No I wasn’t being ignored by the rest of my coursemates, I actually did go to Coventry, the city. After the morning of working in the studio basement with my writing and notes I decided that there was nothign else to be gained from hanging around for four more hours, apart from a chat with Euripides, the course leader, bust as he was off for lunch I could be waiting all afternoon. A chat with him might be good as my tutor wasn’t in due to being sick, but as I am pretty self sufficient I think that I’ve got most things under control.
Therefore, I looked on the map as to what was closeby to my current location (Wolverhampton). I’d recently been to Spaghetti Junction so didn’t want to repeat that yet, I’d also been to Dudley a few times when I was photographing the Lubetkin/Tecton architecture at the zoo so looked further afield. Coventry stood out as a place I’d only been to once, when I visited as a Young Enterprise Board Member and Volunteer Business Adviser when my team made it through to the West Midlands final. Whilst I had been there, I saw outside the venue for probably about three minutes so it hadn’t provided a solid explore. I knew that the cathedral was a masterpiece, as part of the restoration post world war two.
From Coventry Cathedral’s website:
“Regarded by some as a supreme example of ‘Brutalist Architecture’, Sir Basil Spence’s 1962 masterpiece embodies both the stark and the beautiful, to powerful effect. “
After the cathedral was bombed in 1940 as part of the Blitz, it was decided to keep it in a stable state and attach a newer designed building to it. This is reminiscent to the “A Bomb Dome” in Hiroshima, in that it was preserved as a monument to the people who lost their lives during the war, whilst using modern architecture to further the causes of hope and peace.
Walking To City Centre
I had driven to Coventry from Wolverhampton and parked in the Salt Lane multi storey car park, then wandered around looking for some interesting sights to photograph. It didn’t take long, there was a zebra crossing with a beautifully painted mural on the wall behind it that made a nice photograph. Moving on I found the Wave centre with its huge blue wall, next to a more sixties style architecture of a row of shops that wouldn’t seem out of place in the Shrewsbury Town centre Riverside area.
Construction
From here it was over to the Bull Yard and Coventry Market area that is in the middle of a complete renovation, everything is being demolished and works underway to prepare for a new area to rise from the dust. Again this is similar to the Riverside area of Shrewsbury in that it has been flattened and is being prepared for the modern day. There was a large finned concrete building labelled up as Precinct Shopping that I quite liked the look of but it was hidden behind some construction boardings and hoardings. On one part of the structure in Hertford Street that was originally built in the early 1960s there are several sculpted panels adorning the front of the facade but it was tricky to take a photo of these from the outside of the boarding. Much more destruction is afoot and the difference in the Bull Yard and Hertford Street today with how it looked on Google Street view or even in the excellent blog by Modern Mooch is startling.
Market
Coventry Indoor Market was a Grade II listed round shaped building that looked very much it’s age. Some of it was tired and had the appearance of a building that is held up mostly by the 420 different coats of paint it has received since it’s building.
To quote the Historic England register of listed buildings:
A market hall built in 1957 to designs by Douglas Beaton, Ralph Iredale and Ian Crawford of Coventry City Architect’s Department.
It was an interesting walk around the inside, on a day when most of the stalls were unmanned and tidied away, or sheeted over to prevent loss of stock. The smells and sounds in there remind me greatly of my childhood in the concrete Shrewsbury Market which opened in 1965. I used to accompany my mum around there once a week before I started going to primary school. I remember getting my legs slapped for fooling around with my brother who was a year younger, we were silly little buggers.
Lower Precinct
After an orbit of this market I headed out to the Lower Precinct to make some photographs of the steelwork in the barriers and the coffee shop in a round format in the centre of the mall. There was a set of escalators that overlapped each other and I wish I’d hung around here a bit longer. there was also a wonderful circular metal and glass framed roof letting loads of natural light into the whole building.
After a wander around here I walked towards the cathedral, walking past the Library which was still pointed out by some legacy signage on the wall of a Waterstones shop which was quite nice to see.
Holy Concrete
When I arrived near the cathedral I saw the old bomb damaged building and to the left of it the new concrete structure, so I decided to get inside there for a look around. As I approached it I coudl see the concrete structure and upon closer inspection I noticed that there were thin slits between the concrete slabs that had glass embedded in them, I bet this would look good on the inside, so it was time to go to the front door.
Inside there were a couple of people to greet me, next to the sign that said it closed at 4pm. It was 3:40pm now so I knew I wouldn’t have much time in there. I asked if it was ok to take photos in the church and one of the lovely people suggested that I walk to behind the main altar and cross and then I would see the light coming in through the large coloured glass windows.
There was a huge concrete curved wall with inset glass panels that went from floor to roof and a lovely gradient of colours. The sun was coming in nicely too, it was a bright and reasonably warm day so there was a good deal of sunshine outside. As I walked past the window and on the way to the front I noticed the organ pipes on either side and these were being bathed in the coloured light from the large glass windows.
Upon reaching the fron and turning around I could see what the helpful staff member was talking about, just stood behinf the cross and looking back towards the entrance I could see the light spilling in from the windows. The lovely latticed roof can be seen in the photo too which is also a lovely feature. The concrete structure inside the church was amazing to see also, the whole building seems so spacious and a wide open area. The walls behind the organ pipes were great big concrete grids with tonnes of clear glass in and I loved the angles and shapes that were thrown by these. This gave me one of my favourite photos of the day.
As time wore on I made my way back towards the entrance and photographed some lovely light coming in through the large windows but I hadn’t seen the small blocks of glass that I’d seen outside since I’d come into the building. It was when I was almost ready to exit that I stood to photograph from the back of the church towards the altar and organ pipes that I noticed the small Unity Chapel off to my left. There were a couple of people in there seemingly discussing an event, but they didn’t seem to mind me walking in and paying attention to the interior. In. here were deep alcoves with the narrow window blocks in that I was looking for, the light coming in through these different windows was simply amazing and I spent a good few minutes in here.
After thanking the staff at the door and promising to return when I have more time I headed outside and took a look around the bombed out cathedral. It was a huge open space too but there was no roof or glass in any of it. It reminded me of the old Christmas film, Nativity, that was filmed in this part of the building too, but this old architecture doesn’t really do a huge amount for me. As I left here I walked through the church yard where a couple of women holding lots of biscuits were swearing at squirrels for not coming to dine at their feet. Carrying on I wandered around the outskirts of the cathedral and spent a few minutes watching some skateboarders kickflipping around, until a huge fella came over to ask me if I was going to take photos, this was fine but he spent a bit of time looking at my camera before walking off to talk to a few of his mates. It might have been perfectly harmless but I didnt want to hang around if the risk was a bit escalated.
Around past the main entrance of the Cathedral with the large sculptures on the walls and I bumped into the Britannia Hotel, a huge and no doubt posh place to visit, back in the day. It was pretty derelict and showing signs of its age. Moving on a bit further it was over near the bus station and the huge Whittle Arches sculpture with a monument to Sir Frank Whittle stood at the base. The arches are massive and straddle the roads in front of the Coventry Transport Museum which might also be worth a visit if I go back again in the future. Then it was time to head back home for the evening so I headed back to the car park.
Droning On
Once on the road I found myself stuck in the traffic on the M6 and coming into Gravelly Hill Interchange, I decided to dive off the motorway and head to the little road that runs alongside the M6 so I could stick my drone up and capture some photos and video of the traffic on the roads. I checked the Drone Assist app to make sure there were no restrictions to flying in this area and then sent up my Mini 4 Pro .
I spent about 40 minutes here and did some still photos, some short videos and even a panorama that cane be uploaded to Facebook and provide a steerable image viewer. I was really pleased with the images that I managed to gather and then put some on Instagram, some on Facebook and some video on Youtube.
Reflection
The decision to head out to Coventry was an important one for me as I was finding it frustrating sitting in the basement and not having a tutorial etc. I was able to get out and take some more Brutalist photographs of a stunning building and the wonderful lighting conditions.
The drone photography at Spaghetti Junction was awesome too but in hindsight I wish I had altered the shutter speed to give me a longer exposure and try out some more movement of the vehicles on the flyovers and underpasses. Not light trails everywhere, but capturing the differences in the speeds of the different layers. i.e. the fastest cars leaving the longest trails and the slower ones in traffic being less so.
I also wish that I had done a bit more research into Coventry and places to go, as I feel there was still some sights to be seen. In fact, someone I chat to on Instagram @benrosedesign about photography said that he works not far from the cathedral and would meet up to show me a bit more of the city if I can get across there on a Friday in the future. It would be good to get out there and find some more of the brutal delights that Coventry has to offer.
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