(1) Two from T.S. Eliot:
“Longer and darker the day, shorter and colder the night. Still and stifling the air: but a wind is stored up in the East. The starved crow sits in the field, attentive; and in the wood the owl rehearses the hollow note of death.”
“What day is the day that we know that we hope for or fear for? Every day is the day we should fear from or hope from. One moment weighs like another. Only in retrospection, selection. We say, that was the day. The critical moment that is always now, and here. Even now, in sordid particulars the eternal design may appear.”
(2) My Flickr album of the Midland Hotel in Morecambe. It was built in the 30s and reminds me of the Bird Terminal / TWA Hotel at JFK. I’m still working on a post about the architect and artists involved in its construction.
(2a) These are beautiful photos of the hotel from Flickr member robmcrorie.
(2b) A quote from The Midland Hotel: Morecambe’s White Hope by Barry Guise and Pam Brook:
“As well as allowing him [Oliver Hill] to design a substantial building in the new style he had embraced with enthusiasm, the Midland Hotel gave Hill the opportunity to put into practice his vision of unity in architecture and decoration. It was his belief that a building’s external appearance should be intimately linked to its internal décor, furniture, and upholstery – a philosophy he likened to ‘the French ensemblier system of architect, sculptor, decorative painter and other craftsmen…collaborating to one end and ideal’. It was this holistic concept that Hill brought to the Midland Hotel, one that would see him take complete control of all aspects of the project, from the building’s exterior design to its colour scheme, works of art, decoration, and furnishings – even down to the waitresses’ outfits, the colour of the hand towels and the shape of the door handles!”
(2c) A quote on Oliver Hill by Ken Powell:
“Alongside the revolutionary dynamics of the Thirties, an older tradition of craftsmanship persisted. Oliver Hill was, almost uniquely, able to bridge the divide between modernism and tradition. His work, hedonistic and even self-indulgent, may lack the purity and progressive zeal – and the breadth of imagination – of a Lubetkin or a Mendelssohn, yet Hill was a key populariser of modern architecture, selling it to clients who were not interested in social revolution.”
(3) Desktop Departure Boards (YouTube)
(4) Digital Signage Services (UK Rail)
(5) National Rail Advertisement: Let’s get back on track (You Tube)
*When It Was Dark is a scan of a 1926 lithograph of St. Anne & St. Agnes by Donald Maxwell.