Canticles For Mike

7. ST PAUL'S AND THE SPITFIRE

certain persistent originating images emerge over and over. St paul's (not St Peter's), the Spitfire (not the Hurricane), the London Bus (the old Routemaster, not its boxy successor). To be sure, these are objects united in their Englishness, but that's not so central. More crucial is the studied perfection of their compound curvature. Webb recalls a very early fascination with Wren's resolution of the intersection of vaults, the way in which the almost weird reconciling shapes deform attempts at penetration. Webb's incision in the Henley temple dome is a related act, a simple auguring which sets an incredible sequence of events in motion, which opens up transformations of matter, space, and light. Those fascinating British machines address paradigms of perfection as well as the idea of motion and the delights of a cowled mechanism. But clearly it's the curves which attract. Webb restores to architecture a difficulty of surface, producing an ineffability of light.

p206 - 207

EXQUISTE CORPSE
Writing on buildings
Michael Sorkin
Printed in USA by Courier Companies Inc.