49 research outputs found
The American Duchess Podcast: Artistic Dress & Glasgow Style with Dr. Robyne Calvert
No full textLauren Stowell and Abby Cox of the historic and vintage costume company American Duchess in conversation with Dr Robyne Calvert at the GSA Archives. They discuss Glasgow Style art and design, Artistic Dress, and examine items in the collection, analysing technical details and techniques. Extended 'podcast' video in two parts
Original Mackintosh plans for Glasgow School of Art revealed
No full text'The original drawings of Glasgow School of Art by the celebrated Scots architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh will be studied by the team leading the building’s restoration.'
Short video of Robyne Calvert viewing collection and discussing important to research team
The Künstlerpaar: Mackintosh, Macdonald & The Rose Boudoir
No full textAfter a century of scholarship we are still intrigued, and somewhat perplexed, by Mackintosh's working relationship with his wife and artistic partner Margaret Macdonald. In this article Dr Robyne Calvert explores love and art in their shared lives, with a particular focus on their collaborative design for 'A Rose Boudoir' for the 1902 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in Turin
Charles Rennie Mackintosh as Symbolist
No full textWhile the restoration of the Mackintosh Building is based on rigorous material and archival research, the project team is also faced with the challenge of doing justice to the creative legacy of the architect-designer himself. Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s approach to interior design and architecture compels audiences to search for meaning in the organic and symbolic motifs of his ornamentation. This quest for understanding has underpinned several of the research questions related to the restoration, and has highlighted some of the ongoing issues regarding the way in which Mackintosh’s decorative schemes have been interpreted. Taking the library reconstruction project as a launch point, Mackintosh Research Fellow Dr Robyne Calvert will discuss Mackintosh’s architecture as related to the artistic genre of European Symbolism, and what this approach might reveal that can help our team with the faithful restoration of lost interiors
Intangible Matters: Mackintosh, Authenticity and Conservation
No full textA symposium highlighting the recent conservation projects on Mackintosh Heritage.
Jointly organised by The Glasgow School of Art and The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow.
This one-day symposium intends to look at the complex issues around authenticity and replication through the lens of Mackintosh Heritage past, present, and future. This event was conceived at the start of the year as a celebration of what seemed a new ‘Golden Age’ for Mackintosh in Glasgow, but which has been indelibly marked by the terrible second fire at the Glasgow School of Art. Nonetheless, an incredible body of research yet remains from that project, alongside those completed this year – the Oak Room at the V&A Dundee, and Mackintosh at the Willow. All of these efforts, as well as the work of many years past, are yet worthy of celebration and reflection.
In particular, we seek to question and rethink more traditional conservation philosophies, notably materialist approaches set forth, for example, in the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) manifesto:
Building fabric is precious. A concern for its protection helps ensure that the essence of an old building survives for future generations to appreciate. The SPAB Approach therefore stands against Restorationist arguments that it is possible and worthwhile to return a building to its original - or imagined original - form. Equally, the SPAB Approach generally rejects arguments that original design or cultural associations are more important than surviving fabric.
Is this approach still relevant, and if so, in what contexts? Are there circumstances where this ideal falls short? What of the more intangible aspects of the built environment which may supersede the primacy of material fabric?
Keynote speakers are from outwith the field of Mackintosh studies to provide a broader framework for considering issues of authenticity and replication. Speakers include scholars in the area of Mackintosh Studies from a sampling of these projects, as well as specialists of heritage and museum practice. Demonstrations will be held during the lunch period from experts in visualisation, exhibition design, and traditional makers and craftspeople.
Keynote Speakers:
Sian Jones, Chair in Environmental History and Heritage, University of Stirling
Neil Curtis, Head of Museums & Special Collections at the University of Aberdeen
Speakers:
Alison Brown, Curator of European Decorative Arts, Glasgow Life
David Cairns, Owner, Windyhill
Robyne Calvert, Mackintosh Research Fellow, The Glasgow School of Art
Jake Kaner, Assoc Dean for Research, Art & Design, Nottingham-Trent University
Steve Love, The Glasgow School of Art and Damien Smith, ISO Design
Ranald MacInnes, Historic Environment Scotland
Pamela Robertson, Professor Emerita, University of Glasgow; Expert Advisor, Willow Tea Rooms Trust
Stuart Robertson, Director of the CRM Society
Joseph Sharples, Mackintosh Curator, The Hunterian
Steph Scholten, Director, The Hunterian
PUBLIC LECTURE at Queen's Cross Church on 19 October: Gunny Harboe of Harboe Architects, Chicago, on Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple.
Co-organised by Dr Robyne Calvert and Mr Steph Scholte
Script for 'Digital Laocoon', AHRC Immersive Experiences Project (Prof Steve Love, PI)
No full textThis script was co-authored by Dr Robyne Calvert and Dr Thea Stevens as part of the co-design team for the 'Digital Laocoon' Project (AHRC Immersive Experiences Project, Steve Love PI & Stuart Jeffrey Co-I, GSA School of Simulation & Visualisation; in collaboration with Damien Smith, ISO Design). It provides an engaging narrative for the audio voiceover within the Digital Laocoön (see below), incorporating historical contextualisation and reflections on authenticity and the replica. Dr Calvert also did the voiceover for the VR experience.
A digital replica of one of GSA’s plaster casts, the Digital Laocoön was developed by Glasgow School of Art (GSA) and digital studio ISO Design as a part of an interdisciplinary pilot project in the context of a 'Next Generation of Immersive Experiences' that takes a holistic view of the issues around practical design, development and deployment of an Immersive Experience related to the themes of Place and Memory. It focuses on creating a prototype immersive exhibit using the Mackintosh Building at Glasgow School of Art as an exemplar. The outputs of the project are a digital AR/VR experience, and a preliminary set of standards relating to this technology which will help mitigate real and perceived obstacles that currently obstruct deployment of this technology more widely throughout the sector for diverse user-groups. This is an innovative approach to furthering the deployment of a new generation of immersive content, experiences, and services across the creative industries in that it focuses not solely on the end-user but on how industry professionals are critical voices that must be included in the conversation if projects are to be successful
Mackintosh: Materials & Materiality Symposium
No full textOn 7 June 2017, the 149th birthday of Scotland's renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928), the Glasgow School of Art presented the symposium “Mackintosh: Materials and Materiality," with the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH).
Currently there are several major projects underway to restore and/or reconstruct Mackintosh's architectural and design work, and the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society has recently completed a condition survey of all extant Mackintosh sites. These projects have provided new opportunities to closely examine the material aspects of Mackintosh's work, and new discoveries have already come to light. This symposium offered a forum for knowledge exchange between these projects, with particular emphasis on tangible material research and the more intangible ideas of materiality that can complicate conservation approaches. Pamela Robertson, Professor Emerita and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow, University of Glasgow, delivered the keynote. Speakers represented four major Mackintosh projects: Glasgow School of Art, The Willow Tea Rooms, the interiors from the Ingram Street Tea Rooms in the collection of Glasgow Museums, and the National Trust for Scotland – The Hill House. The closing included an open discussion to offer an opportunity to explore this research with the wider architectural community.
Keynote Speaker:
Pamela Robertson, Professor Emerita and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow, University of Glasgow
Confirmed Speakers:
Alison Brown, Curator of European Decorative Art from 1800, Glasgow Museums/Glasgow Life
Elizabeth Davisdon, Senior Project Manager, Glasgow School of Art, UK
John Sanders, Simpson & Brown Architects (The Willow Tea Rooms)
Bryan Dickson, Head of Buildings Conservation, The National Trust for Scotland
Will Napier, AdamsNapier Heritage Consultants
David Macdonald, General Manager, Laurence McIntosh
Adam Frost, Visualisation Specialist, GSA School of Simulation + Visualisation
Chair & Organiser:
Dr Robyne Calvert, Mackintosh Research Fellow, Glasgow School of Ar
Interview with Dr. Robyne E. Calvert, Researcher, History of Architecture and Design at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, The Glasgow School of Art
No full textInterview with Dr Sabine Wieber of the University of Glasgow regarding the Mackintosh building fire of 2014
Stranger Things: Locating Design in Science-Fiction and Fantasy Films and Television
No full textAssociation for Art History 2019, Brighton
Session Convenors:
Robyne Calvert, The Glasgow School of Art;
Sally-Anne Huxtable, National Museums Scotland
Inspired by the repeated deployment of designers and architects such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Carlo Bugatti in in science fiction films like Blade Runner (1982), Inception (2010), Alien Covenant (2017), this session explores the interaction of histories of design and architecture with the genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy, within the expanded fields of film and television. Although these genres have long taken visual inspiration from the art world, this session looks beyond artistic influences to examine particular objects and spaces, which, having not been designed specifically for film, are then used for the visual expression of fantastic narratives. Does the materiality of such objects express properties of ‘the other’, or convey subconscious narratives that help set the visual tone (such as discomfort, or anthropomorphism)? Can their use disrupt traditional narratives of time and space?
The papers in this session examine the work of specific designers, designs and design styles that frequently appear in science fiction and fantasy. The themes which will be explored are the referencing of the medieval Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries in the Harry Potter films, the corporate design futurism of 2001: A Space Odyssey, deployment of contemporary jewellery in Sci-Fi films such as Star Wars and Barbarella, as well as the inspiration taken from the architecture and design of Frank Lloyd Wright by film production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas.
Speakers and Abstracts
'Immobilis in Mobile: Harry Potter’s Unicorn Tapestries and the Role of Tapestry in Fantasy Films'
Xavier Dectot (National Museums Scotland)
When Harry Potter enters the Gryffindor common room in the film version of The Philosopher’s Stone, the first thing the new students (and the spectators) see is the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry spreading across the walls. Up to then, true to the book, these young people had mostly been confronted to paintings, which cover the walls of the stairwell (including, and ending with, the Fat Lady). To the modern viewer, though, the tapestries, whilst absent from the book, play an essential (and recurring) role in setting the alternative medieval ambience that dominates the franchise. In fact, as if in response, when the viewer, in the following episode, The Chamber of Secrets, is introduced in the Slytherin common room, they are confronted to the much gloomier Killing of the Unicorn, the sixth tapestry from the Metropolitan’s Hunt of the Unicorn series. Tapestries often play an essential, although discreet, role in establishing not only the ambience of a room but, often, more widely, the feel of a film, from and the Diane tapestry series in Thunderball to the Bayeux Tapestry in Shrek the Third (and many others). This paper aims to explore how, through their sheer physical dimensions, their specific materiality and their essential narrativity, tapestries not only encases the scenic action, but it often give it an additional depth. In fact, as the aforementioned Harry Potter scene demonstrates, they are often the mean through which the viewer is made to accept the alternate reality of the Fantasy world.
'‘just-enough otherness’: The Use of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Work in Inception and Passengers'
Ersi Ioannidou (Kingston School of Art, Kingston University)
Production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas observed that spaceships in film are aesthetically coherent. And, in the name of originality, in Passengers (2016) he decided on plurality and disjunction. Dyas drew from a rich compendium of references outside the science fiction genre. Key sources of inspiration were Frank Lloyd Wright and Japanese architecture –which Dyas also used as references for the sets of Inception (2010).Dyas explains, ‘These are wonderful styles of architecture …lend themselves very well when you are trying to tell a story that is of a futuristic nature, and you want to immerse the audience in something that looks futuristic, but perhaps not so outlandish that you’re taken out of the film.’ Dyas does not elaborate on how he used Wright’s work in the interiors of Passengers; but his quote suggests that Wright has become one of the go-to architect when a set designer would like to produce ‘just-enough otherness’. Fellow production designers of science fiction films seem to agree; THX1138 (1971), Gattaca (1997) and, most famously, Blade Runner (1982) use buildings by Wright to locate the plot in the not-so-distant future. Abstraction, monumentality, repetition of forms and patterns, geometric austerity together with references to ‘exotic’ civilizations remove Wright’s buildings from their historic context and create a sense of timelessness. This paper discusses the ‘just-enough otherness’ that Wright’s work brings to science fiction sets focusing on its use by Dyas in Passengers and Inception.
'Jewellery in Space; Its Influence, and Inspiration, within Sci-Fi Cinematography'
Sarah Rothwell (National Museums Scotland)
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a Princess wore a necklace that became so iconic, that the very Earthly design was renamed Planetoid Valley’s. This was not merely a prop, or “costume jewellery”, nor the necklace that was designed for her; but was bought from the London store of Lapponia, a Finnish jewellery house, whose head of design Björn Weckström had created revolutionary designs since the 1950’s, that was inspired by the natural environment of the Nordic landscape, and unlike anything that anyone had seen before.
From cult classic Barbarella where Jane Fonda is seen wearing a wonderful sinus organic bracelet designed by Paco Rabanne; to the aforementioned necklace gracing the neck of Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia in Star Wars: New Hope, contemporary jewellery design of the day has often been used to evoke a feeling of the future, or create an illusion of an alien or alternative universe within Science Fiction cinematography and television production.
This paper looks to highlight those jewels which have become iconic within the Sci-fi community, pieces that sometimes were not commissioned specifically, but were to be found within the studios of the emerging new wave jewellery designers from the late 1950’s onwards. And how their experimentation with new materials and techniques, and influenced by a wide range of subjects from the natural environment, artistic movements of the day, to archaeology and ethnography, led them to create these ‘otherworldly’ jewels.
Roundtable Discussion: Retrofuturism: Design History meets Science Fictio
Love is Hell: Dante, Rossetti and Pre-Raphaelitism
No full textThe influence of Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy on the Pre-Raphaelites – and especially Rossetti – is such an obvious one that it is almost taken for granted in related scholarship. As subject matter these works are omnipresent, and the comingling of Dante’s romantic themes with artistic biographies is a compelling if problematic path that most Pre-Raphaelite scholars have tread at one time or another. This paper uses this familiar ground as a way to think about larger issues in narrative and symbolic representation in Pre-Raphaelite work, and the particular approach to ‘reading’ and reinterpretation the group had. With focuses on depictions of Beatrice and the tale of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, it first briefly explores representational roots in Romantic art; then looks closely at the ways in which Rossetti in particular interpreted the original text into his own art and poetry, and how subsequent artists, such as Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, again re-interpreted Rossetti’s responses to these themes. What is revealed is the radical way in which these artists appropriated this Renaissance subject matter to render words and images that expressed their artistic agenda, at the same time that it intimated the interwoven intricacies of their personal romantic triumphs and tragedies
