London: The Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum has been in this location since 1854

The Victoria and Albert Museum has a fascinating and massive collection of all kinds of stuff -- 2.27 million of them spanning 5,000 years -- dedicated to applied decorative art and design. It is a reference area for artists, designers, fashion designers and the general public to learn more about art and design from around the world.

It was founded in 1852 and originally called by the Museum's first director Henry Cole and it was known as the Museum of Manufactures. And then in 1854 it was moved to its current location and called South Kensington Museum. 

Coral tiara, brooches and earrings from the 19th century

Queen Victoria officially opened the museum in 1857 and it was renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum. What made this museum particularly accessible to the working class was that gas lamps were introduced, so that the museum could be open later for these people to be able to enjoy it too.

We arrived just after 5pm and asked a museum staff member to point us to some must-see things there. She advised that the second floor would be closing at 5.30pm and that we would probably be interested in the jewellery section there, followed by the Raphael Cartoons.

So we followed her directions and went up the stairs to the jewellery section that happens to be near the National Art Library that has over 750,000 books, photographs, drawings, paintings and prints. It also has some of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, The Codex.

Meanwhile the jewellery section really hits the eyes, all these shiny stones in a dark room make them even more glittery. The entrance has a giant spiral of so many different coloured stones that they are totally mesmerizing to look at.

Taking a peek into the National Art Library before it closed

What's interesting here is that jewellery items are not placed in chronological order but coordinated with different countries and times to show contrast or similarities.

There were many royal jewellery items, including a section on coral from 1830 to 1920 that showed how it has been prized since the 19th century. While it was mostly sourced around the seas in Naples and nearby Torre del Greco, coral used in jewellery became popular because there was also a naturalistic theme that was all the rage in the 1850s. There was even a tiara made from coral that was so interesting to see, along with brooches and earrings.

Jewellery from top artisans like Bulgari and Cartier are shown here, and a highlight is Queen Victoria's sapphire and diamond coronet designed by her husband Prince Albert. He seems to have had a flair for design, particularly jewellery and his love of Victoria also helped fuel the passion to make her look beautiful.

The coronet features stones from previous pieces and it could be worn either on the crown of her head, or opened up and placed behind her head.

The Miraculous Draught of Fishes by Raphael, about 1515

We like many others were told the jewellery section was closing so we moved down to the ground floor to the Raphael Cartoons. They are called cartoons from the Italian word "cartone", which means a large sheet of paper, or a preparatory design.

These were detailed paintings that were meant to be given to weavers to make tapestries that would be hung up on the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel in the 1690s. These cartoons were made on several sheets of paper that were pasted together and then originally drawn with charcoal, then colour mixed with led-white, animal glue and water to make a gouache was applied onto the paper.

The weavers would take these cartoons and prick the contours with a needle to make a copy, and then cut vertically into sections of weavers to work on. Afterwards the strips were reassembled again and glued to a canvas backing for display. So it's actually quite amazing these cartoons still look in good condition.

Eve Tempted by the Serpent by William Blake

Canadian-born fashion designer known as Erdem, whose full name is Erdem Moraligu explains in a short video how he loves these Raphael Cartoons and was inspired to create his first collection around them and even showed the outfits in the room.

Other interesting items in the V&A include a painting by William Blake that I spotted, a beautiful keyboard where the outer case is covered in a floral pattern, and a completely intact series of blue and white tiles from Turkey in the 1600s.

There is a Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation wing that is dedicated to Buddhist items. It was opened in 2009 and marks the chronological and geographical development of Buddhist art. 

By this time it was getting late, but more people were coming into the museum because there was a DJ in the foyer playing dance music and some people actually dancing to the grooves. Apparently every Friday night it's like this and it made us wonder if the fragile art works weren't affected by the strong vibrations from the music...

Panel of 80 Tiles from Turkey, 1600-1700

But an interesting way to draw a younger audience in, even though we saw lots of students sketching items in the museum or looking up things in the library.

Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
London
+44 (0) 20 7942 2000
vam.ac.uk

Hongkongers Should Live Better with Pride

 

Douglas Young (left) talks about his lifestyle brand, G.O.D.

Yesterday Douglas Young, the founder of G.O.D. or Goods of Desire, came to our office for an informal chat with some of us.

He is the creative brainchild behind this Hong Kong lifestyle brand to show his love for the city, how it has unique features, and how they can be turned into fun products. By the way G.O.D. is a homophonic translation of the Cantonese, "住好啲" or ju ho di which means "to live better".

Chinese culture inspires Young's design creativity

And the brand has many of these homophonic references that make it more fun for locals than for non-Chinese who don't have a deep understanding of the language.

Anyway, Young explains when he was young he went to school in the UK and ended up studying architecture but didn't practice it. He says architecture is all about maximizing space which seemed kind of boring to him.

By the time he came back to Hong Kong, Young says he had spent the same amount of time in Hong Kong as he did in the UK and felt he was straddling two worlds. When his UK friends visited Hong Kong they would point out things they found interesting that he thought was mundane; he later realized the city could be the inspiration for products that are unique about the place.

One of his more attention-grabbing slogans is "Delay No More", which sort of sounds like the Cantonese swear word 屌你老母 or diu lei loh mo, basically "f*** you". But in English without any context it can mean don't waste time, which is what Hong Kong is about too.

A G.O.D. store in Central with "Delay No More" on it

Not all of his products are related to dirty words -- instead there are fun T-shirts, and Chinese-style jackets and qipaos, environmental shopping bags with porcelain designs, panda-shaped pillows for sleeping on planes, notebooks and file folders with old school mail boxes or tenement buildings,

He feels it's important to promote Hong Kong, and locals should have pride in the city too. Young says maybe because of its colonial history that Hongkongers look down on local things and prefer Western things, but he thinks the city has so much potential if we give it a chance.

Someone in the audience asked him what he thought of local design schools in Hong Kong and Young replied they are fine, but the students are not given an opportunity to work on projects. For example he says at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, there are projects to develop a space in the school or design chairs and so on, and the design students there are not given an opportunity to take on this real world challenge, and instead outside professionals are hired.

Some fun creative items that can be bought at the G.O.D. store

Young continued, saying there wasn't enough patronage of the arts in Hong Kong, not like in Europe and the United States, and that the government should take the lead on this to nurture local talent, to give them opportunities and to show them they can make a living from doing design.

Then he hinted -- well not hinted, he said straight out that he was looking for someone, a creative mind to take over his business. Young said he didn't mind selling G.O.D., but that would mean he would have to continue generating the ideas for the business, so no one would buy it, he said with a laugh.

But he seems to come up with a lot of ideas all the time, and his passion for Hong Kong, and things Chinese are great -- some aren't executed well, but he has the idea, and that's important. The city is lucky to have Young trying to do some creative stuff and make locals proud of their hometown.

Is it Me, Or is it Them?

This afternoon I met a Hong Kong-born, US-trained architect. We were talking about architects in the city, and it dismayed her how they don't have the guts to tell the client that their ideas won't work, or to push their design to influence their clients.

"They just listen to their clients who have no idea what design is, and instead give the clients what they want. That's disappointing," she said.

She recalled being appointed to the committee to oversee the redevelopment of her alma mater and seeing an obvious design flaw in the plans. There were two columns, one that came down to the ground, the other column was cut off right at the middle and there were steps there.

"I said, 'Why doesn't this column come down so that it can be symmetrical?' They said, 'It's because of these steps.' I drew the steps showing they can go around the column. Don't cut off the column like a broken leg. These things they don't see. How can you not see? It's so obvious."

She sums it up to the general mentality of Hong Kong these days. "People don't have the shame to do bad things. If it's so obvious, why would you make such a mistake? It shows you're not thinking. Why would you give people the opportunity to tell you it's not good? But a lot of people don't mind," she continues.

"A lot of young people are like that. The worst thing is that they don't realize that they are not up to par. They think, 'I did it, what's wrong?' And if you tell them what's wrong, they will even feel offended and think you are picky."

Another example she cites was when she was young, competing in the Hong Kong Schools Speech Festival meant practicing the passage to the point where the pronunciation of the words was perfect and memorized.

But a few years ago when she took her child to take part in the competition, the architect was shocked to find the young contestants didn't even remember the words to the passage, let along have good pronunciation.

"It's the parents -- they just want the certificate to say their child was in the festival. That's another issue. But if you sign up for the festival, you have to make sure

the kid performs at a certain level. In the end the kid is mediocre -- even in a festival. They think that's OK."

To hear her say this is not surprising, but it is further evidence of a sad state of affairs.

After our conversation I had my own boondoggle incident to deal with.

I recently joined a new gym and wrangled a free fitness assessment that was valid within my first month.

Time flew by and now it's almost the end of the month and so I came to the gym at dinnertime, hoping to just arrange a time with a personal trainer to check my fitness ability and learn a few workout tips.

Was I too naive to think it was too difficult to arrange with the receptionist? He explained I had to contact the sales person with whom I had signed the contract with to arrange a time, but then it turned out he was on holiday.

Then I asked the receptionist to please help me arrange it, and gave him two possible dates and times to work with.

Following my workout about an hour later, I returned to the receptionist only to find he had done nothing about it, that I had to go one floor down (where I was earlier) to talk to the personal trainer desk myself.

When I got there and explained what I was requesting, a young woman and man said they would call me several hours later to arrange it -- by whatsapp.

"Can we not arrange it now? Is it so difficult?" I asked, now getting really irritated. How hard can it be to find one personal trainer available at two different dates and times?

She promised half an hour later she would get back to me.

So I showered, got dressed, and went back downstairs.

The woman was not there, but the man was, immediately jumped up from his seat and said he would do my fitness assessment tomorrow.

Could he not have offered right away half an hour ago? I cannot understand how things work in this gym, but already I am not impressed. It has a flashy appearance, with beautiful people in its advertisements, but in reality fulfilling simple requests to make its members happy seems to be the most difficult task.

Are they not bright, or am I asking for too much?