Of Wind Towers: Geometry, Art & Science Combined

Wind towers – the low-tech means to bring relief from desert heat waves. This one belongs to the restored Sheik Saeed Al Maktoum House on Dubai Creek, built in 1894 by the ruling Al Maktoum family. It is now a museum and, if I remember rightly, the only surviving example of Dubai’s historic grand houses.

A perfect fusion of aesthetics, science and simplicity of function: this is how they work.

The capped tower has a port that opens towards the prevailing wind. Some towers are multi-directional, their vents opened and closed as appropriate. Air is drawn into the living quarters below, its movement providing the cooling effect.

When there is no wind, the tower acts as a chimney, venting hot air from the interior.

Persian architect-engineers devised this elegant air-conditioning system two thousand years ago, although it is said the Ancient Egyptians had something similar. More sophisticated versions involved installing a canal, qanat, under the building. Where this method was used, the wind tower vents were opened away from the prevailing wind. The system then pulled cooling air up from the canal.

Persian architectural techniques arrived in Dubai in the 19th century along with the development of the pearl fishing industry which gave rise to the settlement along the Creek.

Astonishingly, this technology could be scaled down to a demountable, flat-pack desert nomad version.

Here we have a reconstructed example of a portable Bedouin wind tower, made of cloth stretched on a wooden frame. (As seen in the courtyard of the Dubai Fort Museum).

But while it scores on movability, there were problems if it was erected too close to the cooking hearth. Once alight it turned into an actual chimney and became a serious fire hazard.

Creek-side view of the Maktoum house, an un-rigged dhow beside it

#GeometricJanuary Day 23

Reflective Geometry: C Curve By Anish Kapoor

Here’s one from the photo archive. I was reminded of it by today’s very chilly sunshiny morning. It’s a work by Indian sculptor, Anish Kapoor, and called C-Curve. We came upon this fabulous creation by chance after a visit to Kensington Palace, a piece of happenstance that made it all the more wonderful: Looking Glass Land made manifest.

Not only were there the reflections to ponder on, but also the responses of other passersby to enjoy.

And yet to think the work itself was utterly engineered, the unforgiving edges and surfaces of highly polished steel. It’s stunningly paradoxical. And there was more. When you walked around to the concave face you could have your world turned upside down:

And then back again:

More about Anish Kapoor and lots more geometry HERE

#GeometricJanuary Day 22

This Morning’s Walk With Some Rural Geometry

Barn roofs, gates, styles, fence- field- crop- and power-lines, pylons and pole shadows. Oh yes, and some bull rushes…

A brilliant sun-frosty morning and, so we’re told, the last of the super-cold days. But just the morning for a hike up to the dew ponds above the town.

I love this green lane, perhaps the remains of an ancient thoroughfare between settlements, this before the creation of the modern road system, or maybe even part of the old drovers’ routes out of Wales, shepherds and cattlemen driving their flocks and herds to markets in the English Midlands.

Bishop’s Castle was anyway an important market centre at least as far back as the thirteenth century, when the Bishops of Hereford ruled it from their castle at the top of town. Charters were granted for weekly markets and seasonal fairs to be held outside the castle walls.

On market days this now quiet track might well have been bustling with carts, farmers’ wives with their produce: ducks, geese, hens, eggs, butter, cheeses; farm boys on foot, driving pigs, goats, cattle and sheep to sell. Other traders too might have come this way: basket, hat and chair makers, dealers in songs, fortune tellers, herbalists, and street musicians.

The Long Mynd

At the top of the hill are some dew ponds. These are man-made pools, created in upland areas without natural water sources, to provide for grazing stock. Water then collects in them, either rain or field run-off. Some may date from the Neolithic period, that is 6-7,000 thousand years ago. Others may date from the Middle Ages or more recently in the 18th/19th centuries when there was still a high demand for wool. Much skill was required to make them. They started out as a saucer-shaped excavation, about a metre (3 feet) deep, and anywhere between 3-15 metres in diameter. This was then lined with straw, followed by an impermeable layer of puddled clay.

One of the dew ponds no longer in use for stock watering is in its own enclosed domain and filled with bull rushes.

There are many fine views all round from this point on the footpath; also another dew pond, not presently in use:

And in the field with the operational dew pond, lots of ewes waiting to have their lambs:

At this point we retrace our steps, although we could (if all of us were willing) follow the path for several more miles, taking a wide loop back into town. Instead, we head straight down the hill, watching the ribbon of fog flowing along the far valley from Clun towards Craven Arms. We’ve recently learned that this mist phenomenon, rather common in these parts, is also called brume.

Finally at the foot of the hill by the Wintles, another favourite old barn:

And by now it was lunchtime so we called in at Tahira’s Chai Shop on the High Street for some delicious beef and vegetable samosas (also geometrical) plus lots of good chatting, topped off with (triangular) slices of Rose’s light-as-a-feather, and mouth-wateringly warm cardamom cake. None of which stayed on our plates long enough to think about taking photos. Sorry.

#GeometricJanuary Day 16

Geometrically Inventive: The World’s First Cast Iron Bridge 1779

I rather miss having the Iron Bridge on our doorstep. It’s now a good hour’s drive across the county from our house in Bishop’s Castle. We used to like wandering along the Wharfage beyond the bridge, gazing up at the hanging woodland along Benthall Edge. It’s a great place for promenading, or at least it is when the River Severn is safely in its bed.

River Severn on the rise

The Iron Bridge, though, has withstood the most tremendous deluges, including the great flood of 1795 that took out most of the old stone bridges from Shrewsbury to Worcester. It was a show of resilience that proved to anyone who had doubted the capacities of large cast iron structures, that its builder, Abraham Darby III, had been right all along: cast iron was the material of choice for the industrial age.

Nor did its adoption take long. Soon it would be used to build the frames of factories; seen as a boon for the owners of textile mills whose combustible raw materials made them prone to ruinous conflagration. The several-storeyed iron-framed buildings that ensued were forerunners for the skyscrapers of the modern age.

On closer inspection, though, Abraham Darby’s ‘world wonder’ innovation came with more than a hint of sticking to the tried and trusted. After all, the man was an ironmaster, from a dynasty of ironmasters, and thus a pragmatist, and while the use of cast iron for so big a project was breaking new ground, the hundred foot span was achieved by the jointing of over 1,700 castings, some weighing over 5 tons, and using centuries’ old woodworking techniques of dovetail, mortise and tenon joints.

Besides, there was something else he was wanting to prove: that a bridge with a single arch could be made to span a waterway, busy with large sailing barges. To achieve this meant another significant breakthrough: the Severn trows could pass beneath without the nuisance of lowering their masts. It was all good for publicity.

‘The Cast Iron Bridge near Coalbrookdale’ by William Williams 1780

The bridge and the foundries, furnaces and forges of Coalbrookdale became the tourist venue of the age. Engineers, ironmasters, industrial spies and scores of artists flocked to wonder at what many likened to a vision of hell. The William Williams image above was painted a year before the official opening of the bridge to the general public. You can see three trows moored along the right hand river bank.

And of course, as a World Heritage site, the Iron Bridge is still a huge tourist attraction, seen here spanning a quiet and sluggish summer river.

GeometricJanuary Day 11

Conserving Geometrically ~ Sunshine In A Jar

On Saturday we were in A.J. Pugh’s, our excellent Bishop’s Castle butchers. It was their first day of opening since Christmas, and so I was surprised to find the Seville oranges had already arrived. Sixteen crates of them, I think we were told. To myself I marvelled at the crowds of marmalade makers that this prodigious quantity implied. Were there really so many in our small rural town? Clearly there must be. Andrew Pugh knows his stuff. He’s been serving the Castle since 1980.

This thought then induced an impulse purchase. Must get ahead of the marmalade makers’ stampede.

And so on Sunday afternoon, a day of gloom and wet snow (and after a quick consultation with Delia Smith HERE) I extracted pips and pithy innards, squeezed juice, and simmered the shredded peel till it filled the house with a heady orange fragrance. That alone lifted the spirits. And then, after a couple of hours, there was the pleasure of domestic produce: eight oranges, roughly a kilo, yielded eight assorted jars and a part jar, which should keep us going for at least a year, as well as providing a gift or two; this so long as Paddington Bear impulses don’t take over.

#GeometricJanuary Day 7

Fruitily Geometrical: The Pink Pineapple Pavilion

Some of you will have seen this before, but I thought it deserved another outing; ideal for Becky’s #GeometricJanuary.

We came upon it a few years ago when visiting National Trust stately home, Berrington Hall, in Herefordshire. It is the work of installation artists Heather and Ivan Morison; their interpretation of the Georgian garden pleasure principle, which included all manner of temporary structures for dining, conducting assignations, or communing with the great outdoors. It’s called Look, Look, Look!

In the 18th century, Britain’s landed rich expended their often questionably-gotten gains in the creation of pleasure parks around their grand houses. These were places for promenading, a little sporting activity (fishing, sailing, archery), for re-enactments of famous naval battles (if you had your own lake); there were ‘eye-catcher’ summer houses, grottos, fake ruins, and classical temples. It was also the era of wholesale removal of villages from the sight-lines of the gentry in the ‘big house’. Garden tunnels were also dug so the horticultural workforce could go about their labours largely unseen. Above all, these gardens were ‘show off’ places, and if you wanted the best, you employed the likes of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown to design it.

Another show-off item was exotic fruit, especially the pineapple whose possession, in the flesh, produced in your own very expensive-to-run hot house, or as architectural motifs about the house, demonstrated your wealth and prestige. At Berrington Hall there are both pineapple allusions, and the surviving landscape contrivances of Capability Brown. The park is magnificent, and Brown’s last endeavour as a garden designer. There is currently an extensive garden restoration project which aims to recover his original groundworks.

Inspired by the pineapple, detail from a Berrington Hall bed quilt

N.B. You can find full details of the Pink Pineapple’s construction, with architectural plans HERE.

#GeometricJanuary Day 5

Elephantine Geometry: The Things One Sees In Bishop’s Castle

Well, at first sight, glimpsed through a December hedgerow, it truly did look like an actual elephant. Good heavens! What was it doing here in the Shropshire Hills?

We discovered it last week, by chance, as we explored the hillside paths above the town. There it was, beside the Shropshire Way, at Foxholes campsite, and with company too. The Buddha no less.

Closer inspection of course revealed that it was cunningly constructed of metal plates, now richly rusted.

We then realised that it was doubtless one of the exhibits in the Bishop’s Castle town trail, The March of Elephants. You can see the other artworks at that link. This particular work was created by local artist Ben Ashton, but I couldn’t find anything further about him.

By now you could well be wondering why there is an elephant art trail in a Shropshire market town wherein the trade in sheep and cattle has for centuries been the major enterprise.

There are two connections.

First there is Robert Clive aka Clive of India (1725-1774). After he had finished plundering Bengal (he had started out as a clerk of the East India Company), he returned to his native Shropshire with an eye-wateringly colossal fortune and lived at Walcot Hall just outside Bishop’s Castle. He was further rewarded for his India efforts with a seat in Parliament (MP for Shrewsbury) and an Irish peerage. His newly wrought family crest featured an Indian elephant, of which a carved stone version still survives in the town’s Market Square. It had once been prominently sited on the main window of the Market Hall (since demolished) built by Clive’s son Edward.

A rather more pleasing elephant association is the fact that during World War 2, one or more circus elephants were kept in Bishop’s Castle for safety’s sake. They lived in the stables of The Castle Hotel at the top of the town. At least one was to be seen exercising along the lanes. There’s a brief film clip of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnMu3l3Q0rE

So there you are. Seeing elephants in Bishop’s Castle is not so outlandish after all.

P.S. The war-time elephants’ quarters have been given a plush makeover and you can now stay in The Elephant Gate House.

#GeometricJanuary Day 4 This month Becky is hosting square photos with a geometrical theme.

Blue Waves ~ Geometrically Commemorative

I’m all for public art enlivening urban spaces. But what does this sculpture say to you? Despite the blueness, I can’t help thinking of spaghetti, or maybe unravelled knitting, which doesn’t mean I don’t like it, though I’m thinking it might be better served in parkland surroundings.

The setting, however, is key. Bath Street (originally Bath Lane) is the place, and Blue Waves marks the source of Royal Leamington Spa’s claim to fame as a once fashionable place ‘to take the waters’.

Until 1800, the town, in its original format of Leamington Priors, was a very small village. The saline springs around the parish church had been known of for centuries, and in 1586 one Robert Camden had declared them healthful. But it was not until 1784, and the discovery of the Bath Street spring, that local worthies Messrs Abbott and Satchwell decided to exploit the resource and open the first bathhouse.

And so the village, spurred on by speculators, grew into an elegant resort with fine rows of classical town houses, parks with promenading avenues and ornate bandstands, and grand public buildings, including the Royal Pump Room And Baths and the Assembly Rooms.

All to cater for the great and the good. In fact the place was grand enough in 1838 to attract the likes of a young Queen Victoria, whose visit naturally conferred royal status on the enterprise. One wonders what was ailing her so early in her reign. The waters were said to ease stiff joints and tendons, and give relief to sufferers of rheumatism and gout. But perhaps it was the all round social whirl of the spa town that attracted her. She came again twenty years later.

The local people, though, were not forgotten. The spot where Blue Waves is sited seems to roughly match the footprint of the first public well-house which was opened, also in classical style, in 1803, and known as Aylesford’s Well. Here’s a photo of it in the 1950s from Leamington Spa’s History Society website:

https://leamingtonhistory.co.uk/leamington-history/

#GeometricJanuary

Join Becky for a month of squares. Geometry is the theme and the header photo must be square in format.

Installation Geometry: ‘Green Dwelling’

Here we have one element of an art installation called ‘Green Dwelling’. In 2021 it was sited in the Old Town Meadow of Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park, a grand Warwickshire venue for some magnificent art, ancient, old, and contemporary. Very well worth visiting.

But I’m not quite sure what to make of Green Dwelling as a whole, although for some reason I like this square. Perhaps it feels like a happier, more mundanely accessible version of Mark Rothko’s many ‘windows’, which I also admire, but find more challenging.

Here are the 23 other blocks that comprise the installation.

Dutch artist Krijn de Koning was commissioned to create a work that would encourage people to engage with Compton Verney’s landscape, designed by Capability Brown in 1779. It also marks the site of the lost medieval village of Compton Murdak, the blocks placed to create new framed vistas, and arranged on mown pathways that might suggest the presence of the ancient settlement.

Well, as I said, I’m not quite sure what to make of the whole; perhaps more appealing in the conception than the physical manifestation. Perhaps, too, if I’d thought to venture closer, I might have become more involved. On the other hand, it looks to me as if the landscape, domesticated as it is, needs no such cues of engagement. In fact it rather outdoes the structures.

If I had walked to the further side of the square and looked through, I might have seen this kind of vista: Compton Verney Manor, essence of classical architecture – symmetry, perspective and lots of angles…

#GeometricJanuary

Of Right Royal Geometry

So begins Becky’s month of square format photos – of things geometrical. So here goes.

There’s almost too much geometry in this shot: triangles, rectangles, circles, semi-circles, octagons. It is was taken at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, a medieval fortress transformed in the 1570s into a grand Tudor palace, wrought at huge expense by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and with the sole purpose of entertaining his queen (and rumoured lover) Elizabeth I.

More of that story here: Greater love had no man…

The photo shows a slice of the pleasure garden and ornamental aviary constructed in 1575, specifically for Elizabeth’s visit. This is how she would have first glimpsed it, descending from the royal apartments to a loggia terrace, whence she could view the whole extravagant horticultural confection. For this particular visit, it is said Elizabeth arrived with thirty-one barons and four hundred staff.

And they stayed nineteen days. (Just imagine!)

Robert Dudley pretty much bankrupted himself to keep them all amused, not only with lavish banquets, but also with hunting, pageants, plays, bear baiting and fireworks.

And after all this, Elizabeth still could not be persuaded to marry him.

As to the garden, it was lost for nearly 400 years. English Heritage have reconstructed it using an eye-witness account of the visit by one Robert Langham plus archaeological and historical investigation.

You can read Langham’s account HERE. He speaks of ‘fair alleys…green by grass…and some (for a change) with sand…pleasant to walk on, as a sea-shore when the water is availed.’ He mentions too (and not an inconsequential attribute in those times) ‘the sweetness of savour on all sides, made so respirant from the redolent plants and fragrant herbs and flowers, in form, colour, and quantity so deliciously variant’.

And the ruins of the erstwhile royal apartments:

Wishing everyone an all round happy New Year

#GeometricJanuary You can join Becky’s square posting every day this month. The only rule is the photo must be in square format. How you interpret ‘geometry’ is up to you.

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge