Category Archives: Uncategorized

On Organic Geometry

Posted on October 29, 2018 by Montacute Pavilion

In Luke Syson and Dora Thornton’s Objects of Virtue there is a nice comparative illustration of a carved ivory knife handle after Francesco Salviati (Fig. 1)[1] and a print by Cherubino Alberti of two designs of knife handles by Salviati … Continue reading →

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Pavilions, Fabriques, and the Reverential Copy

Posted on August 14, 2018 by Montacute Pavilion

[This paper discusses a category of building that is related to, and sometimes overlaps with, the pavilion: the fabrique. The fabrique is not to be confused with the folly, although both are found in parks and gardens and the terms … Continue reading →

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Schloss Trautsmannsdorf Meditations 2: Jean-François de Bastide’s La Petite Maison and Architectural Seduction

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Montacute Pavilion

Following my exploration of the somewhat unsatisfactory Garden for Lovers at Schloss Trautsmannsdorf (https://villacastagnadaylesford.wordpress.com/2018/06/23/schloss-trautmannsdorf-and-the-problematic-of-gardens-for-lovers) it may be worth turning to eighteenth-century France for a very different approach to the erotic garden. The key text is Jean-François de Bastide’s La Petite … Continue reading →

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A Painting near Willem van Nieulandt II of the Colosseum and S. Croce in Gerusalemme

Posted on June 29, 2018 by Montacute Pavilion

In the Museum at Montepulciano is a painting on panel with ruins, a church, and the Colosseum. It is catalogued as ‘Romanised Northern painter, Landscape with Roman ruins and figures. Mid-16th century. Oil on panel’ (Fig. 1).[1] It bears the … Continue reading →

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Schloss Trautmannsdorf Meditations I: the Problematic of Gardens for Lovers

Posted on June 23, 2018 by Montacute Pavilion

The garden at Schloss Trautmannsdorf is a kind of Eden Project, a new garden created from 1995 and opened in 2001 (Fig. 1). The castle, which has had a sorry history, contains the provincial tourism museum, or Touriseum, which is … Continue reading →

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Onion Domes and the Spire of the Dresden Hofkirche (1738-51), with asides on the Frauenkirche

Posted on April 27, 2018 by Montacute Pavilion

Onion domes are seen here as being extravagantly exotic. They are certainly un-English and un-Australian. While ogee curves are common enough here in neo-Elizabethan buildings and Victorian bandstands, I cannot think of an example of an ‘onion’ dome. But first … Continue reading →

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The Collector Earl’s Garden, Arundel Castle, Part 1: Green Oak and Arches

Posted on March 24, 2018 by Montacute Pavilion

The Collector Earl’s Garden at Arundel Castle is the masterpiece of Julian and Isabel Bannerman. It is an ‘attempt to bring to life the garden belonging to Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, and his wife Alathea at Arundel House’.[1] … Continue reading →

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On Natural Timber Finishes

Posted on February 6, 2018 by Montacute Pavilion

My experience with using natural timber finishes on the Montacute carport and other projects. Continue reading →

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Silvertop Ash Cladding on Montacute

Posted on February 6, 2018 by Montacute Pavilion

On cladding Montacute. How to handle silvertop ash shiplap cladding. Continue reading →

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Portmeirion 3. How Serious is Portmeirion?

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Montacute Pavilion

The trauma of the First World War seems to have manifested itself in the ‘silly ass’ artistic culture of the 1920s. Novelists like Margery Allingham, and even Dorothy L. Sayers, created their detective heroes as upper class twits who took … Continue reading →

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