Dennis Severs' House
Dec. 23rd, 2008 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhythmaningYesterday, I met up with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coughingbear and hano and we went to Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate St. in Spitalfields. It is a curious part of London: a mixture of city steel-and-glass skyscrapers and Georgian brick houses. I used to work nearby, twenty years ago, and had had to visit for work much more recently; it is strange revisiting old haunts. I was prompted to go to Severs’ house by tubewhore, who had been very taken by it.
It is a strange building; I found it intriguing and fascinating, but also irritating. The irritation stemmed from a certain kind of preciousness – I described it as po-faced yesterday: a desire to play games – that it wasn’t a museum but instead and installation.
It is a multilayered experience. Severs lived in the house from the late sixties until he died in 1999. He recreated the house, each room taking a different historical style; and the conceit is that the occupants have just left.
It is crammed full of interesting objects – letters, paintings, drapery, everything; but people.
But Severs lived in the house like this: no electric lights (candle only), no heating, no plumbing. Part of the interest stems from the conceit, then; but part also from thinking about Severs’ life – at both high (why?!) and low (how?!!!) levels. No loo or bath, for instance – I mean, really, how? How could it be cleaned? Was it cleaned – were the spiders’ webs real or fake? How did they stop the candles setting fire to the drapes?
(I was reminded of when I was first househunting in Edinburgh; I saw a Georgian flat that had been lovingly restored. It was beautiful: amazing floors and fireplaces. But of course, no central heating. Which I would have wanted to put in. I didn’t buy the flat…)
This felt a bit the same, except that it was stuffed to the gunwales with objects and furniture.
Some of the rooms needed a lot of attention (that may have been deliberate – the crumbling walls may have been period detail rather than signs of collapse); the plaster falling away, exposing the wall behind.
But it was also very interesting. The detail was engrossing. I liked the kitchen best – the food looked very edible. The cat was cute, too (ashano pointed out, they must need to keep the mice down one way or another). There wre Christmas decorations all over – and several references to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
I don’t know if it was an installation, and interactive artwork, or a museum. I feel pretty certain that had the same pieces been displayed in glass cases, I wouldn’t have felt curious or intrigued. But the installations of a similar nature – the Dark Pool by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, for instance – grabbed me more; I went back once more to look at the Dark Pool today in Oxford, out of curiosity to see how it stood up after the grand design of Severs’ art, and it was more interesting – because you could really interact: in Severs’ house there were notices telling you not to touch the objects.
Still, it was a wonderful experience: a slice of history – well, several slices – a look at life; and a chance to wonder; and thank God – or Faraday, at least – for electricity…
coughingbear and hano and we went to Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate St. in Spitalfields. It is a curious part of London: a mixture of city steel-and-glass skyscrapers and Georgian brick houses. I used to work nearby, twenty years ago, and had had to visit for work much more recently; it is strange revisiting old haunts. I was prompted to go to Severs’ house by tubewhore, who had been very taken by it.It is a strange building; I found it intriguing and fascinating, but also irritating. The irritation stemmed from a certain kind of preciousness – I described it as po-faced yesterday: a desire to play games – that it wasn’t a museum but instead and installation.
It is a multilayered experience. Severs lived in the house from the late sixties until he died in 1999. He recreated the house, each room taking a different historical style; and the conceit is that the occupants have just left.
It is crammed full of interesting objects – letters, paintings, drapery, everything; but people.
But Severs lived in the house like this: no electric lights (candle only), no heating, no plumbing. Part of the interest stems from the conceit, then; but part also from thinking about Severs’ life – at both high (why?!) and low (how?!!!) levels. No loo or bath, for instance – I mean, really, how? How could it be cleaned? Was it cleaned – were the spiders’ webs real or fake? How did they stop the candles setting fire to the drapes?
(I was reminded of when I was first househunting in Edinburgh; I saw a Georgian flat that had been lovingly restored. It was beautiful: amazing floors and fireplaces. But of course, no central heating. Which I would have wanted to put in. I didn’t buy the flat…)
This felt a bit the same, except that it was stuffed to the gunwales with objects and furniture.
Some of the rooms needed a lot of attention (that may have been deliberate – the crumbling walls may have been period detail rather than signs of collapse); the plaster falling away, exposing the wall behind.
But it was also very interesting. The detail was engrossing. I liked the kitchen best – the food looked very edible. The cat was cute, too (as
hano pointed out, they must need to keep the mice down one way or another). There wre Christmas decorations all over – and several references to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.I don’t know if it was an installation, and interactive artwork, or a museum. I feel pretty certain that had the same pieces been displayed in glass cases, I wouldn’t have felt curious or intrigued. But the installations of a similar nature – the Dark Pool by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, for instance – grabbed me more; I went back once more to look at the Dark Pool today in Oxford, out of curiosity to see how it stood up after the grand design of Severs’ art, and it was more interesting – because you could really interact: in Severs’ house there were notices telling you not to touch the objects.
Still, it was a wonderful experience: a slice of history – well, several slices – a look at life; and a chance to wonder; and thank God – or Faraday, at least – for electricity…