Tag Archives: architecture

Music, Trees and Architecture

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Walking around the outside of Hereford Cathedral you can find some fascinating views of the architecture. Sir Edward Elgar appears to be enjoying the view but the inscription on the periphery of the base to this statue reads:

“This is what I hear, the trees are singing my music or am I singing theirs?” “Sir Edward Elgar, resident of Hereford 1904 – 1911”

In both shots of this statue I like the other activities taking place in the frame – the woman attending to her child in the pushchair and in the second shot, the men in conversation in the background. These activities seem to fit very well with the pose given to Elgar with his bike, pondering, perhaps, a composition inspired by his cycles around Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

Sir Edward Elgar

Sir Edward Elgar

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Hereford Cathedral
Cathedral architecture
wooden fence
Sir Edward Elgar
Sir Edward Elgar

Cathedral in Bronze

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Reaching the end (or the entrance) of Church Street on my walk this week around Hereford city centre, I took another of many looks at the cathedral. In front of the building is a paved area with a brick mosaic design set into it. While this is interesting, I was much more intrigued by the unusual bronze model of Hereford set on a plinth near the cathedral gates.

Taking a closer look at some of the architectural details of the cathedral could take a long time (which I didn’t have) as the building is so intricate in its embellishments.I wasn’t just taken with the designs created by the stone masons, but also with the patterns and textures of the stones themselves. Presumably these have been produced when cutting the blocks for building.

I’ll be able to take another look at the interior of the cathedral next week, not for the purpose of posting on this blog but for my younger daughter’s graduation from Hereford College of Art – well done Hannah – you can see her work at hannahduncancreations.com.

Hereford in Bronze

Hereford in Bronze

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Church Street
Hereford Cathedral
Hereford in Bronze
Cathedral architectural detail
Cathedral architectural detail
Cathedral stone texture

Tawe River Mouth – Reviewing the Walk

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It was a nice sunny day for my walk this week, though I still had my umbrella with me as an encumbrance. My final view of the walk was looking across Swansea Bay from the dunes to Mumbles and its lighthouse.

I have included a soundscape again this week to accompany my selection of images from the walk. Click the play button and then the first thumbnail to view the images in sequence.

Mumbles from Swansea

Tawe Walk Soundscape

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Old and New

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It’s quite common these days to transform the local docks into a fancy marina or other such housing and / or business development. In the case of Swansea people were not being moved out to make way for the new build and the docks are in diminished use in comparison to Swansea’s industrial heyday.

The SA1 area, as it is known, is situated across the river from the marina but the two developments are linked by the well designed millennium footbridge and a more functional footbridge at the lock from the marina to the river mouth.

old redbrick SA1 building

The old redbrick building above used to be one of the dock buildings of course and it along with the few other older dockside buildings in the area, sit well beside the wide range of modern architecture.

I have taken photographs of this architecture in the past but the images below function more as a contribution to my walk this week than a means of showing the architectural design of the area. If you do a search on the blog for SA1, you will be able to see some of those other images.

Swansea Millennium Footbridge

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My Walk this Week – Morfa and the Tawe

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My walk this week is an urban one, although the footpath I followed from Morfa and the home of the Swans at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea, to the lake in the enterprise zone at Llansamlet, could in some places be mistaken for a more natural setting, if not rural.

Liberty Stadium at Morfa

It was a Sunday morning and although the length of the walk was only about 2.2 miles, it took me about 2 hours just to reach the lake at my halfway turning point. That is more because of field recording than photography but both played their part in slowing me down.

I’ll post some sound clips through the week but to start with, it was the structural patterns of stadium architecture and fence design that interested me.

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Bay Campus – Reviewing the Walk

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During my walk this week at Swansea University Bay Campus there were some beautiful sunny spells which allowed me to enjoy the campus at its best. However, below is the proof that bad weather will set in eventually! Even when the prospects look good for sunshine, these unpredictable days can so easily change and suddenly bring in wind and rain, even hail or snow.

dark clouds

My apologies for not providing any sound clips this week and similarly no soundscape to listen to along with the image sequence below.

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Campus Reflections

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I may have been a little critical of the architecture on my walk this week around the new Swansea University Bay Campus. Perhaps I should have remembered my own words and simply looked a little more carefully. In fact I did do this – I looked at different aspects of the buildings from various angles and noticed a wide range of patterns and shapes, particularly in the windows.

Swansea Uni new campus-31

Glass always provides reflection and this can also be fascinating but sometimes confusing. With the sun shining, the reflections in the windows were emphasised but I am sure when the clouds are dark andContinue reading→

Building Blocks

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My walk this week around Swansea University’s Bay Campus suggested to me that there were limited materials to work with when designing the place. I imagine that this was indeed the case with regard to finance (it always is), but it seems there may have been a restriction on the shapes that could be used as well.

Swansea Uni new campus-23

From my criticism of the architecture used, it might sound as though I don’t like the campus, but in fact in some ways I do. I enjoy the regular rows of dark rectangles set into the alternating colours of brickwork. I like the reflections of light in some of the glass fronts (see tomorrow’s post),Continue reading→