Photos of Milan

It would have been great to get more photos of the show but because it was so massive I didn't get to look round the whole thing. The crowds were huge and I found myself being swept along, everyone there was walking around like they were in a fashion show - including myself, but then Milan is kind of a fashion show, so it was no surprise really, besides the point I was not there to see fashion I was there to see design!! 'Zona Tortona' the area which the (satellite) show was being held in was very characterful, lots of thin windy little allies, a bit like a labyrinth, if you blinked your eye, you'd get lost.

There were some memorable moments, the lights from Selux arrived late which was really annoying, they were delivered to the wrong address then lost in the middle of the busiest city in Europe, eventually when we got hold of them John Miller and I tried to put them up in the middle of the show, we got electrocuted and both of us sprang from the floor and screamed - I don't think John Miller did actually, after this we sheepishly hid them, then Andy put them up the next day.

Whilst walking around with my camera, just an innocent bystander, I got told off by a designer for taking photos of his work - kind of made me laugh as is was a bit naff. Apparently Mr Visachi was spotted outside his shop in Milan with lots of models draped prettily over him.

Got very drunk on free Campari, which initially I drank from a latex cup (!) and it tasted rank, I thought I'd been poisoned, then realised that is actually the taste of Campari, so carried on drinking, it began to taste okay after that.

The camp-site was massive with a full compliment of farm yard animals, goats, horses, chickens, sheep. It filled from five or ten tents when we arrived, to tents as far as the eye could see by the time I left. The Dumo Cathedral was one of the places I really wanted to see before leaving and was determined to visit, it was not disappointing. I got right onto the roof and could see the whole of Milan from above - beautiful.

Then on my last day at the train station arriving just a minute too late I missed the link train the the airport because the ticket machine had broken. This meant that I missed check-in, omg, I thought I would be stranded in Milan, not such a bad fate, but I kind of wanted to get back home. From the train I had to get a taxi to the airport with two others who had also missed the check-in, it was like something out of a movie, telling the taxi driver go as fast as he could, holding on to the seats with white knuckles, we got the airport and the woman who I was in the taxi with gave the driver a 100 euro note, and went charging off for the plane. After letting John know I was going to be late I had to convince security that they should let me through, eventually having run across the whole length of the airport, with my bag on my shoulder, I got to the check-in desk, and the plane was on the tarmac being taxied off, well not quite. That was a first, so nearly missing the plane, sort of funny in hindsight (not).




Zona Tortona, show area.

Chairs made from pulped recycled paper

Some sausage dogs

A home in minature - kind of holiday home, but really compact

Some tiles that I became transfixed by.

This area was just outside the exhibition space we were in, it was build up from nothing over a three day period and by the end it was like a minature street with houses.

The university on the stand next to us.

Another university with a fantastic hi-tech stand and atouch screen computer

Doors to Dumo Cathedral, the legs are polished I assume people touch them for good luck

Carol in the Cathedral

Patrick and Carol

Patrick with pigeons landing on him

A ceramic bowl, sandblasted

Students sewing t-shirts through the show

Our stand at the private view

Campari and latex cups

Another university stand

Hobbie horse
Horse sculptures

Mannequin model sitting at table

Tea/Coffee pot - 946 euros

Metal workshop

Zona Tortona bycicles

Champagne boxes

Adidas trainers

Amazing leather seats made from what look like quilts

Bench design

Dumo Cathedral

CEC Work Placement - Kerrier District Council, Heartlands Project

My CEC work placement that took place with Kerrier District Council at Camborne was really good. The experience for me worked on many levels and I felt that I learned a huge amount. This was not only actual learning but also to do with experiencing the environment.

The office was a mix of people, engineers to project manager, a department manager and of course landscape architects. The whole group worked in unison and there was an interdependency that existed between them, as much as they hated to admit this. Because the council is in flux, lots of the offices have been moved around, and new alliances have been formed amongst colleagues. So the current situation (of about a year) works to the benefit of all, now stepping just a few yards across the office instead of communicating through endless reams of emails.

On my arrival I was met by Cathy Lowe, Landscape Architect. Cathy quickly took me off to the Heartlands Site, where she gave me a guided tour of the surroundings, explaining the way that the land would have looked when the mines were all working.

The Heartlands site is basically centrally located to all of the mines within Camborne. If you do a mine search of the area on the WHS, you will discover that there are as many as 2000 mine shafts within a five mile radius, many of which were left abandoned and forgotten about only to be later discovered by builders, and terrified walkers.

The picture below shows the vast amount of mines shafts located within Cornwall, all of the yellow dots are mine shafts.

http://mapping.cornwall.gov.uk/website/whs/viewer.htm

The Robinsons shaft area is home to one of the largest mines in Cornwall with a depth of the shafts being an astounding 735 fathoms or 3000m or 2 ½ miles deep (fathom = 5’9’ feet, traditionally a fathom is used as a sea measurement, but here adopted by the miners as the standard length measurement).

Next to the Robinsons Shaft site there is another mine which sits just about a quarter of a mile away, this mine is called South Crofty, this is the only working mine that exists in Cornwall today. All of the seams of tin have been mined over the hundreds of years that Cornwall played host to the largest mining industry in the world, the only reason that South Crofty remains is that the price of tin has risen in recent years, which makes the job of mining the remaining tin a profitable task.

When I went round Camborne with Cathy she drove up to South Crofty Mine and told me to look at the perimeter wall – to better explain, beneath is a quote taken from a blog; ‘The Unbearable Oddness of Stevyn Colgan’ ( accessed on the 24th June 2009) it is a bit of a cheat but this perfectly describes what I saw.

"The closure (of South Crofty) was marked by some poignant graffiti. There is a story that the local police caught the daubers just as they were adding the final question mark. The officers read the graffiti, sighed sadly, got back in their car and drove slowly away. And what was written? Two lines from the chorus of Cornish Lads, a modern folk song written by local lad Roger Bryant:

‘Cornish lads are fishermen and Cornish lads are miners too, But
when the fish and tine are gone, what are the Cornish boys to do?’

http://stevyncolgan.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html

Crofty has just re-opened for business and, as long as the price of tin remains high, has the potential for another 80 years of production. But such is the fragile nature of the industry that I'm not hopeful, sadly. There will always be cheaper labour elsewhere."

The writing was faint on the wall, just about decernable, but the memory no doubt still is strong. There is so much to take in and so many things to think about, the strong roots of the past clashing with needs of the present.

The Heartlands area spans Redruth Pool and Camborne. Big lottery funding of £22 million was won by ‘CPR Regeneration’, (a partnership of Kerrier District Council and South West Regional Development Agency) using this money CPR aim to change the face the area, by creating a series of multi functional spaces, a ‘new’ meeting area with lakes, sculptures and an outdoor theatre, to name some of the changes planned. Intentionally re-presenting the historical identity of Redruth Pool and Camborne back to the people in a way that brings inspiration for the future.

This image shows the area of Camborne, Redruth and Pool, alongside the proposed plans for the Heartlands project, the new designed area will join the three villages.