by Michael Angus | Jan 24, 2021 | Blog
When Series 1 of Scotland’s Home of the Year ended, I remember thinking: if there is a Series 2, how will we possibly match that? For the winner of Series 1 was just so remarkable, exquisite, amazing, inspiring, wonderful…the expletives, I recall, ran out.
And then Series 2 did happen, and we did find a(nother) winner, as remarkable, exquisite, amazing, inspiring, wonderful……
I suppose on reflection it was a bit naive to think we wouldn’t find a home in Series 2 to match the one in Series 1. The factors which make a home special are myriad: the invention and commitment of owners, limitless; the quantity of quality architecture, expansive; the scenery of Scotland, whether urban or natural, richly imbued, wherever one looks. It is telling therefore that the two winners, each equally as incredible, were so transparently different: the first, stark, white, modern, set in the landscape of sky and loch; the latter, old(er), urbane, cluttered full of treasures. They could hardly have been more different – where the aesthetic of the former spoke of austere gallery, the latter was an Aladdin’s cave.
They did of course share similarities. The architecture of both, despite the apparent stylistic differences was of a scale that invited immediately: awe; and they were both planned well, they both maximised their view, and both were well built, carefully and with due attention to detail. However, over and above the architecture, both shared that sense of additionality: a level of commitment to their inherent intentions, to their aesthetic preference: whether stripped back and minimal or decorated to the extreme – and one could sense that investment from the moment one walked through the door. It was instantaneous……
But the thought which lingers with me most, has nothing to do with those identifiable, measurable qualities, but rather the immeasurable. There was some other factor (maybe it was the accumulation of many) which propelled these two forwards, across the finishing line, further and beyond the others because of this additional quality. And what is this additional quality? I read once that from the moment of entering a potential home, to confirming the decision to buy it, on average, it takes no more than seven minutes. This is (considerably) shorter by far than many might spend, deciding on a pair of shoes, or what to have for dinner. I don’t think I’m highlighting a fact unknown – that there is simply something true about the statement: you just know when it’s right……
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Of course, this does highlight a tricky aspect of my role as a judge, being impressed with the duty to make judgement of the qualities of a home, as objectively as possible…but I’m only human, and am affected as are we all, by the wonder that is home. I’ll never forget the walk up the ramp and sliding between the two white drums, to stand as gifted, the view of the loch in the winning house of Series 1; as I will never forget being drawn through the carnival of delights that cascaded from every facet of the winner of Series 2. Both exuded a spirit that truly cannot be measured, but can only confirm: that when it is right, it is right, and this is especially so, when right is even righter……
Michael Angus (Jan 2021)
by Michael Angus | Jan 16, 2021 | Blog
If I think about island life, an image predominates: of harshness. It may be inaccurate – but the image persists nonetheless: of a black and white world, where there is little ‘give’; rather, it is a world all of ‘take’, and what return there is, is earned in hardship and sacrifice, within a cultural context as unremitting as the physical, predetermined to humourless devotion.
Of the more immediate prescience viz-a-viz of the physical context, it is ally, and hardly illuminates an appreciation of the place by contradiction: for the climate is harsh, as is the architecture. Buildings, and in particular dwellings, are set low into the landscape, tightly compacted, and barely decorated. Consequently, they are miserably plain – product certainly of response to such unforgiving climatic conditions, but reflective also of predominantly Presbyterian beliefs…..perhaps…….
Whatever the causes, the overriding effect is one of joylessness, which extends beyond the individual buildings to the whole: and to the streets too, and inevitably, to the street where the finalist of this epidode is situated. A street….even to call it a street? It is hardly that, a lane promoted under objection, wherein lives would hardly be inclined to rejoice: it would not host bunting; for if it ever did it would only amplify that unavoidable impression: of inflicted stoicism above all else. Delight would be ashamed to wander here, and likely would be hounded regardless – and even time would be unable to mitigate; age has not softened such an appreciation. No quaint adverts celebrating bygone living would be filmed here, no recalcitrant children would deliver bread-loafs still warm from their cooking, despite the comparability of the steeply rising street, for there are no cobbles nor crumbling textures engaging, nor daylight long enough, nor ever the slightest expectation that such a street could be rendered romantically in sepia tinged tones, no matter how potent such tones can be.
Indeed, if a rendering were ever instructed, it would not be difficult to imagine it being produced instead, in charcoals and of a tonality blacker than the reality. Such a render might feasibly incorporate a man, his back to the viewer, obviously aged by his huddled and hunched form, more hunched than it need be despite the weight of the rain and the darkness of the unlit night, his weary figure trudging lamentably homewards, and discernible only by fault of the moon and slender light escaping from deliberately sealed shutters in the windows of alike neighbours.
It’s a bleak impression; and to be sure, the biting rain didn’t help; nevertheless, it was indisputably a mean street……but, whilst thinking on it, other thoughts invaded, other thoughts less so about the immediacy of the place, to the more expansive context where those preliminary thoughts had their origin: of island life, and the unavoidable relationship to the sea, and all the subsequent myriad of unavoidable associations.
I have never sailed the high seas; I’ve taken ferries, that’s all (and admittedly, never more so than whilst filming this series); land has rarely been out of sight. Yet I’ve long loved the attendant tales: of pirates, and sea monsters, of Verne, and Conrad, and Moby Dick, and Shackleton, and Bligh, and Poseidon and his adventures……and of Navarone, and Moonfleet, and Rebecca, and of lighthouses, and the perpetual sense of trepidation, of being at the mercy of nature, being forever ‘subject’, as opposed to ‘object’; and the need then for places of shelter and safety, of harbours and smugglers caves; and the imperative of being able to find ones way, to navigate, and in turn, owning the skill to use sextant, and compass, and the ability to sense by dead reckoning, and to be able to read the stars, and more latterly: to have the trust in mankind’s invention, or Prometheus intervention: of lights created – lights, which by their colouring alone can indicate place, by relatively: I know I am on one side, or another, port, starboard; I know, by light alone, where the danger lies, and how to avoid it…..and even if I cannot, there are always lifebelts……lifebelts and lights….those same two features, fixed externally, embellishing an otherwise blank façade, which subtly announced: this home is different…..the entering of which would transpire to provoke a completely different impression of this place. Hanging above the door: there were the lights; and adjacent symmetrically on either side of the door, the lifebelts…… life belts; that simple invention of transparently ergonomic purpose, designed to serve likewise a solitary purpose: to save life ….
I read once that all too familiar adage, that a life saved and not lived, was not worth saving. What then is a life lived? And if lived, less so how, but most pertinent to this programme: where? And I have read too. an adage oft repeated regarding home: that a truck driver may be at home on the road; but he is not home at home. Why then not bring that home so keenly felt in one’s industry, into one’s home? Why not rescue the character of that time so assiduously and joyously spent, and flavour one’s home accordingly? Why leave, ever, one for the other? Why not be home, at home, whether one is at home or not?
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It would of course take quite a leap of decorative courage to do so – for the trappings of truck, or in this instance, seafaring, don’t immediately lend themselves to the normal trappings of homemaking – but I forgot in my instinctive assessment of the island life to remember the humour, the likes of which I have easy reference: to Whiskey Galore, Para Handy, Local Hero …… tales of characters and attitudes that delighted in the individual, and each individual uniquely identifiable, notably distinct and hardly blurred. Such individualism has been translated here, into as memorable a picture of a home as I will treasure, as I treasure the memory of first watching those humour ridden references. From the moment of stepping through that so slightly yet uniquely decorated façade, the tide turned, from a black and less white prospect, Powell and Pressburger-esque into startling Technicolor.
I left the land and stepped onto the sea, and more so, despite my tender experience of sea faring life, was made to feel to utterly welcome …and warm, it must be said!
The colliding of two worlds so abruptly executed, and by the quality of the interior inventiveness, its consistency and obvious passion – that alone might have been enough to warrant this home as suitable finalist. But then there was the inside-out shower – and my initial impression of island life literally turned on its head, and made to make me ashamed to be honest, to have even endorsed for one second such an impression. Island life may well have been harsh, but to implicate all into some collective identity, reduced in capacity and capability – hardly……
I will therefore never forget this home; for its personality so transmuted, certainly, but most of all I’ll never forget this home because of the shower. It cannot be easy being the outside of any building in such a locale. To bring those materials indoors, and furthermore, to allow them to remain, and be warmed as opposed to being continually battered by sea spray and bitter wind and rain – now that is a home with some amount of compassion; and more so: of a remarkable capacity to provide shelter from the storm……
MA (Jan 21)
by Michael Angus | Jan 11, 2021 | Blog
Whenever one approaches bodies of water, one usually does so so from a position of ascendancy; typically, one descends to water. That descent can be abrupt: as one might from the banks of a working quay lined river, or from the edge of some cliff face towering over distant waves; or it might be gentle and disposed to mutual respect, and it might take time and be immutably associated with time, as it is at a beach, where sandy slopes drift down to waves, either insistent in approach or potently dormant in retreat. The action, either way, whether the time taken is short or drawn steadily out, is always down…..which is the situation with the finalist in Episode 8, having that self-same downward motion towards water, in turn allowing for all manner of considerations: for patience, for hesitancy, for revelation – for the journey down, in these circumstances, is not precipitous and can be as paced as one likes…..
This house (as any building might, under such circumstances), has opportunity to enhance that experience – and that must surely be its primary objective; otherwise, it misses a fundamental factor inherent in the context: that the site exists between one world and the next, from a ‘street side’, with all its attendant associations with traffic, pavement, infrastructure, the urbane set in in this instance in the shadow of distant mountains, primarily still an aspect invoked to the man-made, to the opposing ‘sea side’ – and a sea side that is West facing too, with all the potential that might be exploited from such an expansive view so aligned, of both sky and sea. Two colossal components of nature that to be just: tender the street side to insignificance, so gloriously primal are they, and doubtless made more so, so frequently will that view be rendered resplendent by the setting sun.
The architectural device employed here is not so complex yet it is sophisticated none the less: to allow the land underneath to inform the space above. Simply: step down, and steadily step down, again and again – and with each step recognise that this is an orchestrated stepping down.
Such orchestration is so immutable to architectural comprehension; for if I think I am somehow independent, and that I take all the time as I might, stepping down on a beach, I am not. I am being regulated none the less, for I cannot help but respond to and be reflective of that inherent, and constant rhythmic quality of the sea. Architecture, and in this case, this house, intermediates; it could be argued that it gives me greater independence therefore, than permitted being without. Perhaps – but regardless, such is the wonder of architecture, when well-conceived: its ability to transform the understanding of the place, if only by dramatizing what is already there.
This has nothing to do with distance – for if I think of another building that does much the same as this house, the Glasgow Museum of Transport by Zaha Hadid, the distance as the crow flies from the ‘street side’ to the ‘river side’ is not particularly far; but the arrival at the river, as one passes through the building is unquestionably enhanced by the journey.
Comparatively, the Hadid building plays less with the levels than this house. The plan is the driver, less so the section. But both orthogonal considerations are exploited here: the section, as already intimated, in this house basically takes advantage the existing contours, and spatially, there is therefore an increasing spatial hierarchy as one moves ever closer to the sea-side. The plan endorses and amplifies the experience, being set out on a diagonal; and one ends up settling precisely where one should (the advocacy for this moment enhanced by journey not even being over at this point – one can return by an alternate route if one wishes.) It’s a staggered journey and welcomed for it; full compliments to the designer – for it can be easy to overexploit the view in such circumstances, to give too much away, too quickly, and to forget that the journey matters as much as the arrival – and, that the arrival in and of itself cannot be a dead end, no matter how glorious – which it most certainly is in this instance.
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Ultimately, that aforementioned wondrous merging of sea and sky: the two come together splendidly in this house, witnessed through the expanse of its illuminating windows; particularly at that most primal moment, of the sun setting, which doubtless is a nervous occasion on the suns part, as it slumps ever lower to the sea to disappear beyond the horizon – for additional comfort can be taken, knowing that within this house the receding colours spawned by the suns dying rays are being kept safe until they alight once more.
It is easy to invoke such thoughts, and fanciful predictions, even though our visit was in the brightness of the mid-afternoon; for the living room seemed to reek of expectancy, for the evening. But if anything, I’d have wished that this property had stripped away some of the trappings of normality, that the walls, floors and ceilings hadn’t felt the need to conform to contemporary expectations, and that each space transgressed had been more intense (as the bathroom was), like a series of caves perhaps, cascading from the darkness to light; spaces, more primal as befitting the setting.
Nevertheless, I applaud the journey – for every building has one, and I doubt the traversing of it will tire in this house: for it is a journey to Scottish West light, which as any who live here know: is forever changing yet always blessed with unique capacity to captivate.
Michael Angus (Jan 2021)
by Michael Angus | Jan 8, 2021 | Blog
Since having been advised that we would be visiting a Georgian townhouse in the Edinburgh New Town I’d been harbouring a restrained excitement – for it would not be fitting to over-enthuse that expectation; it would not, in fact, be fitting to over enthuse in any way whatsoever. Such behaviour would never do ……
Throughout the visit, that quality of propriety was ever present. From the outside one could not help but be duly impressed by the buildings calculated authority. Stones, laid almost 200 years ago, and set at the time sharp and true, remained so; not a crack nor a slip in sight. Some discolouring perhaps, but like grey hairs gracing a gentleman’s temple, such discolouring only added to the impression: of something un-fathomably wise, being wiser yet. And as for the composition of the facade as a whole? Unquestionably, a visage, refined, in benevolent austerity. There were no overtly ornate nor unnecessary nods to the classical sources and motifs from which the building was derived, but rather those more subtle observances, and the more fundamental lessons: of proportion and hierarchy prevailed.
Inside, this masterclass in refinement persisted, inevitably perhaps on account of the inherent qualities of the original Georgian tenets: the proportions of the spaces, imbued so with due consideration, lending an air of grandness, in even the smallest spaces. The organisation too, emphasised that inherent refinement, rightly paralleled by the lifestyle exemplified by the piano nobile, all fed from the outset by the generous accolade of entrance hall and stair, the latter sensuously curving delightfully upward to the conclusion of the oval roof-light, set so low as almost to draw the sky down by invitation, into the building.
If that were all, I doubt any other contender would have been able to match this buildings implicit elegance; that it had been re-furnished and decorated in contemporary fashion equal to the buildings ever so immutably sophisticated fabric – and indeed, to have met the demand to do so – only confirmed what was almost transparent from the outset: that this was a home, in a class above.
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That peculiar trepidation prior to the visit had been rewarded therefore, for this home proved to be a signal lesson in consideration, certainly of the trappings of living, but more so, of the fundamentals inherent in any building: the relative height, width, and depth of spaces, fittingly measured and composed. One would not accept ill-fitting clothes, nor ill-fitting furniture, nor ill-fitting tools nor ill-fitting vehicles; why then accept anything other than fitting spaces, especially in one’s own habitat?
Michael Angus (Jan 2021)
by Michael Angus | Jan 8, 2021 | Blog
There’s always an issue in architectural design: how much, is enough? Especially: how much space.
The extent of space required is determined by a number of factors, cost inevitably being one; but there is programme too – and the two are not mutually exclusive. There is for instance no logic in the argument that cost should limit the amount of space one might need for say, a tennis court. It is what it is. But for a home? What is the correct extent of space required for a home? Often the answer is: more – and there is a ‘more’ quality which predominates in one home from this episode: Rainbows End, a factor which lingers above all else.
There were more gables, for example, than one would normally expect. From the outset they fought for attention. Whether any won it was hard to say – they were of relatively similar scale – but perhaps one should have, categorically: because they presented themselves as the front of this home, where one might logically expect to find the front door. But which one? Had it not been for the bright colouring of the door itself, one might have been lost before one even entered.
And once inside, there was more – certainly, there was no shortage of space inside; there was more, everywhere. I won’t dwell on this point (and I might for it bothers me, because I initially felt that more had been endorsed more than it might, that the spatial control had been sacrificed in preference for spaciousness) for there is another more that insists, and another yet.
Firstly: that the building sought to make more out of the existing building, which warrants due compliment, though I suppose I wish more had been made of that decision, or less perhaps – for I could not feel the implication of the original; it seemed consumed by the volume of the additional….so I’ll let that point pass to, and focus on the second more, and the most memorable aspect of this home: the discovery that there was even more, on top of all previous mores, to be discovered…….
The house I grew up in had a ‘good’ room. It was the ‘front’ room, hardly ever used, and kept for special occasions. It’s an odd conception in some (many) ways, to have a room singled out as such – made ever more odd by the fact that it was the biggest room, and with the best aspect – and even more so today, when to propose the inclusion of an (relatively) unusable room in a home would go against the commercial imperative of homebuilding/owning. Yet – that ‘good’ room in the home I grew up in retained an especial mystique. I recall, from when I was young, that it was the room where only adults gathered and conducted themselves in strange rituals and behaved oddly in ways so disconnected from the everyday. On occasions when this room was used, strange smells would pervade the house, strange laughs would emanate upwards, strange hours would be kept. And then, in the morning, the room would be empty once again, silent, and secretive – it would never give up what it knew, of what went on, on those richly strange occasions.
I only cite this memory, because it plays to a point that I believe is significant in any home: that secrets abide there….and there is demand that those secrets be suitably housed along with all other aspects of living. Its an immeasurable aspect admittedly; yet we would happily endorse the idea that many immeasurables apply when one considers what home is – more immeasurables probably than measurables in fact. Dreams, for example – and many attics contentedly exist to house that need.
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But secrets…?
One could argue that such additionality is unnecessary; technically it is. But I would re-iterate: homes in my opinion will always have secrets, and places are needed to keep them, secret.
I’d suggest that it is just part of living, keeping secrets – its surely an inherent aspect of growing up – and as such, if agreed, must be incorporated in one’s home – and more so, it would make a fitting counterbalance to the reductive nature of contemporary home design – as homes become ever more: show homes, ie infused with a invigorated conformity, that they must be tended throughout and available for public consumption, any time and anywhere.
I’ve cited a few things about this home, things that were of a character of ‘more’ than I thought necessary. But conversely, there was a ‘more’ moment, that was so, so special: of finding the secret room hidden upstairs, and of all places, in an attic that ended at the inside of one of the gables. That will stay with me, as being significant – because I reckon every home should have such secrets…..(as much as every home should have a drum kit…………)
Michael Angus (Dec 2020)
by Michael Angus | Dec 14, 2020 | Blog
Of Episode 5, the one home which prompted further reflection is Mouse Cottage ……for if home is defined in language, then Mouse Cottage exemplified two terms so associated with ‘home’: the type of home: ‘Cottage’ …and that familiar component so often inherently associated with home: ‘Garden’.
Of the former, I admit that initially I have less to say, other than this example of ‘Cottage’ was truly an exemplar. Less so the decor; but rather in its traditional and thereby familiar disposition, of front door placed centrally, of small rooms and thick roughly hewn stone walls and deep-set windows, square of course, and ceilings upstairs that pressed down upon one’s head, making manifest that most impressionable aspect of Cottage: spatial intimacy (a polite way of saying: tiny …. as more befitting a mouse perhaps…?)
Leaving further thoughts aside of the Cottage itself, and moving onto its setting, it’s a curious fact, that so often buildings of this nature – buildings that are essentially tight in spatial terms – are built in landscapes whose character is of anything but restraint. As it is here – outside, spatially, was undeniably a counterpoint to the spatial character of the Cottage: a scene of cascading pastoral intensity, an outpouring, as if necessarily complimentary – and furthermore, resplendent in a curious facet all its own: the number of frightfully rightful places to sit. Undeniably the Garden had received as much investment as the Cottage, and rightly so, perpetuating the sense of repose that the Cottage too endorsed; and curiously yet, the Garden had been so manipulated to appear ‘random’ as distinct to the tended nature of the infinitely more ‘smooth’ character of the neighbouring golf course. Nature in both manicured therefore, equally, to suit their own ends.
Personally, I could not live here, much as I enjoy watching golf. Truth is: Cottages just do not do it for me – unless they are in a considerably greater state of disrepair. For it is their age that I am drawn to, that they are aged. It is a quality that I suspect entices many, though I must confess, I would sooner let the past that existed before my time, remain past. The echoes don’t stir in me, as I might interpret (possibly incorrectly) they might in habitants of such Cottages: as if echoes of the past can (continue to) have validity, greater than that of the present? It’s a harsh observation on my part, perhaps, and if so, apology is duly proferreed – but nevertheless, I often sense in such circumstances, denial; as if steel had (or worse, preferred that it had) never been invented…..? Mind you, I’m not sure, whether given a choice I’d opt for steel before stone, but that decision is one based more on the inherent prescient qualities of each – not the appeal of those echoes of distant associations, and the implication of time, being better then, than now. I can understand the appeal, but personally, I cannot live comfortably in the long past. And anyway, I’m too tall…….
But credit is most certainly, and objectively due: for Mouse Cottage is unquestionably delightful. More so, I cannot forget, nor undervalue the delight evident also in the external workroom – in and of itself a simple yet wonderful little space, which offered that experience which never fails to thrill in an architectural ticklish kind of way – by entering through what seems to be both a door and a window, at one and the same time.
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Altogether then, I’d suspect many would consider Mouse Cottage the ideal Cottage – and Garden – and yes, absolutely ideal, as I might – but this reflection began, by wondering about the terminology, as it might define the typology: Cottage. Of all the inferences, more than anything I’d suggest it infers stasis, as opposed to dynamic, as say ‘Apartment’, or ‘Flat’ might. It’s a place that has ‘done its time’, and as such, it’s a place where one could dutifully rest, and not feel pressurised by any lingering demand of time, to keep up; for time itself rests here too……
Maybe, one day, a Cottage might also suit me, ideally so……its just a matter of time……
Michael Angus (Dec 2020)
