Page 68 - Studio International - July August 1968

The Christ Church art museum

Stephen Gardiner

Much of the best architecture in Oxford is in- tions—it had to be a fairly large building and was isolation. The tinted windows, like sun-glasses,
visible. Walking down the narrow streets or both wanted and not wanted in consequence. But reflect only the object's image and other external
between the huge walls of, say, New College Lane contradictions make tensions which make archi- things as they jealously guard their secret con-
one is not aware that hidden away round quad- tecture and, as you round the corner between tents. But while the garden scale is main-
rangles, out of sight, through small arches, are Canterbury and the Library, you realize, again tained throughout, the few large simple elements
some of the most beautiful buildings in Europe. No immediately, that something strange and mys- with which this building is made—the great
attempt is made to advertise the city's remarkable terious has been done: there is nothing to be seen beams, the flawless planes of portland stone that
possessions : a visitor has to find them for himself. except a garden wall. The setting is untouched, the sharpen up the rubble walls to pencil points—and
And when he does—if he does—and a dark tunnel view undisturbed (1). The wall turns a corner that the surroundings of flat soft grass bring with them
leads him into a lovely sunlit square, he'll find leads up a gentle grass path that descends again an abstraction that hints at something grander.
incredible views of spires and towers he had no into a green quadrangle (2) contained by the old And there is this mystery about the entrance.
idea were there. But good architecture is invisible college wall and two low sides of wonderfully plain, Christ Church has many puzzling entrances and
on another level: one can easily walk by without tinted glass. This is the gallery, and it's practically much that is invisible. A casual arch and a passage
noticing it: to appreciate its subtleties and depths invisible. The garden and its levels have been off Tom Quad give little away about the tremen-
takes a long time. And when one does notice it, the rearranged but that's all. The scene is as peculiar dous space of the Cathedral to come; an anonymous
spacious façades that may conceal intricate inter- as it is unexpected. The structure arises from the door a few yards further on is equally uninforma-
nal arrangements will look on calmly: you can stay ground, slowly, without an entrance, in a series of tive about the Dean's extensive house and marvel-
if you wish, they seem to say, or leave—we don't flowing movements—the grass slope, the long paved lous garden. And it was under a tree there (1) that
mind, one way or the other. It is this remote and ramp, the flat roof terrace and the white top which Lewis Carroll is said to have first spotted the rabbit
quiet authority, and the fusion of mystery and appears over the rubble wall. It is as though the hole that sent Alice tumbling down to all those
surprise, that have inspired the making of the architects had, with great care and very softly one bright flowers and cool fountains. The entrance to
University's latest building, the museum for the moonless night, lifted up a part of the garden and the new gallery through the old door in Canterbury
Christ Church art collection, by Philip Powell and had inserted the collection of pictures beneath : and and down the old stone steps to the basement and
Hidalgo Moya. that they had, within the architectural terms of the tunnel is part of the same fantasy. The archi-
In a sense architecture is imagined out of nothing such a conception, left it at that. tects have sunk their building (3) and solved
but there are always hard facts relating to place, What one sees is an object which is both normal their problem. The Dean loses none of his garden
use and people which influence the particular and curious, alone because it is different and and a structure which is scarcely noticed out-
magic that is made. Briefly, the facts here were a emerges from nowhere, looking in some way rather side contains galleries of which one is seventeen
perfect and secluded setting—the Dean's garden— as one might expect a spacecraft to appear which feet high (4). The garden walls and slopes have been
the presence of fine classical buildings, a line of tall has just settled in a field. The background—the exchanged, astonishingly, for a lofty, white
trees, a view of the Cathedral spire over a wall and spire, the huge wall, even the trees—are allowed to and complicated interior.
a new structure which had to absorb about a dominate but they subtract nothing from the The secret is out but the suspense is still main-
hundred and fifty pictures. At once, therefore, one object's presence, nor from its serenity and power. tained. The conjuring trick has been done, the card
is aware of a possible contradiction in the condi- The absent entrance adds to the experience of (height) has been palmed, but one is not allowed