of the South Tyrol is more German than anything else. The food is a combination of noodle and strudel that doffs a feathered cap towards Italy without ever letting the calorie content fall below the belt-busting. And since the deal is for full or half board everyone gets together for dinner when a cow-bell is rung and the people-watching can start in earnest. During the day there’s an outside pool that’s not infinity but a pretty long time nevertheless and a series of trails that range from an easy stroll to Air Ambulance material. Each of the tracks brings you across mountain meadows covered in wild flowers that make one realise that designers and artists will always have something to aim for. (continues below)

My expectation was that Pension Briol would attract an arty crowd. The severe spectacles, no hair and Moleskine notebooks brigade. But I was on my own. Mostly the guests were families with kids, dogs or both. The main feeling was of a slightly upmarket resort with an emphasis on healthy outdoor activity and heartiness. That’s not to say people ignored the surroundings;  anyone that I asked agreed there was something very special going on. They just didn’t make a fuss about it. On my last day I chatted to a couple of older women from Germany who looked like Bohemians in retirement. They enthused about the design and the feeling of preserved history but also passed on the news that Lanzinger went on to do some work in the war era that he may have come to regret. Like Milan train station – and I guess many parts of Germany and Italy – there are reminders of a dreadful past amid things of great beauty. That’s true of Britain too, when one thinks of it a little more.

Pension Briol, Barbiano, Val d'Isarco, Italy. www.briol.it

Matthew Loukes is a London based Crime Writer. His novel ESTRELLA DAMN is available from the usual outlets. A new novel GOOSE FLESH comes out in mid November 2009. More information from www.soulbaypress.com

Posted by Matthew Loukes on October 15th, 2009

Ten Walking Songs
Posted by Simon Lewin

A recent posting over at Caught By The River reminded me of a walk we took on the west coast of Scotland earlier in the year (snapshot below).

In this Tracks for Tracks: Ten Walking Songs post, guest selector Robert MacFarlane lists ten "Songs to keep you company. Songs to learn by heart. Songs to lend a beat to tired feet. Songs to yell from the top of a hill..."

Here's an extract about 'The Road To The Isles'...

"The song is a map, really, of the westwards way, from the Southern Highlands to the Western Isles. Its place-names guide the singer-walker westwards, its melody lures him and its rhythm sustains his progress. The song cites the locations that will bring the singer from Tummel in Perthshire to Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, by way of Loch Rannoch, Lochaber, Shiel, Ailort, and Morar. Singing therefore becomes a means of navigation. In this way, ‘The Road To The Isles’ has a family resemblance to Aboriginal songline cycles, which describe the ‘dreamtracks’ left by the ‘Ancestors’ at the creation of the world. The route of these dreamtracks – and they can run for hundreds of miles – is preserved in the form of songs, in which each note or phrase corresponds to a landscape feature (a claypan or rock outcrop, say, or turn in a creekbed)." Read in full

Posted by Simon Lewin on September 23rd, 2009

Old Town
Posted by Simon Lewin

Graphic designer and photographer Nick Hand has been cycling round the coast of Great Britain to raise funds for the Parkinson's Disease Society. Along the way he has been recording a series of 'soundslide' films, documenting the work of artisans he meets.

On the Norfolk leg of his journey he called in at our friends Old Town in Holt to make this short film about their British workwear range. Find out more about Nick's journey.

Posted by Simon Lewin on August 28th, 2009

Tarlair Swimming Pool
Posted by Simon Lewin

I guess blog entries are generally about places you have managed to get to. But in this instance we failed. Back in Scotland, we spent a bit too long on the beach earlier this week to have time to make it over to Tarlair Swimming Pool, which opened in the rocky bay just east of Macduff in 1931. The pool is grade A listed by Historic Scotland and plans are afoot to restore it to its former glory.

We'll upload some of our own snaps when we eventually get there, but in the meantime you'll find a number of photographs on Flickr.

Posted by Simon Lewin on August 16th, 2009

Port Eliot Festival
Posted by Simon Lewin

Our friends from Caught By The River are currently packing their bags in preparation for a trip to the Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall where they're hosting a series of readings, gigs and DJ sets with performances from Will Hodgkinson, Kathryn Williams, British Sea Power, Chris Watson, King Creosote, The Heavenly Jukebox and many more.

The festival runs from the 24th-26th July and full details can be found on the Port Eliot Festival website.

Posted by Simon Lewin on July 23rd, 2009