A spiritual journey

I’m reading Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth right now, which inspired me to learn more about cathedral building. As it turns out he wrote the book for the same reason. He grew up in a born-again Christian family and never entered a church in his childhood. When he visited Winchester cathedral for the first time, he became obsessed, turning into a cathedral nerd. The book is very descriptive on the process of building a church of that size in the 12th century, detailing not just the design and building process, but everything from funding to politics.

Armed with a book on How to Read Buildings (subtitled “A crash course in architecture”), we braved the rain and high winds of yet another winter storm and drove the hour and a half to Winchester. We threaded our way between the South Downs on our left and the seaside resorts of the chalk coast on our right to Portsmouth, then turned inland to Winchester. Only last week we watched a BBC documentary on King Alfred, considered the first Anglo-Saxon king (whose bones were interred in the old minster which used to sit right next to where the new cathedral now rises), so the huge statue of him with sword raised in battle on a plinth at the entrance to the city didn’t come as a surprise. What was a surprise was the massive size of the cathedral.

We ducked into the front door out of the driving rain, shivering with cold. I was regretting going out at all instead of sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and my knitting. An afternoon spent in a cavernous and chilly cathedral seemed like bad judgement. But when I pushed back my rain hood and lifted my eyes, I forgot my damp jeans and freezing fingers. My grumpy thoughts were replaced by awe. I stood at one end of a ginormous, vaulted hall. Large grey brown flag stones spread under my feet, frequently interrupted by granite black grave markers. Over my head the span of gothic fan ceiling seemed as far away as heaven. At the far end of the space I could just make out an intricately carved wooden separator. Pillars marched away from my viewpoint on either side of the wide empty nave. In winter the cathedral is emptied of seating to present the church in the way it was intended to be seen: a vast, impressive display of celestial power manifested through the local bishop, a place to marvel at human achievement in the name of god. It brought tears to my eyes.

Mini monks praying for their bishop

Reading The Ken Follett book I have a fresh image of life in the 13th century. Winchester cathedral was built at just that time. I squinted, trying to imagine how the building work might have been achieved. The height of the barrel vault made it seem impossible to construct with just the use of wooden scaffolding. How would the masons been able to span the pillars lining the nave to construct the centring that holds up the stone arch as the mortar dries? How would they have lifted up the heavy carved keystones? How would they have calculated the depth of the foundations and weight of the buttresses to steady the aisle walls so the ceiling didn't collapse? Now that I know the primitive materials and tools they worked with it seems even more miraculous that these cathedrals were ever built.

At first we wandered along the aisles, reading the grave markers and memorial plates. While looking for Jane Austen, who was buried here in an early morning ceremony (church service was at 10, so the funeral had to be done by then), we discovered many fascinating people: the officer who drowned after his supply ship blew up and sank during one of the colonial wars of the 19th century; the wife of a dean who described her virtues at great length despite starting by saying: "words cannot describe her"; the smart and kind and ambitious women whose accomplishments can only be read between the lines of 'feminine character' and 'extraordinary mind'; the officer described as 'angler, thinker, soldier'.

Jane Austen's memorial plaque

We found Jane Austen's grave. The stone plate makes no mention of her profession. She was not well regarded as a writer when she died, two of her books being published posthumously. But there are two more memorials to her, witness to her rising population as the 19th century discovered her skills: a brass plaque paid for by her nephew, who wrote her biography and praised her writing, and a later stained glass window funded by public subscription. The window depicts oblique references to her, such as St. John and his gospel which starts with: "In the beginning was the word..."

A screen of holy fruit: figs, grapes, pomegranate

We found other treasures in our slow meander through the cathedral: the largest medieval tiled floor, faded patterns of terracotta and cream; a bishops grave, three gnome-sized monks sitting at his feet praying; another grave, this one a Vanitas, with a gruesome skeleton topping the coffin instead of an elaborately dressed clergyman; a Romanesque transept, so different in its squat style from the elegant gothic - an opportunity to crack open the architecture book and learn something about rib vaults and shouldered arches and moulded capitals.

An Easter outing

We pick up Heather at 9am. The sun is blazing, the long weekend is upon us, it's time to get out of town. Hartebespoort Dam is easy to get to, so that's our aim for today. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea, so the little town is busy by the time we get there, the main road clogged with visitors. As the closest resort to both Jozi and Pretoria, Hartebespoort consists of holiday homes and retirement communities. It's all very Afrikaans, as Heather points out, although I can't really tell, a white South African looks like another to me.

The signs of autumn are upon us

We have two destinations in mind today, perfect and easily digestible both: the newly renovated cablecar going up the Magaliesberg and the film set of the comedy musical Pretville (Afrikaans link).

Hartie's Cable Car

Cable car first, to avoid the after lunch crush. But when we get there, a queue is already building, the car park full of SUVs and bakkies. Stuart gets tickets while we start queuing up the stairs. The lift was built in 1973 with Swiss equipment and know-how, but closed down in the 80's, only re-opening last year. It's a pretty nice renovation, with a few shops and cafes, clean toilets and an organised system to maximise passengers. A ticket collector checks the queue to match groups to always fill each carriage with six people. Everyone is happy to jump the queue. We wind our way up the ramp until we enter the station hall, a big room open at the end where the carriages slide in and out on overhead wires.



The lift cars are small, green and glassed in. They keep moving as passengers get out and in. We have to swap seats to balance each other's weight, then the car slides off with a big whoosh like a fairground ride. Suddenly, at great speed, we are above the car park, and then above the wild hills. Underneath is a thicket of green trees, red earth, yellow rocks. We gain height and the valley unfolds below us. In the distance the green-blue of the dam blazes in the sun. Behind it low hills point the way to Joburg, while to our right and left the eroded slopes of the Magaliesberg step away from us in geometric uniformity. Below me I can make out a thin path winding uphill. Above me the slack lines of the cable connection hold us in the air.

The threesome opposite us, a couple and their lady friend visiting form Cape Town, smile at our excited exclamations at the view. The visitor was not impressed. Having the table mountain cable car on your doorstep, this must be a comedown. I am intrigued: by the sheer cliffs we pass and the trees growing stubbornly out of a tiny crack in the rocks; by the possibility of seeing animals; by the loud fresh green against the harsh dry red soil.

The ride is over too soon, and we step off the moving cart at the top station. A walkway guides us around and up the hill with pointers along the way. It's hot, with children jostling to climb the rocks on the edge of the hill, nervous parents holding on to their hands to prevent fatal falls. Haartebespoort spreads below us in a hot haze. We can just make out the sailing marina, the main road and blotches of retirement estates.

Pretville

Pretville's hairdresser set

Next we backtrack to Pretville, the film set for a 50s Afrikaans musical. It's an incongruous place, a fake ice-cream coloured confection used to film an all-singing, all-dancing spectacle of history white-washing. While the Group Areas Act was being designed to force families from their homes, the diner served milk shakes and the pharmacy treated babies with colic.

An innocuous-looking police car is parked in the square, dinky and cute. I have the overwhelming sense that it is missing a black offender of the pass laws in the back. The car repair shop lacks an oily labourer, and the tiny prison tucked away behind the children's clothing store really should have been staffed with ANC supporters. The place feels like a lie, all of us white people (unlike the cable car, there are no actual black faces at Pretville) wandering about this movie-glossed version of a reality that never was.

the sweet shop

Unlike the photos in a photo book I saw recently, where the poverty of mind and life, the harsh conditions of the Karoo, the wiry stubbornness and hateful relationships with blacks was clear and unmistakeable, here all the issues have just been airbrushed out of the picture. I guess the 50s in South Africa is just not a a historical period that lends itself to bubblegum entertainment.

On the way home, by way of irony, we passed Diepsloot, one of the biggest 'informal settlements' just north of Joburg. This woman was cutting straw from a fallow field across the township to sell as roofing material. No pink here.

You can see more photos on Flickr:

www.flickr.com

Jozi walking part 2 - Melville walk

We meet at Nel's house in a quiet cul-de-sac off already quiet 4th street. We are only six, this being Nel's first walk after a long hiatus. Nel is a retired history lecturer, having taught the 'History of the Struggle' at Soweto university. She starts with an introduction to Melville:

“This is one of Johannesburg's oldest neighbourhoods. It has ten streets and eleven avenues on a hilly grid. The land was given by the philanthropist Louwrens Geldenhuys, who owned the Braamfontein farm. The suburb was named after Edward Harker Vincent Melville, the surveyor. The developer created a lot of small stands, mainly bought by Afrikaaner manual workers who had been displaced by the British scorched earth policy during the Anglo-boer war. These people didn't have much bargaining power, they were unskilled farmers.”

These were not the large stands of some other suburbs that boasted stables and farm land, Nel points out, but small plots right up to the street.

As we wander up 4th Street, Nel points out what she calls 'catapult trees'.

“Melville was developed before the advent of electricity in Joburg. When power lines were put in the trees were in the way. Instead of cutting them down they were trained to grow on either side of the cables. Unfortunately often one branch grows stronger than the other and the weaker branch breaks off eventually, making for many lop-sided trees."

A Cape Dutch house fronted by a catapult tree

We pass some beautiful and crazy houses, one a row of Cape Dutch white gables, and another that is enclosed in a green-painted high wall, the entrance overshadowed by a seemingly pointless slab of concrete cantilevered high over the door. Nel explains that there are no restrictions on the style of building that can be erected in Melville, unlike some of the posher suburbs, which are heavily prescribed as to shape, and size, style and even height of walls and style of gate.

Our first stop is the Melville Kruisgemeente church (a Dutch Reformed church), a large red-brick building with accompanying hall. The church is built in the 20s in the Art Deco style on the site of an earlier church hall from 1913, the first of three Dutch reformed churches we are to visit on this tour.

Melville spires - How many can you count?

I am realising that I am the only Non-South African on this tour when Nel asks what the name of the hall might be, considering it was built in 1961. I am clueless. What could the construction date have to do with the name? Jonathan immediately says:

“President's Hall.” 

Eh? Nel explains:

"Until 1961 we were a Crown colony, so everything was called Royal this and that. After 1961 we became a republic. Since then it's President's this and that instead.“

Shows what little knowledge of South African history I have.

We cross the road to walk past the simple white hall of the Methodist church, built to accommodate an alternative flavour of Christianity primarily patronised by the English. This style of simple long building, unadorned and plain, makes it easy to imagine the uncomplicated lives people lived here. Nel tells us about the way that churches and schools were the centre of the community, where people would meet each other, where events were organised and the community formed.

The entrance to Melpark primary school

Walking around the corner we contemplate the changes that have taken place in Melville looking at the Melpark primary school, a large complex of old and new buildings and playgrounds backing onto 4th Avenue. We are looking at the back of the school, an unkempt block of red brick wall and building, stairs covered in garden waste and rubbish, a ragged fence keeping out intruders. Nel explains the history of the Melville schools:

"It used to be that when you had children, you would meet the other mothers at the baby clinic, then again when they went to the primary school together. It meant that you could get together, get support and help. Now the white kids go to the private schools in Linden and Emmarantia and the kids that go to the Melville schools are bussed in from Soweto. There is no local connection anymore. It started when the number of children dropped in the 80s.”

Painted wall at Melpark school

Nel explains. The Afrikaans speaking school (Melpark) and the English speaking school (Foundation - we visit it later on 1st Avenue) merged for lack of students. When the schools opened to all races in '94, black children preferred the English-speaking school over Afrikaans-speaking teaching.

“Eventually the Afrikaans-speaking children moved to other schools where their language was given more emphasis, and eventually the English speaking white kids were moved out to other schools as well. Now there are no white children in the two school.”

Children's names on the Foundation school's wall

We arrive at the front of Melpark school. The entrance is on 2nd Avenue, a tall steel gate fronting a traditional metal-roofed complex of colonial buildings complete with turret. There are hand-made posters protesting sexual violence tied to the railings and taped to the windows, a school project, no doubt. Nel speaks of the time her own children went to the school, of the difference a good headmaster and school administration makes to the upkeep of the school and the quality of teaching, which is very different between this school (scruffy and poor) compared to the Foundation school on 1st Avenue. I wonder how much oversight there is, and what a difference the wealth of the parents makes, but I can see that this school is not doing well. It has an air of neglect, a lack of care and love.

Walking further up 4th Street we admire some of the old-style Melville houses, their simplicity with a green corrugated iron roof, a covered stoop furnished with a sofa, a table, some plants in pots. Many houses up here are not hidden behind a high wall, so we can peek into front gardens, some of them ingeniously decorated with flags, cacti, gravel paths, a cat.

We have reached 1st Avenue, with its second primary school, a neat little art deco brick building fronted by a cleanly-swept playground. The wall bordering the playground is decorated with the names of the kids, all written out in their own hand, some scrawled, some neatly printed: Jason, Johann, Grant, Ambrose, Francois, Marie, Jikk… Amongst the names exhortations to 'Smile!', 'Be Happy', green stars and red hearts.

“The suburb of Auckland Park starts in the middle of this road,”

 Nel points out

“but that is disputed by some, just like the borders to Emmarantia and Westdene.” 

Melville is a desirable neighbourhood now, so everyone wants to be in it.

Deco elements gone wild

We follow 1St Avenue to 7st Street, walking past a series of quaint houses, one so stuck full of plaster decorations and fake Victorian cast iron frippery, it is hard to see the house underneath. The owners run a reclamation company and the house looks like whatever they couldn't or didn't want to sell, they stuck to the walls. Another house is an immaculate reconstruction of the colonial houses we saw in Matjesfontein, down to the sweeping metal roof topped with fine cast iron lace edges and filials. Another, much extended, property is clad in dark wood planks to look like a home straight from the Bavarian hills, window shutters, gables, doors and all. It is only missing the geranium flower pots to complete the picture.



We stop again on the corner of 7th and 4th, Nel pointing out the Scala barber shop that has been here for 45 years, and the butcher (Fresh Meat) that closed a while back, which used to deliver a daily order, with all accounts settled at the end of the month. The book shop next door to the butcher - Out of Print Books - has recently moved to 44 Stanley, and is still going strong.

One more church steeple

We finish the tour with a short walk across the Koppies, the nature reserve bordering Melville. It's a sudden shift from suburb to wilderness, a different view of the city, like the new view of Melville Nel has given us in the last few hours.


Nel's walk through Melville takes place once a month on a Sunday. You can reach her by email. Nel also arranges personal tours to Soweto and Pretoria.

Ponte Inside-Out

Ponte from afar

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the inside of Ponte City Apartments, one of Joburg's landmark building on the edge of Berea and Hillbrow. The Ponte tower stands high on a hill, a tubular masterpiece topped by a glowing magenta advert for Vodacom. Ponte was once voted second-most ugly building in Joburg. That seems unfair. Built by the 29 year old Rodney Grosskopff, Ponte has variously been called "a failed architectural attempt at avant-garde skyscraper living" and "a den of iniquity run by drug dealers and thugs".

That was during the sad days after the end of Apartheid, when whites left the CBD neighbourhoods and the area became a neglected dumping ground for immigrants and the poor. There was once a plan to turn it into a prison (as if it wasn't that already when the rubbish piled up inside the core to the 6th floor and whole storeys had been converted into brothels and shooting galleries).

Inside the core, looking up at the hallway windows

At some stage there was a revival. The building was to be renovated from the ground up, with penthouse flats and flash furnishings. Plans for the unique, tubular core have included a climbing centre and a ski slope. There were financial wranglings, and then a recession, and it all fell apart. But, as if willing itself to be a symbol of the CBD's rebirth, there is now another, more sustainable initiative. The revamped ground floor with open spaces and clean shop floors will hopefully bring in paying visitors, a new biometric security system give a sense of safety, spanking new lifts replace the old creaky affairs.
I learnt all this only after my visit last week as part of the Yeoville walk. Now I am a little obsessed with the place.

It's hard to stop looking up

Access to Ponte's core is actually open to all who dare. You just need to find the toilets in the shopping precinct and open the door to the internal stairs. We start by descending a decidedly skanky concrete staircase into the bowel of the hollow round interior of the skyscraper. While all the flats look out over the skyline of the CBD, the corridors give out to the inside of the tower. As we stand at ground level I am struck how the building clearly rises from the raw rock. It looks like a lava flow has solidified in the middle of the cavernous space. I first thought the fluid-looking slope was a torrent of composting refuse left from the previous state of disrepair, but then I realise it's designed like that. The image is of a human-built structure emerging from the bare rock as if extruded into existence.

The building rising from bare rock

High up we can see clouds scudding past the circular blue cutout of the walls, but light barely reaches down here. The building partly sits on a two storey car park, a concrete grid letting in a little light from the side. We stumble across slippery slopes in the dimness, trying not to step into rubbish. Apparently the place is still abused as a quick disposal unit: egg shells, condoms, nappies, the usual. The space reminds me of the Gasometer in Oberhausen, a former gas tank repurposed into an art space. That space is lidded, and nowhere near as tall, but with the same feeling of infinity, of air and light bouncing off a circular space.

A tiny glimpse of the sky from the base of the core

We ascend back to the ground floor to enter through the heavy security into the building proper. A serious looking guard behind a window, ID to show and a book to sign, a fingerprint scanner to operate the revolving gates - this place is as tight as Fort Knox. We ascend to a flat on the 52nd floor in one of the new lifts, padding covering the gleaming steel interior. Previously the flat was a two storey penthouse apartment - we can still see the stairs going nowhere next to his front door - but now it is a two-bedroom loft with a large open-spaced living room/kitchen. He is sharing with another person, bedroom off either side of the living room for privacy, and pays R5400 per month! The view, of course, is stunning. The windows open, giving a frisson of vertigo when I hold out my arm to take a photo. Fresh air wafts in with the view across the south of Jozi, a unique vantage point.

The view from the 52nd floor

Much has been written about Ponte by people who are more knowledgable than I am about Jozi's recent history. It makes me think that the building, standing prominently on Jozi's skyline, is considered a cypher for something bigger, a hope of renewal, a marker in history. My obsession grows.

A human being for size comparison

Update April 2012: I discovered a poetic little film about Ponte

Ponte Tower: English subtitled version from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Also, another article has the strange assertion that the design has flats for whites looking out and flats for black servants looking into the core of the building. As far as I could see all the flats had views to the outside, and the windows overlooking the inner core lined the corridors. Am I missing something?

A stroll through Yeoville

The View from Observatory Hill towards Hillbrow

Going for a stroll through Johannesburg's neighbourhoods might seem to be an unlikely occupation for a sunny Saturday, specially when the destination is Yeoville, former bohemian hotspot and more recently decried as a symbol for the downfall of the city: "Dangerous. Full of criminal elements. Dirty. Rundown. Ruined." These are some of the more polite things said about Yeoville. Well, I have already been to Hillbrow, Soweto, Joubert Park, the Carlton Centre and other parts of town that I have been told are all these things, and I enjoyed every one of them.

Public Art

So last Saturday Heather introduced me to Jozi's latest walking tour outfit: Nick and Loopy from Dlala Nje (Just Play in Zulu). Dlala Nje (their website is not live yet, so for more info go to Urban Joburg’s blog) is a cafe and art place in one of the empty shops at Ponte City, the iconic circular building on a hill in Berea/Hillbrow (more on Ponte another day - I'll just say the photos are amazing...). They have been running Hillbrow tours since October, but are now branching out to Yeoville.

Saturday worshippers on Observatory Hill

We first walk up to Observatory Hill, from where we have a great view of the CBD and Ponte. The park - if it can be called that - on the hill is pretty rough, with aloe clumps and high weeds in every dip. In between the grass has been shorn, and despite the cleaning crew still dotted with rubbish. Under a tree a huge pile of old tyres have accumulated. It's Saturday, and the hillside is filled with groups of worshippers. On the edge of the hill a man in a white tunic on his knees is blessing the young man kneeling opposite him, his hands on the other's head. Nearby a woman and small child sit, watching. Under a tree a priest kneels, hands pressed tightly together. He doesn't seem to have a congregation. Below us on a slope a dozen people stand listening to a grey-haired man telling serious parables with a furrowed brow. Off to one side a woman is playing with a small toddler, head covered under a blanket to keep out the sun. She looks the picture of Mary and the (unruly) Child. A man in a jogging outfit is sitting by himself far down the slopes. Arms wrapped around his knees, he is lost in thoughts.

Westminster Mansions

Just across from the hill, amidst the relative poverty of Yeoville and Observatory Hill sits Westminster Mansions. A confection of turrets and pillars, balustrades and balconies in cream and magnolia, it makes an incongruous impression. A grand entrance draped in barbed wire and the admonishing signs of security companies speak of an illustrious history fallen to ruin. We look up at the block, teetering precariously on the slope of the hill, and imagine the magnificent views of a city that has stumbled, trying to right itself. I guess the inhabitants must be still there, waiting for that day.

The cleaning ladies were keen to have their photo taken

Past the water tower we descend into Yeoville proper. At first the gridded streets have the relatively serene look of suburbia, single-storey houses such as the ones I see all over the colonies: porch, small front garden behind a street-side fence or wall, a car port to the side. Streets are lined with Jacarandas, quiet and shady. Then I notice that many street-facing walls have been modified with a cubby hole that is used as a little shop, called a Spaza. There one can buy anything from airtime to bananas, washing powder and bread. Some houses advertise their use as hair salons or car mechanics, undertakers or key cutters.

A Spaza shop

We arrive in Yeo street and Nick tells us that Yeoville was founded in 1890 by an Englishman named Thomas Yeo Sherwell from Yeovil in Somerset. The idea was to create a neighbourhood with clean air far above the smelly coal town in the valley, but the location didn't take off until the 1970s, when it became a hip bohemian area designated a 'grey zone' by the apartheid government, meaning it was inhabited by black and white homes. There were jazz clubs and bookshops, arts and crafts outlets and cool clothes shops, as well as drugs and crime on its main thoroughfare, Rockey Street. After the end of Apartheid the demographic shifted from 85% white to 90% black within a decade, while urban maintenance disappeared.

One of the few pictures I managed to grab before the security guards arrived

As we walk into the busy Main Street area around the Yeoville market, it is clear that today's Yeoville is a very different place. Street traders sell anything from water to sweets to airtime to fruit. It is not so busy, but we are certainly an unusual attraction. The market is fantastic, more Nairobi than Rosebank: rows of fruit and veg stalls, clothes stalls selling bright chichenji fabrics, tables spread with soap and makeup. Under cover in the central alleyway of the market an old woman sits on a stool amidst the equipment required to roast peanuts. She swirls the hot steaming peanuts in a large plastic bowl, sprinkles them with salt and carefully tips them into small R3 plastic bags. The peanuts are tiny and delicious. I buy nectarines and grapes and plums, ripe and juicy. I want to stock up on aubergines, tiny peppers, plantains, sweet potatoes, but I hold back since I have to carry everything. Security guards are everywhere, warning us not to take photos. It is disappointing, as most traders don't seem to care, but reassuring that someone is looking out for calm and peace.

Desire, one of the Dlala Nje artists, at Yeoville pool

We trundle our way along the main road, discovering one unlikely place after another: on the corner of Raleigh and Kenmere is the entrance to the Yeoville swimming pool, filled with kids gleefully jumping in the cool waters. Glorious 1930s flats line the street, with stylish balconies and cool fonts spelling out the name of the block. We are almost in Hillbrow now. Berea, Hillbrow and Yeoville all merge together into one of the densely populated areas of Africa, and it shows. The streets are heaving with people now in the afternoon, and the bars are filled with early starting drinkers.

Stylish local architecture, cool fonts

Wandering the 'bad' parts of town has been an eye-opener. As always, when I discover yet another 'no-go zone' that turns out to be not so no-go after all, I realise: I love you, Jozi!

More photos here:

www.flickr.com More of fiverlocker's stuff tagged with Yeoville

Cork and water

One of my favourite summer event in London is the Serpentine pavilion. In its 12th year, the surprisingly permanent-looking structures are erected in the spring and dismantled in the autumn. They are variously strange and awe-inspiring. This year's is a reference to the pavilions that have come before. An archaeological dig of sorts, the 12 pillars represent the past structures, while geometric cork blocks wrap around the remnants: leftover cables, plinths, foundation pieces. All is covered by a flat metal disk collecting rain water, making visible the ground water that normally remains underground. How appropriate in this deluge of a summer!

Best of all, stools shaped as champagne corks. A hint?

 

Museum of Islamic Art in Doha

  Stone screen

 The plan had been to spend Friday, our last free day in Doha. visiting the Museum of Islamic Art (Flash), but Ramadan interfered with that idea. Everything is closed during the day right now, the sweltering heat in August combined with the fasting making a ghost town out of Doha, which by all accounts isn’t a hip place at the best of times. I had been expecting a Dubai-esque city and had been disappointed. Our hotel was sumptuous and brilliantly positioned next to the renovated Souk Waqif, but since everywhere was closed all day I felt I was living in a gilded cage for the week.

 
  Carved water jug filters

 So instead of a long Friday ramble round a museum we took our only chance and visited on Thursday evening, when the museum was open from 8 till 11pm. I was wary, already let down my the fancy websites for Doha’s museum city that turned out to be a front for a group of unfinished projects. In Dubai cultural events organisers also had the tendency to hype a venue where the reality was somewhat less glittery than the brochure.

“Calligraphy is jewellery fashioned by the hand from the pure gold of the intellect.”

 

  Wooden screen from India 

 The walk to the museum was long and hot, along the busy road that followed the corniche. The palm-lined path up to the museum entrance was worryingly quiet and we were relieved that the lights were on inside the building. Walking into the mercifully cooled atrium, above us a dark dome, a staircase floating in a swirl around the central entrance. A carved copper light ring wreathed the empty air. Pale cream marble and shiny black granite formed geometric patterns on the ground - magnificent, spare and classy.

   

  The Atrium 

 We had no opportunity to dawdle as the cafe - despite assurance to the contrary - was closed. Just as well, since we needed all the time we had to get through the themed galleries on the first floor: Calligraphy, pattern, animals and people in Islamic art, and the connection of art and science. We never even made it to the second floor, where the displays were organised along a timeline covering the geography of Islam: Iran, Iraq, India, Syria, North Africa, Al-Andalus. The ring of display rooms circling the central stairway was infused with a dim and silent atmosphere. High walls covered in grooved greystone and coarse dark fabric swallowed light and sound, leaving large glass display cases to float serenely along the walls and in the centre of the rooms.

“All Islamic pattern is based on the idea that what we see is always and only part of a whole that extends to infinity.”

 

  Brass Astrolabe 

 Each invisibly-lit case housed just one or two exquisite items, perfectly displayed to enhance its unique craftsmanship: a stone carving so intricate and fragile that I mistook it for a wooden screen, tiny elaborate patterns disguising the stone’s heaviness; a pure white bowl marked with an off-centre line of black calligraphy, modern and abstract despite its 15th century origin; a seven metre long Hajj certificate depicting the holy places to be visited, with six witness signatures to prove the hajji’s travels; a silver soldier’s helmet seemingly designed by a workshop in Middle Earth, complete with an ivory oliphant, a hunting horn carved from an elephant’s tusk; a set of clay filters delicately carved despite being completely invisible until the water jar they are set into breaks; a line of elegant gold calligraphy, written on the skeleton of a dried leaf. In short, if you are in Doha, you must visit the Islamic Art Museum. More photos here.

The Madly Memorable Madaba Mosaic Manufacturers are most motivated

Madaba is famous for its mosaics. Churches and ruins of private houses have floors covered in them, dotted all around this typical small Jordanian town. Most of them date from the Byzantine period, after 500AD, and they depict everything from maps to animals, biblical characters and elaborate patterns. And the best thing?

There is a mosaic school, where people learn to make these cool designs. Unfortunately there seems to be no way for a foreigner to learn to make mosaics, surely a missed tourist opportunity.

We dropped into a mosaic shop, where a young man showed us the mosaic he was making for a French customer. Basically it goes like this:

1 Acquire stones from all over Jordan and cut into thin slices. Cut these slices into strips. Snip small pieces of stone off the strips with pincers to make your mosaic pieces.

2 Draw a design onto a piece of muslin. Keep it simple and use outline and colour gradation to best effect. Remember to draw your design in mirror image.

3 Assemble your ingredients: wallpaper paste to stick the stones down onto the muslin, lots of stone pieces, tweezers and endless patience.

4 Make your mosaic.

5 Cover a piece of wood with cement and place your finished mosaic onto it face down. The cement fills in any uneven areas and gaps.

6 Soak the muslin and wallpaper paste off to reveal your smooth and lovely mosaic.

We spent a happy day wandering around the town’s museums, ambling down the Roman road and finding that even modern local houses still use mosaics for decoration. Often this kind of craft is reduced to becoming yet more tourist tat, but here the skills are still in everyday use.