Tuesday 13 September 2016

Baubels and Beads

The History of a German Glassmaking Industry


The Fichtelgebirge is a district of Upper Franconia, a region in the eastern part of the State of Bavaria. This is a mountainous country, deeply forested where small villages and towns dot the hillsides. It is a land that earns its living from farming and logging.

Fichtelgebirge was once home to an extensive cottage industry, that of glassmaking. The product of the workshops or "glashutte" as they were known was principally glass beads, buttons and christmas tree decorations. Most glashutte were small family run businesses although a few workshops did employ a considerable number of people.  The history of local glassmaking may be traced back to the 16th century when the first glashutte was established in the town of Bischofsgrun.

The glashutte illustrated below housed the works of Christian Hermann established in 1882. It is now a private house. At its peak, the glass works employed more than 30 people and its output was 18,000 glass beads per day. Much of this production was for export especially for markets in America and Africa, particularly to Ethiopia. The glass was coloured using a variety of minerals such as lead, arsenic, copper, nickel and proterobas a dark green stone found locally on the slopes of the Ochsenkopf mountain.

The largest works was that of Greiner & Co founded in Bischofsgrun in 1857.Their production was largely for export markets all over the world. The glasshutte was the last in Bischofsgrun to close, in 2004.

At the other end of the scale was the works of the Kaiser Brothers, Karl and Fritz. Their speciality was christmas tree decorations. It was here in Bischofsgrun that the method of silver plating the glass baubles, was pioneered. The process was invented by Dr Hartwig Weiskopf in 1853 and employed by the Kaisers. Although they sold products throughout Upper Franconia, most of the stock went to the shop in their own home.




A marked footpath starts in Bischofsgrun and extends several kilometres passing through the towns and villages associated with this industry. Information boards along the way tell the history of each former glass works that one passes.  Small museums in Bischofsgrun and Fichtelberg exhibit examples of
the products of the glashutte including decorative glass vessels from the 17th century..

The town of Bischofsgrun and the Ochsenkopf Mountain

The former glashutte of Christian Hermann

A selection of glass beads

Manufacturing Christmas tree decorations




Silver plated Christmas tree baubles

Monday 12 September 2016

Tea More Expensive Than Gold

In the east of China, not far south of Shanghai, is the city of Hangzhou.

The city lies on the bank of the West Lake, a World Heritage Site that attracts millions of visitors every year, attracted by the picturesque landscape dotted with temples, pagodas and pavillions.

Just across the water, set amidst rolling, forested hills, are some of China's most famous tea plantations. Here on the terraced slopes, women wearing traditional conical hats are seen tending the bushes or picking the leaves.
Longjing tea is among the most expensive drinks in the world costing up to £800 per kilo.
The village of Longjing takes its name from The Dragon's Well a small pool of water fed by a spring and in which the movement of water on the surface is said to resemble a dragon. Another legend tells that a dragon lives in the water and can reach the sea through an underground channel. Just above the well is the tiny Dragon Well Temple.
The village street is lined with tea houses where women entice passers-by to try the beverage. A popular museum is devoted to the history of tea.
Longjing has the status of an Imperial Tea, granted by an 18th century Emperor. On a visit to the West Lake, he sampled the brew and being so impressed, granted protection to 18 tea bushes. These same plants are still producing leaf which when auctioned fetches a price higher than gold.
Longjing is a green tea, roasted shortly after picking and prepared by hand. The tea is said to
be at its best when infused in a special clay teapot in water at a temperature of 80 degrees.

You perhaps wont find Longjing tea in your local Tesco but if you would like to try the drink, Twinings, and other suppliers, offer a 100g pack for the modest price of £15 - £18.


 


 


 

Saturday 16 April 2016

A Desirable Address: Manchester


 Mosley Street was laid out in the 1780’s and named after the lords of the manor. The area had been entirely residential and very fashionable.  Here lived Manchester’s greatest merchants and businessmen. Hugh Birley was a cotton spinner and manufacturer of rubber goods. S. L. Behrens was the founder of the firm of shipping merchants and Nathan Meyer Rothschild was of the banking family.
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                                             Mosley Street 1825

In 1827 Henry Charles Lacy converted a house at the corner of Mosley Street and Market Street into an hotel and allowed rooms in the building to be used for warehousing.  A rash of house conversions and warehouse building followed over the next decade as property values soared. One house was sold in 1832 for eight thousand guineas, twice its’ vaue of only five years earlier. By the end of the thirties, Mosley Street consisted almost entirely of warehouses, the former resident having moved to the new suburbs such as Victoria Park and Didsbury.

Victoria Park was opened in 1837.  An area of 140 acres had been obtained by a company of gentlemen in order to build villas which would be let for between £100 and £250 per annum. The notable architect, Richard Lane was engaged to design the park, laying out roadways, boundaries and landscaping and designing the gate lodges. The park had its’ own tollgates, walls and police.
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                                  Plymouth Grove Toll Gates

By December of the following year only nine houses had been completed and the company was bankrupt. A new group, The Victoria Park Trust was founded. Within the next five years a further sixty five houses had been built.  These were often large mansions with extensive gardens and required a sizeable staff to maintain them.  By the end of the nineteenth century, these villas were already being converted into hotels, colleges and nursing homes. Their weathy residents had been tempted to move further from the city to the newly fashionable area such as Bowden and Alderley Edge.

The building of Victoria Park was by a number of architects in addition to Lane,  Edward Salomons built “The Gables” and this was to become his home.
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                                    The Gables, Hope Road
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                           First Church of Christ, Scientist
In Daisy Bank Road is the Grade 1 listed “First Church of Christ, Scientist” built by Edgar Wood in 1903 and on Lower Park Road the Xaverian College by Alfred Waterhouse, now a Roman Catholic school for 2000 pupils.

The park was home to a number of notable residents. 102 Daisy Bank Road was home to Charles Halle and was later occupied by Ford Madox Brown at the time when he was painting the murals in Manchester Town Hall.
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            Daisy Bank Road. 102 is the first door on the right.
Richard Cobden was a calico printer and political activist. In Newton Street lived Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the suffragette movement and in nearby Plymouth Grove was the home of author Elixabeth Gaskell. Marie Nordlinger and Martin Solibakke were both writers; Elias Bancroft, a painter and  George Hadfield a lawyer and radical polititian who played a leading role in establishing the Anti Corn Law League. People from a number of nationalities lived in Victoria Park including a large chinese merchant community.

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                                       Lower Park Road

Today many of the buildings are used as university residences whilst others have been converted into flats. Victoria Park is a conservation area and twenty of its’ buildings are listed.

Thursday 28 January 2016

Architecture needn't be boring

His work may be controversial or eccentric but can never be considered boring.





Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist and architect famous for his unusual buildings. He opposed straight lines and standardisation. He was an environmentalist who belived that vegetation should be allowed to flourish both inside and outside of his buildings. He was an early advocate of green roofs. His Hundertwasserhaus apartment block in Vienna has uneven floors, trees growing from inside and a grassed roof. The Waldenspiral in Darmstadt has over 1000 windows, not one alike. In Osaka, the waste treatment works is a building of beauty, vibrant with colour.

Hundertwasser believed that the individual should have the freedom to build. His "Mouldiness Manifesto" written in 1958 claimed "If such a fantastic structure built by the tenants themselves collapses, it will usually creak beforehand, anyway, so that people will be able to escape".  He encouraged individuality :  "The tenant must have the freedom to lean out of his window and as far as his arms can reach, transform the exterior of his dwelling space. And he must be allowed to take a long brush and as far as his arms can reach paint everything pink, so that from far away, from the street, everyone can see: there lives a man who distinguishes himself from his neighbours..."

Hundertwasser was also an artist. He studied briefly at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. One can quickly see the similarities between his architecture and paintings. He described his artisitc style as transautomatism, focussing on the experience of the viewer rather than the artist. He designed stamps, clothing, coinage and posters. 

Born Friedrich Stowasser in 1928 to a Jewish mother, he escaped persecution by being baptised a catholic  and joining the Hitler Youth. Hundertwasser was an active environmental campaigner who opposed the European Union and advocated the restoration of the monarchy. He spent his later years in New Zealand and died in 2000 whilst aboard the QEII.

The Hundertwasser Turm is an observation tower at a brewery in Abensberg, Southern Germany. 



The cellar of the tower is just as decorative.
Also in Abensberg, the Hunderwasserhaus.
Uelzen Railway Station where a traditional building has been transformed.
The Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna, perhaps his most famous building is covered in vegetation.
The Waldenspirale in Darmstadt. 1000 unique windows.
The Grune Zitadella. Magdeburg. The final project completed after his death.
Waste treatment plants are usually shunned for good reason. This one in Osaka, on the other hand, is celebrated.
Malerei. Typical of Hundertwasser's style of painting.