stephen blyth’s blog

The popularity of authors and presenters following in the footsteps of famous writers or artists, or walking the whole length of a country, mountain range, island or following some geographic feature has got me thinking about a project of my own.

Last year I really enjoyed a TV series about distinguished English actress Miriam Margolyes’ trip around the United States recreating Charles Dicken’s 1842 trip. Many years ago Michael Palin travelled pretty close to the route described in Jules Vernes’ fantabulous Around the World in 80 Days. Palin later made a series travelling to important sites in Ernest Hemingway’s life. I could list books of authors following in the footsteps of Elvis Presley, De Tocqueville, Mozart, and even Jane Austen.

Well, I’m hoping to join the line of esteemed writers by writing about visits to all 12 buildings in the Guardian’s Great Modern Buildings series. While folk in the UK can read all about it and ogle a full colour supplement included with their daily paper, I’m making do looking at the series appearing this week on the Guardian website (which is a pretty damn good substitute).

You can read articles by architecture writers and also public luminaries, including Rick Stein, J G Ballard and Robert Hughes. There are interactive guides for five of the buildings featuring video, archive footage, images and plans. Coverage so far has traversed: the Empire State Building; Guggenheim Bilbao (which I was luckily enough to visit in 2001); the Pompidou Centre in Paris; Gaudi’s Casa Mila in Barcelona; the Jewish Museum, Berlin; Cornwall’s Eden Centre; and 30 St Mary Axe (also know as the Swiss Re building or affectionately as the Gherkin).

The buildings still to be featured are:
• Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater
• the Sydney Opera House (the only building I’m likely to visit in the near future)
• Arnos Grove tube station, London
• Notre Dame du Haut, a pilgrimage chapel designed by Le Corbusier, set on a hilltop at Ronchamp in the Haute-Saone
• the Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg.

The building I would most like to visit is the Eden Centre in Cornwall. The Centre is said to rise “like a sea of bubbles from old Cornish chalk pits, it’s a dazzling example of lightweight hi-tech design”. Within the geodesic domes are conservatories emulating a humid jungle and a warm temperate Mediterranean climate. A proposed 50 million pound addition (called The Edge) will expand the range of environments to the desert.

This new space will explore ideas for coping with the challenges this century will bring to the way we live. This is the core purpose of the Eden Project: environmental education focusing on the interdependence of plants and people. It’s popular too, with a million visitors a year, and generates jobs and income for the local area.

Writing about the Centre Rick Stein - who is based around the corner in Padstow - says:

Ever since those early days in the polythene tents the enjoyment of everybody participating in Eden is what makes it so special. It’s almost childlike - there’s an infectious lack of cynicism.

I found lots of multimedia features about the Eden Project, including a video and podcast about a installation of 70 tonne sculpture called seed, and lots about the team that run it. You can view several 360 degree panoscopes on the Cornwall tourism website. The one of “Eden outdoor biome and visitor centre” gives a good idea of what it looks like.

I’m sure there are other great buildings lists, and the writers involved in the great modern buildings series acknowledge they’ve been ruthless and partisan, but I’d love to experience all the buildings listed (plus a whole heap more).

Given doing this requires trips to three continents I won’t be packing my bags soon. It’s not only the impact of travel on the planet’s climate (something that could perhaps be ameliorated travelling by bus to Europe rather than by plane, as the new Ozbus service offers), it would mean time away from whanau and the garden. I guess I’ll have to content myself with virtual visits. Perhaps there could be a book in that.