The Gingerbread House.

Grayson Perry ’s ‘ A House for Essex ’ has been likened to a gingerbread house . I ’d say it looks more like a cross between the Taj Mahal and a puritanical public convenience .

On a dull January mean solar day when the ground was freeze too solid to work and I had finish examine each fiddling shoot of every bulb and counted all the greenish spots on my snowdrops , we dress off in the car and finish up over the border in Essex . The general tactile sensation about Essex , in Suffolk where I live is- ‘ There be dragons ’ * , but I am fearless in my seeking to find something new to harbor my blogging friend and also , my pal - in - practice of law , who is an artist was continue with us and he was keen to see it . So off we fit .

The house is one of five make for Alain de Botton ’ s scheme , live Architecturein quislingism with Charles Holland of the London found architectures FAT . His idea is to appropriate the great unwashed to stay in houses designed by designer and creative person . The House for Essex is so popular that you have to enter a ballot to get a prospect to stay here . If you win you have to pay at least £ 850 for two night and a mickle more at weekend .

Pentlow Tower, Essex

The tiny village of Wrabness on the sloughy bank of the river Stour is not the sort of seat you wait to see a shrine to the butt of 100 of ‘ Essex Girl ’ jokes . The definition in the Oxford lexicon for ‘ Essex Girl’is far from flatter and indeed there is a orison to have it removed . really , it is appalling that this awful stereotype of the speechless , promiscuous peroxide - blond , is perpetuated in a lexicon . But Grayson Perry who is an Essex son himself , lionise the life story of his fictional Essex missy , Julie May Cope ; indeed she is shown here as the divine female .

The story of her life and rise from a strip background signal in Canvey Island , her two marriages and death under the wheel of a take - away delivery moped is dramatize in tile and at heart on huge arras . There is a room devoted to both of her marriages and the deadly moped is hanging from the ceiling as a flakey sorting of chandelier .

There are four fall division to the edifice and it has been compared to Russian dollies , fitting one into the other .

Pentlow Tower, Essex

The roof is made of shine Cu and there are about 2000 , European olive tree green and snowy ceramic roofing tile . The symbols are the Essex shell , a large swirly joule for Julie , guard pins , cassette tape , kernel and steering wheel . Julie is depicted as a naked , pregnant charwoman with her arms advance in a hieratical quasi - religious gesture .

This yr the House for Essex has been make for the Meis van der Rohe awarding which is the highest accolade in European architecture . I am not certain what to make of it . Perry allow in that it is utterly ‘ bonkers’and indeed it is . But the idea of a folly is not a novel one . Indeed there is Freston Tower on the other side of the river which is a six storey Tudor foolishness . And at Pentlow , not too far away there is a seventy base tall , Victorian tower built by a Vicar in 1859 because his parent liked that particular spot . So the House for Essex carries on a tradition of eccentricity .

Pentlow Tower , Essex

Eccentric it is and dandy fun , but is it art ? That is a thorny dubiousness . Grayson Perry is the cross - dressing , self - publicising , former winner of the Turner prize . In 2013 , he produced the four Reith lectures with distinctive flamboyance , dressed up in an astonishing dress and heavy make - up which made him look like a cross between Dame Edna Everage and Little Bo - Peep . The title of the script he has write on the same motif as the lectures is appropriately called ‘ Playing to the Gallery’ . He asked all the ripe questions about art- ‘ What is in force artistic production and who decides ? But he fail to really answer them . He was too implicated with making the fawn audience express mirth with one - lining muzzle . He is right-hand that critics , curators , dealer and verandah owner are the arbitrator of gustatory modality in art , but this is not a new idea . It was addressed in far more depth by Arthur Danto in two great books , ‘ What Artis’and my favourite,‘Beyond the Brillo Pad’ . Perry is vital of the rise of curators and awful arty jargon and the fact that art is big business . Ironically , it was the fantastically influential Saatchi who first made Perry famous . Now he is very popular and at this rate he will presently be a ‘ national treasure ’ . I am not sure why . I like his ceramic good deal , some of them are beautiful , but I wish he did n’t have to make them ‘ edgy’and seek to ‘ fight theboundaries’in the words of these tiresome , arty clichés , by painting obscene picture on them . Some of them even have unmannerly parole written on them , which realize him seem like a naughty little boy try out to shock .

But enough about potty - mouthed potters , this is a horticulture blog and it should be snowdrop meter . The snowdrops are opening painfully slowly this year . In fact as the Pianist point out they should be renamed ‘ Slowdrops’ . ‘Three Ships ’ , ‘ Faringdon Double ’ and ‘ Mrs. Macnamara ’ have been going warm for age and now at last bit by bit , they are join by bud on quite a few of the others . So soon I hope there will be more to show you .

I was joke about the tartar . really , I love parts of Essex , specially the estuaries , and what John Betjeman calledthe ‘ stage wastes of imbibe mud ‘ are hauntingly beautiful . There are also beautiful rural division which Betjeman described as :

‘ The inscrutable Essex few exploreWhere steepest thatch is subside in flowersAnd out of elm and sycamoreRise obdurate , fifteenth - century towers . ‘

He is talk about the the Essex he found in an Edwardian picture book but not much has exchange , asunder from the total disappearance of the majestic elm tree .

44 Responses toThe Gingerbread House.

The sign is totally bonkers but who does n’t wish a big slice of British eccentricity ? I had n’t heard anything about it , so thank you , Chloris , for bringing it to my attending . Btw , have you any theories as to why thing are slow to get started this season ? I have been blog hopping and it seems to be a universal cry . It has not been especially insensate , but things like Iris Reticulata are later than premature yr .

Pingback : Bridging the Gap | Rambling in the Garden

The Gingerbread House.