Could any western architect or designer have come up with a more beautiful or appropriate setting for the stone carvings found at the ancient & ruined city of Anuradapura, one time capital of Sri Lanka? The sculptures, dating from 4th C. BC to 11th C. AD, are set on plinths of un-mortared terracotta bricks (for the flexibility of exhibits on display?), with dividing walls of a similar brickwork, sloppily but appealingly mortared. The museum is set in an ex-British Colonial mansion and this space would probably have been the servants’ quarters. The floor is now in cast concrete and the walls are white-washed. There is no lighting other than the daylight which makes it through a series of arched openings in the facade, and this soft illumination is all the sculptures need to reveal their shapes. Thinking of the fortunes spent recently on some of Europe’s grandes oeuvres, one wonders if such fancy dressing does anything for the salad.
-
Continuing the theme of ‘useful things to do with old trees’, this month’s picture was taken in Chandigarh on what seemed to be public land, on the road which leads to Le Corbusier’s Secretariat building. Indians are well known for their ingenious re-use of materials which might seem to most of us to be useless.
Read Full Article
-
hy go to the expense of buying an expensive shop display system when you can make one yourself? And in this case you don’t have to stack the products on the shelf or even remove them from their boxes.
Read Full Article
