Comments on: Soho House and Gardens in Birmingham

By: Some link for February 14th through to February 16th | Birmingham Conservation Trust

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:05:29 +0000

[…] Soho House and Gardens in Birmingham | Garden Design And Landscape Architecture Blog – Gardenv… – Tom Turner reviews Phillada Ballard, Val Loggie, Shena Mason's book : A lost landscape – Matthew Boulton's gardens at Soho (Phillimore & Co, Chichester, 2009 ISBN978-1-86077-563-5)]. "The book should have been a study in the early development of the picturesque. But I recommend the book to local historians and to specialist garden libraries." […]

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:41:00 +0000

Yes. I does seem a little obscure.

After Matthew Boulton [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Boulton#CITEREFUglow2002] inherited his father’s toymaking business at 31 he is said to have presented Prince Edward with a sword through a friend. The gift so impressed Edward’s older brother the Prince of Wales(the future George III), an accomplished fencer, that he is said to have ordered one also. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III_of_the_United_Kingdom]

So, as you say, it is highly probable that the industrialist Boulton is more famous for his social finesse and connections than for his design talents!

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:18:52 +0000

I fear that I am not following the connection with Matthew Boulton!

By: Christine

Christine — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:14:01 +0000

Kendo is a modern Japanese form of martial arts which its origins in the Zen Buddhist Samurai culture. [http://bushikan-dojo.com/kendo.html] There is a British Kendo Association also. [http://kendo.org.uk/kendo/kendo-squad/]

Kendo as a modern sport is practiced indoors.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:45:12 +0000

I find comparisons between the Japanese Islands and the British Islands endlessly fascinating. Both groups have so obviously drawn on the culture of ‘the continent’ and both have cared so much about their identity and their independence and, perhaps because of their island status, about their relationship with nature. Perhaps that is why they are both such great gardening nations.

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:27:17 +0000

It is a surprise to find that Tadao Ando was a key motivational speaker at a Japanese business Conference [www.jci.cc/…/99016-4-07%20-%20Program%20of%20Seminars%20&%20Sessions%20-%202004.doc]at JCI University Japan [http://www07.jaycee.or.jp/2007/university/]. The synoposis of his talk was as follows:

“To Create Your Own Future”

After World War II, people in Japan began to focus on mass production and consumption. Thanks to its diligent and skillful people, Japan soon developed into an economic giant. However, this rapid growth and materialism have left many people unhappy and facing various contradictions. Cities have expanded without any plans, natural environments have been destroyed, and people are suffering from pollution.

Tadao Ando of Osaka, Japan, Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, who has emerged as a cultural force in the world, tries to restore the unity between house and nature (light and wind) that was lost in the process of modernizing Japanese houses during the rapid growth of the fifties and sixties.

The scars left by rapid and uncontrolled growth affect the daily life of Japanese people, many of whom feel that the time has come to return to their time-honored tradition “to cherish all things under the sun,” which they feel they have lost. Tadao Ando’s architecture honors that tradition.