Persian: that’s the word I’ll always associate with Shusha Guppy. Uttered with a luxurious protraction of the first syllable — Purrrzhen, as if a … well, Persian cat were being stroked—it conjured up all those Oriental refinements rudely swept aside by the ayatollahs, a lost world of Hafez recitations and elaborate compliments (taarof, as she taught me to call them) paid in jewel-like gardens. Though she’d occasionally employ the bare geopolitical term “Iran,” the adjective was always “Persian,” and so was the name, in English, of her mother tongue—Allah help anyone who referred to it in her hearing as “Farsi,” which, she would witheringly point out, was like saying “Deutsch” or “français.”

— Ben Downing, The New Criterion

JUST THE OTHER day I remembered what was quite possibly the nerdiest and most wonkish social interaction I ever had. Summering in Maine a summer or two ago, I came across Luke P., who studies Persian at SOAS here in London, standing on Sunset Rock staring out towards Strawberry Island.

There were six or seven of us there, and in the course of conversation Luke made some rather clever or obscure point about Islamic architecture, perhaps it was Cairene funerary monuments or maybe it was even within his Iranian remit — I don’t remember.

What I did remember is that the substance of this remark, seemingly original, was in fact cribbed in its entirety from Hillenbrand, which is to say from Professor Robert Hillenbrand’s Islamic Art & Architecture, pretty much the standard work on the subject. Like a flash, I came back, “Pah! You got that straight from Hillenbrand!” A flick of the cigarette, and a wry smile emerging from the corner of his mouth, Luke immediately and very graciously conceded this as being the case.

The lesson our tutors taught us at university rings true: always attribute and acknowledge sources! You never know who’ll have read Hillenbrand.

Readers might enjoy this video from CNS featuring Fr Joseph Kramer, one of the FSSP’s priests in Rome. I met Fr Kramer very briefly on the street when I was in Rome in 2006. It might be time for another visit to the Eternal City.

I STEPPED OUT OF the airplane and the long line of the Alps smacked me in the face about the same time as the freshness of the Lombard air. One of the more boring innovations of today’s world are those mechanical arms that stick out of air terminals to usher you from hermetically sealed environment to hermetically sealed environment. (One of the reasons why Bristol Airport is among my favourites, besides being in Somerset, is the total lack of those loading arms.) Landing at Malpensa, I was pleased to step out onto the stairway with the sun behind my back illuminating the glorious string of snow-capped peaks in the far off distance — a reminder that Milan is indeed a different Italy from the hills of Rome or that Greek-speckled island of Sicily. The polizia di frontiera manning the Unione europea queue takes the barest glance at my maroon passport before handing it back with a forlorn grazie and waving me on my way with a nod of the head.

I made my to the train station, bought a ticket from the little machine — brushing aside a little taxi man with a dismissive no grazie — and boarded the treno diretto a Milano Cadorna. I had left behind a rather grey, miserable, and cold London just two hours before and as the Malpensa Express hurtled through tunnel, cut, and way, I’ll confess the tiniest swivel of excitement — augmented by the glorious sunshine — at the prospect of discovering Milan, a city with which I had no previous acquaintance.

Milan boasts one of the greatest railway stations of the world — Milano Centrale — but I was heading into the smaller and more convenient Cadorna station. Alighting the train HM phones and barrages me with information as I confusedly try to stick my ticket into the slot to let me through the barrier oblivious to the words coming at me through my telefonino. Victory — success — I’m through, and agree to phone HM later when I know what’s what.

Finn’s instructions had been to take the Metro to his, but confronted with the cloudless beauty of the sky I found the idea of scuttling about underground lacked any appeal. A walk would do me good. Following the gentle curve of the Foro Buonaparte under the shade of the graceful trees, I took my measure of the city. I hadn’t any idea what to expect, really, but am pleased with what I find. There are awkward post-war modern bits (American bomber crews were not unfamiliar with Milan) but for the most part the city’s architecture betrays a sturdy late-nineteenth-century confidence that’s been sensibly updated to keep with the best of today’s standards. What’s more, the population are a positive adornment to this city: snappily dressed men of business wait at pedestrian crossings while pretty girls on bicycles sail by. The motto of Dublin is the slightly scary ‘Happy is the city where the citizens obey’ — Milan’s might as well be ‘Happy is the city where the citizens dress well’.

I turned onto the via Dante, continued down the Orefici, and was there at the piazza del Duomo, just a stone’s throw from Don Finiano’s. Dropping my things off in the flat, Finn suggests an immediate walk around the middle of town. “Luckily you can see everything here in a short space of time,” he avers with the assurance of his short attention span.

And so around Milan under the blue sky. The Duomo: “It’s the heaviest building in the world!” Still? “Maybe, maybe not.” Through the Galleria, as civilised a shopping promenade as ever existed, to La Scala. “Have you ever been to the opera? Here, that is.” “YES, with the Pogg!” On to the Castle and through its bifurcating series of portals to the park on the other side as Finn explains his various options for after his eventual departure from Milan. Swinging around and down the via Dante again, I run into a shocked Signora Bubesi who had no idea I was going to be around. (HM, typically, told her nothing). I kiss her hello and tell her I’ll see her later on. (We met up the next morning to see ‘The Last Supper’).

A late lunch by the Colonne di San Lorenzo as I offload the latest news from London and receive information, counter-information, and pure speculation about mutual friends and those in the general circle of things.

The sun still shining, we made our way to the roof terrace atop Finn’s flat. It actually belongs to the genial neighbourhood fascist who has allowed Finn the free use of it and emblasoned it with a quote from Mussolini. He once enlisted Finn’s help in carrying to the ascensore a large and heavy bust of Il Duce. The lift is absolutely tiny and just barely held the two of them, Il Duce, and a confused old man heading for the dentist’s office on the first floor. (The dental staff, reassuringly, use the rear balcony next to Finn’s as their smoking area).

Several larges bottles of Nastro Azzurro are consumed before we head back down to the flat to continue with spritz. The glories of spritz! Appropriately it was Ivo who introduced me to the ambrosian concoction — “Mate, try this. You won’t regret it.” — and I’d had Ivo, Hubert, and Callum round for dinner just the Thursday before; a night that rather typically ended with half-remembered lyrics to Irish rebel songs.

I’ll just pour myself a little more spritz. Oh very well, a full glass, must make up for the ice after all. The genial neighbourhood fascist pops round (in a black shirt, of course) and says hello as we discuss the possibilities of what to do for the evening, the sun having set over the course of the spritz being consumed. The Pogg goes onto Skype and summer plans are discussed for after Finn and Nick’s great Rome-to-Somerset motorbike expedition. We prefer Malta but the Pogg objects and absurdly suggests Isola d’Elba instead. What?!? We’ll see. Wherever the axes of price, sun, and proximity to water converge is where we’ll end up.

And again through the streets to the rather swish place atop that department store on the Piazza Cinque Giornate. After a Moscow Mule and something to eat, a cigarette on the smoking balcony. Looking out towards the city’s western flank and the night sky above it, we gaze downwards and watch the trams sleekly gliding through the piazza before turning our glance towards the appartamenti around the piazza. A surprising number are strangely dark for this time of night and we infer they’ve been bought by dodgy types as tax dodges or money-laundering manoeuvres.

Eventually we end up by the Colonne di San Lorenzo again, crowded with giovani as well as the occasional sketchy foreigner offering to sell you drugs. No grazie. Somehow we find ourselves chatting away with a group of people into the night. Finn, who is fairly fluent from living here, is mistakenly impressed by my knowledge of Italian, which confuses me since — unlike Irish, French, or Afrikaans — I’ve never studied it. A weekend in Milan, however, is enough to convince me it’d be a worthwhile endeavour.

And, having whiled away in conversation, at some unknown hour the police arrive to gently encourage everyone along their way, and returning to the various places from whence we came, we dispersed into the night.

The silent majority of Hungarians have at last found a voice in the Fidesz party – and the European Commission don’t like what they are hearing.

by ALEXANDER SHAW in Brussels

In under two years, Viktor Orbán’s regime has reduced the Hungarian budget deficit, reduced personal income taxes, returned the GDP to growth and proclaimed sovereign primacy over supranational diktats. Adopted at the beginning of this year, Fidesz’s new national constitution finally overthrows the Communist era law of 1949. Hungary is the last former East Bloc nation to have achieved this. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that 300,000 Hungarians marched to support their government when the reforms came under fire from the EU in January. It was the biggest demonstration in Hungary since the regime change. The message was clear: Fidesz’s democratic mandate is as mighty as ever and Hungarians want sovereignty. (more…)

Those of us enjoying our Easter Monday bank holiday will look with ire and scorn upon the recent report of the Centre for Economics & Business Research which, according to the BBC, says that if bank holidays were scrapped the gross domestic product of Great Britain would £19 billion higher every year. No mention of what manner of witch-doctery science they used to determine this figure — whether they employed an augur to tell the auspices or consulted the oracle at Delphi itself (hasn’t done the Greeks much good of late).

Also, it is improper to misuse the English language in such a way as to imply bank holidays entail a “loss” or a “cost”. If I fancy Springtime Surprise in the Grand National, forget to put a bet on her, and she wins, I haven’t “lost” any money at all, I just haven’t gained any. I suspect this study also fails to account for the increased cost of the general misery which would be caused by the lack of bank holidays. People might be tempted to go around burning or bombing things — y’know, just because. People do funny things when deprived the ordinary pleasures of freedom.

What’s more, who’s to say people being at work more means they actually do more work? I remember seeing a delightful Figaro headline: Les françaises: champions du monde en vacances. It’s true, the French do take their time off. But studies have also shown that when physically at work they tend to work harder and more efficiently than other countries, particularly Americans.

The BBC article also provides a table of public holidays per a selection of countries. I quite happily lived in South Africa, a country with 12 bank holidays to Great Britain’s measly 8. What about those hyperproductive Japanese and South Koreans? They must be slaves to their jobs, poor suckers! Apparently not: both countries have 15 public holidays per year.

We must beware those who would prioritise economic growth over life itself. The philosopher Roger Scruton put it best:

When people refuse to pull down a cathedral for the sake of the coal beneath it, or insist on retaining a Georgian city when it could be rebuilt as a business park, they create obstacles to economic growth. Most forms of love are obstacles to economic growth. Thank God for obstacles to economic growth.

800 Years: Irish Political, Literary, and Military History – 18 April 2012

THE ANCIENT PRACTICE of lèche-vitrine is one hallowed by time and tradition. I remember one December day I had a lunch appointment with a friend who worked at the late, lamented Anglo-Irish Bank on Stephen’s Green in Dublin and, being early, I nipped a few doors down to the auction house Adam’s to engage in a bit of what I like to call thing-avarice (which the Germans probably have a word for). We do enjoy taking the occasional peek round the Dublin auction houses to see what’s what, and to examine the cabinet of curiosities that come out from ancient houses and rotting flats and appear in these bright places where commerce and refinement play their strange little waltz. When it comes down to it, though, it’s really just about having nice things — the sort of stuff you want lying around the house inexplicably.

Anyhow, the historical auction at Adam’s is coming up on 18 April and sure enough their senior rival Whyte’s is having a similar sale just a few days later on 21 April. We’ll only look at Adam’s here — if we considered Whyte’s as well, we’d be here all day. (more…)

Grande dame of charity and sometime Fianna Fáil senator who provided a ‘harbour of hope’ for the disabled & represented Ireland in squash

IF, LIKE ME, YOUR Venn diagram shows a massive overlap for the circles representing politics, history, aesthetics, and design, then the Irish Election Literature website is a dangerous place where you can waste many minutes of your day. Not long ago, I stumbled across their collection of electoral bits related to Valerie, the Hon. Lady Goulding — at least I think that’s the proper style, these realms are arcane and murky. She was most often, but incorrectly referred to as Lady Valerie Goulding, the fate of many wives of baronets I’m afraid.

She was born Valerie Hamilton Monckton in 1918 at Ightham Mote (pronounced “item moat”, obv.), the house noted for its Grade I listed dog kennel. Her father, Sir Walter Monckton (later 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) was a trusted friend of Edward VIII, and the teenage Valerie was employed as a messenger shuttling letters between the King’s refuge at Fort Belvedere and Stanley Baldwin in Downing Street. Visiting Fort Belvedere in 1993, Lady Goulding recalled the last lunch she had attended there in December 1936:

She [Mrs Simpson] was leaving that afternoon for Cannes, and everyone was talking about nothing so as to avoid what was on everyone’s mind. But one really nice thing happened: there were four bottles of beer next to my place. The King had remembered that when we were rounding up the ponies on Dartmoor the previous year I had a beer in the pub, and that he had remarked that I was very young to be drinking. It was very touching.

In 1939 she attended the Fairyhouse races and met Sir Basil Goulding at a dinner party. Goulding had significant business interests in Ireland and became known for once entering a bank board meeting on rollerskates. On her second visit to Ireland, they became engaged, and married quickly as the threat of war loomed on the horizon. Sir Basil served in the RAF, rising to the rank of Wing Commander, while Lady Goulding opted for the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry before switching to the Auxiliary Territorial Service. After the war, the Gouldings moved to Dargle Cottage in Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow. (more…)

Stithians, Cornwall

It having just been St Pirran’s Day recently, why not have a look at some Cornish property up for grabs? Just southwest of the Cornish village of Stithians is this curious little house named Tretheague, now up for sale from Savills with seventeen acres attached. Stithians is known for its agricultural show held every July since 1834 and “one of the largest and best-known ‘one-day’ shows in the West Country” according to the agents’ propaganda tells us.

“The Manor of Tretheague” the propaganda continues, “was owned by the ancient Cornish Beville family until the end of the 16th century. Philip Beville of Killygarth died leaving the property to his son in law, Sir Bernard Grenville of Stowe, who sold off various tenements and dismembered the manor as such. The family of Tretheague lived at the property for three centuries until Walter Tretheague died around 1602. They were followed by the Morton Family who did well from mining interests in the county until another wealthy tin adventurer, Nicholas Pearce, who developed Wheal Maudlin at Ponsanooth, took over the old manor in 1690.”

“John Pearce rebuilt the house the year before becoming High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1745 and his descendants sold the property to J M Williams in 1872, another member of a famous Cornish family that prospered from the Cornish mining boom. Under the guise of Williams Cornish Estate the property was sold privately to Bernard Penrose in 1962 who then spent almost 20 years restoring this somewhat unique and unspoilt gem that had remained almost unaltered since the time of its construction.”

“The house standing replaced an Elizabethan house that was recorded as having seven chimneys in the tax of 1660, although only small fragments of mullions and cut and chamfered stone survive. The major rebuild took place around 1744, almost certainly designed and overseen by the famous Greenwich architect Thomas Edwards who presided over several commissions in Cornwall for a period when rich County families and well-to- do mining adventurers felt it necessary to show off their new found wealth and elevation in Cornish society.”

“The house overlooks beautiful parkland which borders the drive and separates the house from the country lane. This parkland has been the scene of summer cricket matches from time to time and now contains individual specimen trees of lime, Canadian maple, beech and horse chestnut.”

“An imposing set of granite steps with wrought iron railings rise to the entrance which is at upper ground floor level. Inside the house much of the original period detail is intact, and on the upper ground floor the hall, panelled dining room and magnificent shallow-rise turning staircase feature fine plaster ceilings with modillions and Rococo detail.”

I like the exterior and setting, but from the photos the house feels curiously small on the inside. I somewhat dislike such primly contained box plans, and prefer a bit of awkward additions and extensions from centuries of use. Treatheague seems a bit too clean cut, but worth a look at least.

Some Essays of Pierre Manent in English

I’VE BEEN ON a Pierre Manent kick recently, whom a friend in Paris describes as “a giant, grossly under-rated in the Anglophone world and treated with considerable disdain even in France on account of not being a prisoner of ephemeral conventional wisdom. ”

Given the current penitential season, it might be worth reading Manent’s “Reason and Faith: A Lenten Reflection”. This paragraph was one among the many that struck me with its accuracy:

Christian faith, for its part, accepts being called to appear before the tribunal of reason. It is distinctive of the Christian God to leave man to his own counsel, and to put the fulfilment of the plan of salvation as it were at the mercy of human freedom. This is why Christianity is not a law, but a faith. This is why the Bible is not a teaching dictated by heaven like the Koran. It is a chronicle, full of detours, of an often-broken and ever-renewed covenant between divine goodness and human freedom.

Much of Manent’s pondering is on the realm of political philosophy. His 1999 essay “The Return of Political Philosophy” explores the death of political philosophy over the course of the twentieth century, while his lecture “Current Problems of European Democracy” examines the depoliticisation of European societies. “The Greatness and Misery of Liberalism” is also worth a read.

I note with great regret the early death of George Tupou V, the King of Tonga. Readers will remember the King from our 2008 report, Monocled Monarch is the King of Fashion. The blog post was forwarded to the King a year later by one of his honorary consuls, and it’s rather nice to think that a reigning sovereign has visited our little corner of the web.

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat ei.
Requiescat in pace. Amen.

Two of the brightest philosophical minds, China’s Tu Weiming and Canada’s Charles Taylor, combined at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna last year for a dialogue. The video is above, or you can click the link here.

McGill’s Prof. Charles Taylor is the author of A Secular Age and winner of the Templeton Prize. Prof. Tu Weiming is director of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University and a leading proponent of Confucian thinking.

Erika Larsen, Sami Herder, Scandinavia
Photograph, National Geographic, November 2011

WHAT WOULD it be like being a reindeer herder in Lappland? The perpetual attraction of some mode of living other than that which is immediately at hand lurks somewhere in human nature, especially at one might be described as the points of transition in life. But then, when properly considered, life itself is one permanent transition period. Indeed, not just life, but perhaps all existence, as I am discovering in the Purgatorio. Having breakfast in Oxford the other day I was informed I should read the Divine Comedy, as Dante’s ideas about the natural order of the universe supposedly coincide with precisely with mine. A few days later, as the sun was shining and giving us a delicious foretaste of spring, I decided to walk across Green Park, up Duke of York Steps, and over to the Piccadilly Waterstones to pick up a copy and have been duly transfixed by it. I am totally ignorant of theology and philosophy, all of which goes completely over my head, but I phoned up Rob, who’s properly clever, and he averred that Dante’s conception of order is based on Aquinas, and Aquinas is absolutely correct, so apparently we’re all quite sound. (Which is a relief). (more…)

From a Rome friend, here is the latest on Msgr Ignacio Barreiro who has been very ill of late:

I spoke last night with Monsignore Barreiro. He tells me that he is recovering well from surgery and moving on to the next stage of treatment and is hopeful for a good recovery. I am also happy to report that he sounded very cheerful and in excellent spirits. I will continue to pray for him, and I hope that all his friends will too.

Sounds like very good news indeed, as things were looking exceptionally dicey a few weeks ago.

New series will feature face of former president Nelson Mandela

South African President Jacob Zuma recently announced that the country’s central bank would issue a new series of banknotes featuring his world-famous predecessor, Nelson Mandela. As the South African Rand is a widely used currency throughout southern Africa, its banknotes have become well-known throughout the region, and current international standards recommend banknotes change their security features every seven-to-ten years. The changeover will take place as the South African government makes a significant investment in the state-owned South Africa Bank Note Company which also prints banknotes for a number of neighbouring countries. SABN hopes to upgrade its printing facilities to take into account the most recent improvements in banknote security features in order to prevent counterfeiting.

I’ll rather miss the old notes (above), branded into my memory from my time living in South Africa. For some reason (the exchange rate, perhaps?) I have nought but happy memories of the Rand and always enjoyed the beautiful animals in a variety of colours printed on the notes. While Mandela will feature on one side of the new issue of notes, the ‘Big Five’ game animals will continue to grace the reverse. The inoffensive animal theme was introduced to keep the currency relatively apolitical, and despite the widespread admiration for Mandela across South Africa, the introduction of the former president’s visage on bank notes is another symbolic way of imprinting the ANC’s grasp on power into the population’s psyche.

As for myself, being obsessed with everything Cape Dutch and Afrikaans, I rather miss the old image of Jan van Riebeeck which once graced South Africa’s rand notes.

There is a certain pleasure in reading newspapers: the feel of the paper in your hands, the comfort of a seat in a café, the wide panoply of stories arrayed before you. Newspaper websites, on the contrary, are generally horrible. They are usually outrageously ugly (the Scotsman‘s website is particularly poor) and neither well organised nor designed with the proper aesthetics in mind. You might remember that the Times of London redesigned their website just before making it totally inaccessibly. I enjoyed their redesign at the time, but upon further consideration it seems a bit insipid.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, widely regarded by correct minds as the best newspaper in the world, engaged upon a wholesale redesign of their website, faz.net, in October of last year. Like the newspaper itself, there is a fine attention to detail, and I think FAZ might just take the biscuit for best online presence for a newspaper. (more…)

The famous Matthew Alderman provoked a disputation on Facebook the other day regarding amongst other things (jousting got a mention) the relative merits of U.S. state flags. I touched upon this subject previously in a post discussing the arms of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, when I noted the lamentable tradition in American state flags is for the state seal or emblem to be presented on a blue field. Overall, I have to admit that Maryland has the best flag of any U.S. state: it is heraldic, relatively simple, and overwhelmingly traditional. The Facebook commenting led to an all-out war of annihilation between a lasse of Virginia and one of Maryland on the relative merits of their respective state flags. Right as it is for Virginians to defend the great inheritance of their fair dominion, there is simply no contest here: Maryland’s flag is the overlord.

Just look at Virginia’s (above) state flag! A total yawn-fest, I’m afraid. State seal on blue — how original. It would be far better if they took their ancient coat of arms and followed Maryland’s example by using a banner of arms. In Virginia’s case that would mean a red Cross of St George with the crowned shields of Scotland and Ireland in two quarters and of the quartered French & English arms in the other two quarters. Very handsome.

I don’t really like many other state flags (my geboorteland of New York is no exception: once again a banner of its arms would be much more handsome). Of the few I do enjoy, California rakes highly. It has a certain panache, and the words ‘California Republic’ are a healthy reminder of wherein lies the sovereignty. And interestingly, if the Soviets ever take California (“You mean they haven’t?”) they wouldn’t have to change the flag at all, as it already has a red star.

New Mexico’s is admirably simple and different, but one does worry if it’s a bit too simple: the Zia sun symbol veers eerily close to being a corporate icon. The uber-trad proposal would be to replace it with the yellow-field Cross of Burgundy.

The flag of South Carolina also gets an honourable mention, with its comely combination of palmetto tree and crescent moon. Rendered in red and white instead of blue and white, it is the flag of the Citadel, South Carolina’s military college.

Sort of: Queen Offers Long Leasehold of Edwardian London Landmark

SIR ASTON WEBB’S great Edwardian Baroque office-building-cum-triumphal-gateway, Admiralty Arch, will be offered up for a long leasehold by HM Government. The Grade-I listed building, constructed between 1910 and 1912, is one of the best-known in London for finishing the long view down the Mall from Buckingham Palace and connecting it to Trafalgar Square beyond. Admiralty Arch features 147,300 square feet across basement, lower ground, ground, and five upper floors.

Savills have been appointed as the sole exclusive agent to seek interest in the long leasehold. “The Government’s objective is to maximise the overall value to the Exchequer from the re-use of Admiralty Arch,” the Savills press release noted, “and to balance this with the need to respect and protect the heritage of the building, now and in the future, enable the potential for public access and ensure awareness of, and be prepared to respond to, potential security implications.”

Our prediction: oil money from abroad will turn it into a hotel. Boring, I know!

Deputy PM Navracsics asserts to shocked Commissioner that Council of Europe “cannot impose anything which runs counter to our constitution”

Hungary yesterday declared its sovereign primacy over the EU. In a heated dialogue between Tibor Navracsics and Commissioner Neelie Kroes, the Hungarian deputy PM staidly remarked that his country would not impose legislation which was contrary to its new constitution. The packed committee room gasped in horrified awe. Kroes was visibly furious as she stormed out, expressing her usual ‘grave concerns’ about Hungary.

Kroes had obviously been banking on Navracsics’s compliance with the Council of Europe’s recommendations, EU member states being bound to comply with the Council of Europe’s Fundamental Charter of Human Rights under the Treaty of Lisbon. The Hungarian government is under scrutiny from the EU for the possible breach of various articles of the Charter. When asked directly where his priorities lay in implementing recommendations, however, the founding member of the ruling Fidesz party stated “I’m a Hungarian member of parliament and I have sworn allegiance to the constitution of Hungary.” (more…)

The unbuilt Church of St John of Jerusalem

IN THE REALMS of architecture, the unexecuted project has a certain air of fantasy to it — the allure of what might have been. Ranking high amongst my favourite unbuilt proposals is Sir Ninian Comper’s project for the Church of St John of Jerusalem at Clerkenwell. Comper designed the scheme in the middle of the Second World War as a conventual church for the Venerable Order of St John, the Victorian Protestant revival of the old Order of St John (now more commonly known as the Order of Malta) which was banished from England at the Reformation. The design (below) is a Romanesque-Gothic hybrid, a splendidly exuberant cross-fertilisation of two styles more frequently opposed to one another in the minds of most.

One of the proposals for the serious reform of the Order of Malta in Britain is for the Grand Priory of England to divest itself of its interest in the Hospital of St John & St Elizabeth and its associated chapel in St Johns Wood. Owing to a complicated series of events, conventual events are taking place at the Church of St James, Spanish Place already. As the Venerable Order never executed Comper’s brilliant design, perhaps the Order of Malta might consider buying a suitable site in London and making Comper’s fantasy a reality.

Image: Ayla Lepine / Watch This Space

A theme which Matthew Alderman and like-minded souls have been keen to explore in recent years is that of ‘The Other Modern’: advances in architecture that are evolutionary within the grand scheme of Western architecture rather than revolutionary and rejecting tradition. (c.f. Alderman’s Modernism and the Other Modern: A Cautionary Tale and other NLM posts on the subject). We’ve explored this idea ourselves, looking at the Universidad Laboral in Spain and Brasini’s unfinished church in Rome.

One of the sessions at the 2012 conference of the Association of Art Historians will “to bring together an international group of scholars to investigate architectural projects and strategies that have been eclipsed, ignored or derided in favour of an architectural historical narrative which has privileged the ideologies and outputs of Modernism”

The description ‘Modernism’s Other’ accounts for the majority of architect-designed buildings in the developed world before 1950, and a substantial quantity thereafter. While the claims of Modernism to command the intellectual and social heights of the century have been disputed, and while the 1980s saw the beginning of a reappraisal of different design strategies, recent trends in the academy have reaffirmed Modernism’s primacy.

Many questions regarding architectural projects and their interpretation invite fresh consideration. What constitutes marginal or eclipsed history, which architects might be included in this category, and how architectural theories might support or inhibit new understandings of twentieth-century work are all fertile lines of enquiry. ‘Otherist’ projects produced in the twentieth century offered a sophisticated engagement with the past, with decoration and with symbolism. To investigate, correlate and evaluate the ‘lost histories’ remains a challenge to art historians. This session therefore encourages contributions on individual designers and critics, national schools, international tendencies, urbanism, conservation and historiography, which speak directly to alternative expressions of modernity.

More information is available here at the blog of Ayla Lapine, a Canadian art & architectural historian based in London.

Instagram: @andcusack

Most Recent Posts

• Brunel’s Unbuilt Capitol February 3, 2026
• Cricket at Fordham January 27, 2026
• Palacio Barolo Revisted January 14, 2026
• Learning to Love Liguria January 14, 2026
• Crux Alba No. 2 January 13, 2026

Most Recent Comments

• Ann Chiasson Beaton on Cricket at Fordham
• Ann Chiasson Beaton on When Newspapers Were Newspapers
• Michael Eamon Lamb on Cricket at Fordham
• Laura Dilworth on The Last Will and Testament of Louis XVI
• Stephen MacDonald on Learning to Love Liguria
• Walter Lasser on Jesuit Gothic
• J.R. Salazar on Compact Grandeur in Genoa
• Linda Frankel on When Newspapers Were Newspapers
• BT van Nostrand on Churchill’s Beguinage
• Andrew Cusack on Compact Grandeur in Genoa

Book Wishlist

Monthly Archives

Categories