Architecture
The Lost House Revisited
Ed Kluz (Merrell, £35)
From Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire to Worksop manor in nottinghamshire, England’s lost houses haunt our landscape like so many ghosts. Period prints and engravings perpetuate their memories; otherwise, they have slipped forever out of reach.
or have they? For decades, talented artists—edward Bawden, Eric ravilious, John Piper—have been inspired by the romance inherent in this melancholy chapter of our architectural history. now, the baton has passed to Ed Kluz, whose atmospheric collages and scraperboards form the nucleus of this beautiful new book.
in an accompanying essay as engaging as the images he so painstakingly creates, the Sussexbased artist writes of the ‘sites of lost houses as charged and uncanny places where the past and present collide. in their destruction an immaterial presence is created. the allure of the longgone is a powerful attraction for me, and the unseen sparks my imagination far more than the seen’.
this sense of uncanniness is brilliantly distilled in his meticulous renderings of stately piles doomed to decay and disappear or else caught in the very act of ruination (old Campden house with flames shooting through its roof).
Storm-tossed skies and treeless horizons evoke the spectral tales of the peerless m. r. James; no coincidence, as mr Kluz con- fesses himself a diehard fan of that master of the supernatural. Which is not to say that the atmosphere he conjures is menacing or sinister. rather, there is a sense of sic transit gloria mundi; not just of the mournful beauty of places lost, but of the additional fascination they have acquired through that loss.
the erudite quality of his work resonates in the texts leading authorities have contributed to his handsome pages: a foreword by John harris, historical overviews by Dr olivia horsfall turner and a superb introduction by tim Knox, who himself knows more than a little about the ‘strange longing’ for the once-proud structures refashioned in coloured ink and cut paper for our education and delight. haunting and compelling by turn, this is a glorious addition to the literature of the English country house. Martin Williams Original artwork from the book is on view in ‘Pastscapes’ at John Martin Gallery, 38, Albemarle Street, London, W1 until October 28 (www.jmlondon.com). Ed Kluz will be in conversation with Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner, Senior Curator of Designs at the V&A, about some of the houses featured in the book on October 25 at 6.30pm. Admission free. Email laura@jmlondon.com ‘Ed Kluz: Sheer Folly—fanciful Buildings of Britain’ is at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire from November 11 to February 25, 2018 (www.ysp.org.uk)