I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 22:The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture
Location: Middlesex University, Cat Hill, Barnet EN4 8HT [map] Open: 10am - 5pm (2pm - 5pm Sundays) (closed Mondays) Admission: free 5-word summary: the history of the home Website:www.moda.mdx.ac.uk Time to set aside: an hour and a bit
The far northern suburbs between Barnet and Enfield are an unlikely spot for a museum. Just down the road from Cockfosters station, off the Cat Hill roundabout, amidst undulating avenues of spacious semis. No really, that university campus behind the duckpond hides an unlikely secret repository. Honest, it's not just students allowed through the entrance, this place is wide open to the infrequent public. Go on, step inside and try to follow the signs up the service road. See that curved glass roof on the front of what looks like a humanities block. That's the entrance into a tiny treasure trove of 20th century domestic design. a proper little community resource. Yes, who'd have thought?
Don't turn left, that's the toilets. Head right, through the swing doors and across the shop (you can come back to this later), then make your way into the ground floor gallery. Look, lots of lovely old things! Old things which, if you're a certain age, will bring back evocative memories of rooms your older relatives used to live in. This is the Exploring Interiors permanent exhibition, blessed by period samples of classic home decoration. In one cabinet are Edwardian drapes and pre-war wallpaper, in another are catalogues depicting frilly lampshades and patterned linoleum. This is a temple to fixtures and fittings and fabrics and furniture - a last resting place for electric two-bar heaters and Coronation TV sets. The gallery's not huge, but it successfully conjures up a picture of how homes really used to be. Isn't that my grandmother's china service?
Various visitors have left their thoughts hanging up on fluorescent post-its:
"In the 1950s it was my job in the winter to light the fire in the dining room so I could do my homework. The room took ages to warm up! The bath was so cold in winter it gave you goose bumps to touch it." [Reg] "I like the pictures and the kichen because there very old and I like learning about history" [from Shabela]
If you've planned ahead the staff will allow you inside the Study Room to delve deeper into the museum's collection. Or you could search it from home via the special online search engine. I mean, who could resist exploring The Crown Wallpaper collection, consisting of 5000 wallpaper samples and pattern books from the 50s and 60s? Beats a room full of tedious Celtic rock fragments any day.
Upstairs there's one more gallery, fitted out to house special temporary exhibitions. And between now and November that exhibition is a bit of a winner. The Shell Guides: Surrealism, Modernism, Tourism is an eight-cabinet celebration of an extraordinary series of very ordinary travel books. The Shell Guides were founded in 1935 by Sir John Betjeman, then writing for the Architectural Review. He foresaw the need for newly-mobile middle class England to get behind the wheel of their newly purchased motor cars and to start exploring the country's cultural hinterland. The series kicked off with his adopted homeland, Cornwall, then spent the next 50 years slowly rambling around the UK from county to county. Each guide presented an off-beat collection of discourse and photography, concentrating on buildings, myth and landscape rather than historical fact. Within this framework a variety of guest editors were given free rein to interpret the guidebook brief as they saw fit, producing an eclectic set of volumes linked only by the sponsor's name.
"The Guides managed to appear conventional and mainstream while in fact preserving a subversive and challenging view of Britain. Only the words 'guidebook' and 'Shell' enabled the editors to hide this fact from the public"
For an exhibition which is essentially a room full of printed pages and book covers, it's really very interesting. There are tantalising glimpses of gazetteers and footnotes, as well as black and white illustrations and associated ephemera. Take a seat on the comfy sofa at the far end of the gallery and you can enjoy a series of related videos, including a 60s girl about town filling up her tank with pre-trip petrol, and Sir John's dainty observations on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Even the jaunty signature music manages to perfectly evoke the timeless optimism of these unique travelling companions. And by the time you reach the cabinet where all 36 guides are proudly displayed, you'll want to smash the glass and take the lot home. Keep watching eBay, they're bound to appear eventually. by tube: Cockfostersby bus: 298, 299, 307
I SPY LONDON
The far northern suburbs between Barnet and Enfield are an unlikely spot for a museum. Just down the road from Cockfosters station, off the Cat Hill roundabout, amidst undulating avenues of spacious semis. No really, that university campus behind the duckpond hides an unlikely secret repository. Honest, it's not just students allowed through the entrance, this place is wide open to the infrequent public. Go on, step inside and try to follow the signs up the service road. See that curved glass roof on the front of what looks like a humanities block. That's the entrance into a tiny treasure trove of 20th century domestic design. a proper little community resource. Yes, who'd have thought?
Various visitors have left their thoughts hanging up on fluorescent post-its:
"In the 1950s it was my job in the winter to light the fire in the dining room so I could do my homework. The room took ages to warm up! The bath was so cold in winter it gave you goose bumps to touch it." [Reg]If you've planned ahead the staff will allow you inside the Study Room to delve deeper into the museum's collection. Or you could search it from home via the special online search engine. I mean, who could resist exploring The Crown Wallpaper collection, consisting of 5000 wallpaper samples and pattern books from the 50s and 60s? Beats a room full of tedious Celtic rock fragments any day.Upstairs there's one more gallery, fitted out to house special temporary exhibitions. And between now and November that exhibition is a bit of a winner. The Shell Guides: Surrealism, Modernism, Tourism is an eight-cabinet celebration of an extraordinary series of very ordinary travel books. The Shell Guides were founded in 1935 by Sir John Betjeman, then writing for the Architectural Review. He foresaw the need for newly-mobile middle class England to get behind the wheel of their newly purchased motor cars and to start exploring the country's cultural hinterland. The series kicked off with his adopted homeland, Cornwall, then spent the next 50 years slowly rambling around the UK from county to county. Each guide presented an off-beat collection of discourse and photography, concentrating on buildings, myth and landscape rather than historical fact. Within this framework a variety of guest editors were given free rein to interpret the guidebook brief as they saw fit, producing an eclectic set of volumes linked only by the sponsor's name.
"The Guides managed to appear conventional and mainstream while in fact preserving a subversive and challenging view of Britain. Only the words 'guidebook' and 'Shell' enabled the editors to hide this fact from the public"For an exhibition which is essentially a room full of printed pages and book covers, it's really very interesting. There are tantalising glimpses of gazetteers and footnotes, as well as black and white illustrations and associated ephemera. Take a seat on the comfy sofa at the far end of the gallery and you can enjoy a series of related videos, including a 60s girl about town filling up her tank with pre-trip petrol, and Sir John's dainty observations on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Even the jaunty signature music manages to perfectly evoke the timeless optimism of these unique travelling companions. And by the time you reach the cabinet where all 36 guides are proudly displayed, you'll want to smash the glass and take the lot home. Keep watching eBay, they're bound to appear eventually.
I SPY LONDON