#027 - Emma Wells - Building Beautiful To Save Our Souls

Emma Wells is an English church historian, academic, consultant author, and broadcaster, specialising in the ecclesiastical and architectural history of the late medieval and early modern age. Emma is the author of two books, including the 2021 book Heaven on Earth: Lives & Legacies of the world's greatest cathedrals; and the 2016 book Pilgrim routes of the British Isles. Emma is working on her third book at the time of recording.

In this episode, Emma and I talk about why the medieval and dark ages gave us much more than we give them credit for, why so many cathedrals were built and what drove the elites who built them and funded them, the nature of beauty and whether it is objective or subjective, why we came to prize efficiency and utility over beauty, if our cities are becoming increasingly ugly because we have become less spiritual, and why our towns would be better off if the planning office was overseen by King Charles III.

Emma and I agreed on so much, however not so on whether beauty is objective or subjective. Emma makes the argument that what is deemed beautiful goes in and out of fashion, while i don't believe that anyone would really find brutalist architecture beautiful in a month of Sundays. This is because i believe beauty and awe are linked and that awe-inspiring beauty is something which touches the soul rather than simply being about taste. I'd be interested to hear what you all think.

Before you dive in, you would be really helping me out if you clicked subscribe on whatever platform you are listening to the show on. The more subscribers we have, the more guests we can attract, and the faster Thinking Class grows.

Enjoy the show Classmates.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, classmates, and welcome to the show. I'm John Gillam, and today I'm speaking with Emma Wells. Emma is an English church historian, academic, consultant, author, and broadcaster, specializing in the ecclesiastical and architectural history of the late medieval and early modern age. She is the author of two books, including the 2021 book, Heaven on Earth, Lives and Legacies of the World's Greatest Cathedrals, and the 2016 book, Pilgrim Roots of the British Isles. Emma is currently working on her third book at the time of recording. In this episode, Emma and I talk about why the medieval and dark ages gave us much more than we give them credit for, why so many cathedrals were built during these periods, and what drove the elites who built them and funded them, the nature of beauty and whether it is objective or subjective, why we came to prize efficiency and utility over beauty when building things, if our cities are becoming increasingly ugly because we have become less spiritual, and why our towns would be better off if the planning office was overseen by King Charles III. Emma and I agreed on so much in this conversation. However, we didn't agree on whether beauty is objective or subjective. Emma makes the argument that what is deemed beautiful goes in and out of fashion and so is subjective. While I don't believe that anyone would really find brutalist architecture beautiful in a month of Sundays, this is because I believe beauty and awe are linked, and that awe-inspiring beauty is something which touches the soul, rather than simply being about taste or just a feeling. I'd be interested to hear what you think, and before we dive in, you'd be really helping me out if you clicked subscribe on whatever platform you are listening to or watching on, because the more subscribers Thinking Class has, the more guests that we can attract, and the faster the show grows. Enjoy the show, classmates. Emma Wells, welcome to Thinking Class. Thanks so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Thank you ever so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Delighted, my pleasure entirely. Uh I I I learned about you, Emma, on uh X slash Twitter. Still haven't decided whether I'm just going to start calling it X yet. Um and uh because I'm a bit of a history boffin, learned much later in life, uh, same with uh admiring architecture within our the country we're from, of of of England and um and Europe, um, I came across your book, Heaven on Earth, which uh the subtitle is Lives and Legacies of the Greatest of the World's Greatest Cathedrals. And it covers history, architecture, the impact of religion on elite thinking, on everyday life. It's the study of elites. You look like you've got a dream job. Uh, how did you come to do what you do?

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Oh, I don't know about dream job, but thank you. Um, so I, well, I suppose if we go right back, when I was a child, my grandmother used to take me around all the castles and churches and what have you in North Yorkshire where I grew up. So that really inspired my love of ecclesiastical architecture, I suppose, really, but medieval architecture, actually, largely. And then I did a degree in art history um at the University of York. And I I realized that I was choosing the more medieval modules, and it was the sort of ecclesiastical, medieval architectural and artistic aspects that I was being drawn to. So after that, I did an MA and my dissertation was on the arc the use of architectural space representations of architecture within stained glass, um, because there's actually quite a lot of sort of mini depictions of you know Yorkminster in Yorkminster glass and things like that. Um I found that fascinating. And then I did a PhD in it, um, and I focused more on the cult of saints, pilgrimage art and architecture, cathedrals, um, and that's how I got there. I can't tell you how I actually ended up doing a PhD and how I got to where I did. It sort of was all happenstance. Um, but before the PhD, uh, during and after, I was doing a bit of historic buildings consultancy as well. And then once I left the PhD, I sort of went into that, dabbled in academia, and then I've come back out and do historic buildings consultancy again. So all a bit of a roundabout odd way.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yeah, well, I don't think many people when they hear someone's going off to go and do an art history degree. I know in this world which champions efficiency and business degrees and all of the things that you'd expect, they go, Oh, what are you gonna do with that? But I would contend that your job that you've ended up with is a damn sight more interesting than dealing with spreadsheets and budgets in a in a corporate world. Or maybe I've got the wrong of the stick and you're gonna tell me it's actually really boring.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

No, it's not really boring, but I do deal with spreadsheets and invoicing and building and all that kind of thing. So it does come kind of come, you know, part and parcel of it. But yes, I think looking at buildings is perhaps a little bit more interesting than staring at numbers all day. But that's just me.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah, spreadsheets are very, very modern malady. I think we just can't get away from them. Uh you mentioned medieval. Uh when people hear the word medieval, I would say it's used usually as a bit of a pejorative, a slur, uh because you know, we consider ourselves to be in this enlightened, progressed world. And when we talk about the dark ages, it's typically referred to as something that we've left behind. I mean, there's a reason why it's called the Dark Ages, right? Not a lot happened. But considering the architecture that those periods left behind us, um, you know, a thousand years of cathedral building shaped modern Europe, it influenced art, it influenced culture, it influenced society. Uh what what's your take on medieval? Is it is it quite as dark agey as uh the the the detractors have?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

No, absolutely. And in academia we don't use the term dark ages anymore.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Um what do you use?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Well, we just don't use it at all. We can't the point being though, that we I mean, God, we should get into a lot of things here, but medieval is broken up into several sub-eras, if you will. So what we used to term Anglo-Saxon, the Anglo-Saxon era, now we term it early English, um, and then into the medieval and then into early modern and then postmodern. But um, medieval to me, I completely understand what you're saying about it being a pejorative term. We say something is medieval, we think of it as an has a negative connotation. But actually, you're right. Um, if we go back to even the Victorian period, they were imitating Gothic architecture. You know, the Gothic Revival era in the 19th century was huge. And it was because they saw the medieval era as this sort of idyllic utopian era, whether or not it was is another matter. But when it comes to Gothic architecture, which was um born in the medieval in the 12th century, I think if we think of the term cathedral, we largely think of a Gothic cathedral. You know, if I say cathedral, most people would think York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, Wells Cathedral, etc. etc., etc. And this is because the Gothic period of architecture was so influential. You know, it's sort of ingredients altogether hadn't been seen in single buildings. They were rising higher and higher and higher. You know, this sort of maximum height, maximum light that Gothic required had not been seen really before. And sort of the advances and developments in the sort of construction industry, if you want to call it back then, um, allowed for this maximum height and light to get closer to God. And it sort of became this whole cathedral-building crusade where every single town and therefore city, as it became, if it had a cathedral, was turned into this sort of great cathedral race as well, as one was trying to outdo the other to get closer and closer to God and building these great big edifices as a result. So it was sort of a great happen, it was happenstance really that we get the Gothic era. But the reason that it became so momentous was because of this Gothic architecture that's that was born from it. So it's a very, very important era. And I don't think we've really seen anything as great since, arguably.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

No, I mean I don't I don't think the likes of the Shards uh really matches something like Chartres Cathedral or Wells Cathedral. Um I mean, if you're gonna if you're gonna encourage any status arms race, if that's what it truly was, and actually it'd be interesting to hear your take on that, then you'd want it to represent something something higher. What what do you think the uh the elites of the time were driven by, apart from wanting to have the the most um uh the most impressive cathedral that sits in the centre of their city or town?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

What do I think the drivers were? Is that what you think? Yeah. So interesting, really. The drivers are, well, we could go down many many routes for this. So of course the there was this sort of theory that you had to save your soul essentially, you know, um posthumously. Um so once you were dead, this is why we get the sort of great chantry chapels and cathedrals, you know, the sort of mini cathedrals in and of themselves, where you have a monument to your dead body, which you might have created during your lifetime, um, and an effigy of yourself, and then sort of enclosed in this little box, if you will, but this beautifully designed box within a cathedral. Um, and you would have an altar within it, and you would have a priest saying souls, masses for the dead for the soul, for your soul once you had died. The more money you had, obviously, the more masses could be said for your for your soul. And so it's to ensure obviously you get through purgatory to heaven. So that really is the crux of much of this architecture. It's um sort of representation, firstly, of the heaven on earth, but then on a sort of that's the macro scale, really. This is literally the book of Revelation, 21 to 22, is what a cathedral is, representation of heaven on earth. But in the micro sort of micro scale, when people were um commissioning and patronizing this work, if they wanted a Chantry Chapel, etc., it's to get their soul through purgatory to heaven. So that's a really important part of it. At the same time, let's be perfectly honest, this was also about buying for one space and showing off one's wealth. And the more money you spent on it, the greater the building was, of course, the more elaborate it was. But at the same time, the more you've just proved that, or tried to prove that you, you know, all your money is going towards heaven, all your money is going towards, you know, the church. But also, it's a huge status symbol, let's be perfectly honest, which is why we get these such grand monuments, etc., or these great big stained glass windows patronized by one single person. So there are many different reasons and theories behind this, but it was very much an arms race between one um one cathedral and another, just trying to outdo one another. And this is why, as well, we get this sort of race for saints as well. So you had to have ideally, you had to have relics within your altar to be to have a sanctified church. Um, this goes back to the ninth century in Shalaman, who said that you needed these uh relics to to sanctify your church. But what this also meant was if you had the body of a saint within your church, you had a reason for pilgrims, you had a reason for visitors to come to your church. And what happened when people would come to your saint, they would worship at them, they would hope for a cure or a miracle that the saint would would endow, and then they would give an offering in in return, in the hopes that they would fulfil their wish. And as a result, this essentially built and developed and altered and augmented the great cathedrals. So it was this great big sort of fun, they were fundraising dynamos, let's be perfectly honest. There was this great big sort of profitability behind it all. So there's just so many different reasons um for why we have these great edifices today.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Well, even when they were driven by status, the happy byproducts that we have today, and it took me much longer in life to start to appreciate these buildings and and what they represent. Um, but that that that um whilst it may they may have been built for trying to help the benefactor get to heaven, I know the first time I started to take proper notice inside of a church was inside Rosslyn Chapel, and I ended up there before I knew it became famous for Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

And I remember seeing I just I remember for the first time spotting that there were whole scenes of the Bible just chiseled into the so uh stone. So it wasn't scriptural, it was depicted, you know, seeing the dance of death and the seven deadly sins. Um it and and I was like, oh wow, this is this is what these places are for, besides worship. And uh and and the the tourism aspect you're talking about, or at least implying, I've had a real recent experience of that. I walked the Camino de Santiago and uh did it in two parts first half last year, beginning in the French Pyrenees and ending around Burgos, and then finishing from there this year into Santiago. And even though you do get a sense that there's lots of money being made along the way, is there's also something else about it having been walked for so long by so many different people and for so many different reasons, and knowing that you walk in those same steps and knowing that knowing that you're oriented towards something else. I guess when I speak to people about it, lots of people, because we're moderns, they go, Oh, how was your long distance walk? But a pilgrimage is a different thing, right? You orient yourself towards something beyond yourself, something higher, and there's lots of things going on internally. So it's it's actually interesting that so much of this stuff may have uh been raised above the ground for different reasons status, money, whatever. But the benefits to all of us should we choose to engage in it, and and the the impact it's had on actually creating a European civilization is is huge.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Absolutely. Well, I mean, we wouldn't we wouldn't really have some of our greatest sort of settlements, cities, towns, if it weren't for the cathedrals, you know, the towns the cities developed around these great big temples to God. So absolutely that, and and you're right, the sort of the benefits that come with it, um, particularly if we're talking about pilgrimage, um, I mean, you have so many cathedrals, you have so many churches, sites that are linked just as a result, and and even exist as a result of pilgrimage because people were trying to get from A to B and were worshiping along the way. So, I mean, we could talk endlessly about the reasons behind these, but some of the reasons many of the reasons that these great churches were built for still provide those, you know, outlets and reasons and functions today. Um, and I think we often think, for example, that walking into a church, one must be very sombre and very quiet, and it's all about worship. But that's actually not the case. It was never the case. In the medieval era, you the knave would have been filled with socializing. Um, there were people sort of wine tastings, if you will, in the medieval sense, you know, dating, and that would be the place you would probably meet your partner. Um, dog fighting, cock fighting, all of us. This happened within the knave of cathedral. It was the sort of community hub. And I suppose sometimes some churches still are, but it was very much that. It was a place of secular, and I mean that in terms of the non-religious sense, but it was a it was a secular out sort of area too, rather than just solely reserved for spiritual and religious functions. And I think that's just as important. And you mentioned the sort of artistic architectural aspects, and you can see them depicted across the walls, across the stained glass. But within that, too, you can also see very sort of humanistic allegorical images. I can I can think, for example, of the um pilgrimage window at Yorkminster down the the North Isle, the knaves north aisle. And although the window there is primarily for, you know, it is a a biblical scene, but all around the marginalia, so that the border of it um is a depiction of, for example, the the virgin's funeral. Um and this isn't a sort of um allegorical um story, but it's depicted through monkeys. Um and so it's called, you know, the monkey, the virgin's funeral through what's it called? Uh monkey's funeral, I think is what the windows technically refer to as. Um and so the beer is held up by all these monkeys, and what it's also doing is mocking doctors of physics, and so you've got monkeys holding vials of urine and things like that. So my point being though, that there are funny images, um, you know, we can get on to naughty images, we see that those all over churches too, but it's it's it is about the fact that this is this is about the people, this is about those who are worshiping in it, and it's not just that sort of very much very theological doctrinal biblical sense by any means. All different things going on.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

How did how did that change? It comes to mind I I I can only assume it was from the puritanical elements of the Reformation. This isn't what it's about, because there used to be lots of colour on the walls of of churches and cathedrals, and they're stripped back for being seen to be too gaudy and not what it's meant to be for. Is that how how it happened?

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Yes and no. Uh it's sort of um several different eras, I think, that the church has gone through, which has led to this. You're right that the churches were filled, um, and they were they were painted, I mean Wells Cathedral, the West Front. There's a great little representation drawing of this, which was it was a BBC paint Wells Cathedral West Front, which was it was a little game, and you can find this on Google Images. But you can see it was painted with great blues and reds and gold um all over the West Front. And inside there would have been images too, as you say. And now we walk in and it's a sort of bare, stark white, these white walls. Um, but this was never meant to be the case. Now, of course, when the Reform Reformation came along, Edward actually enforced this more than Henry did. Um, you know, his son Edward, and he got rid of a lot of the images. Image images really they they were reduced of all of their power that they had during um the medieval period, during the Catholic period, if you will. Um, and as a result, images were broken, um, walls were whitewashed, and it became about um doctrine, uh scripture rather than images. And so that was the sort of first wave. But I think you're right when you get into the sort of 18th century and the dissension that occurred then, but also into the Victorian era. I think really a lot of it, a lot of the sort of this sort of sombre relation to religion and how we should be conducting um worship, I think really took place in that sort of 18th to 19th century period, um, when things were very, very different then, and the medieval era was seen as this sort of idyllic period, too. I think I think that's what we can blame.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Okay, okay. Uh, and uh we've talked a little bit about um modern architecture, and uh at the beginning we were saying it doesn't hold a candle to or implied it doesn't hold a candle to to some of this stuff we're talking about, ecclesiastical architecture from these periods. I've had conversations with people, and this is obviously a very of the day kind of comment, in that beauty is just subjective, and um I have tried to engage with these and say, well, I don't believe that even if you had um been exposed generation after generation to Soviet brutalist architecture or something of that ilk, and then all of a sudden you come across something like a gothic cathedral, that you're not going to feel an objective feeling of beauty in that moment. So do you believe there is an objective uh that beauty is an objective thing woven into the universe, or is it a subjective, wishy-washy feeling?

SPEAKER_01 20:56

I think it's subjective, I have to be honest. And I think I don't know if I would say it's wishy-washy, but I we have to say you know, beauty's in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? But also thinking through the various periods of architecture, it's also about fashion, you know, it's also about popularity, and and times just change, and what's popular 20 years ago won't be popular in five years' time from five years' time, and 500 years ago was that was so things things just simply change and they also come back around again. I mean, you see this with clothes as well as you do with architecture. It's it's just I think it's sort of the what's going on in the wider zeitgeist often affects what's occurring within architecture. I mean, we just have to look at brutalist architecture, that's very much representational of what was going on at the time across Europe, particularly. Um, and now we have this very modernist, paired back, simplistic glass steel boxes, if we can call it that. So is perhaps that's representative of what we're going through. Actually, I do think things are sort of starting to change again, and we are moving towards the the beauty, as we would call it, or what we what we've seen in the past more decorative than we've seen with the likes of the Shard or the Gherkin or whatever. But that's the point, is we just respond to the times, and therefore beauty has to be subjective as a result. It's just of the era.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Okay. I would probably contend that because if if I was uh when you even just look at tourist flows or so we live in a as secular an era as we ever have in human history, at least within the West. Um and yet those non-believers um they will find themselves going en masse, I would say, to those buildings first. I don't think, yes, do people go and check out the shard when they go to London? Of course, people want to get up the viewing platform and have the pictures over London. But I do I don't know. I maybe I'm maybe I'm just so convinced that there's something else there. I know people talk about the golden ratio, this uh this thing that makes that makes architecture all holds together, but it's also the thing that's most pleasing on the eye, and we even have it within beautiful faces, for example.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Mm-hmm. But then the golden ratio does also exist in modern architecture too. So, you know, it it that's this is the point. This modern architecture is also built. What's really interesting is I won't get into this too much, but modern architecture is also built on the principles of of medieval architecture as well. So we that's that's the thing, is we might think today it's completely simplistic. Uh the only way I can really describe this is when I was doing my art history degree, I did um a module in called New York Modern. And it was all about you know modern architecture from New York. So we're talking uh mid-20th century, really. And we looked at Jackson Pollock. And most people, if they're not into art, you say Jackson Pollock, saying, Well, it's just someone who's just dabbed really a canvas with loads of different loads of different paints, you know, just flung paint at it. But actually, when I looked into it, Pollock was inspired by sand paintings and and Jungianism, and it had this sort of represent these real interesting connotations behind why he was flinging this paint at a canvas. So I think immediately we might think something like modernist architecture is far more simplistic and that sort of golden ratio beauty isn't there. But it is, it's just perhaps in 500 years' time we'll appreciate it far more. So I think it it is just about popularity a lot. And also, Gothic architecture is called Gothic because it was associated with the Goths. So it really wasn't Vasari's really, really lambasted Gothic architecture. So it wasn't, you know, loved and revered like it is now back, you know, in that era, right up until the 17th century, really. So that's why it is called Gothic. It was very much a pejorative term for it. So there you go.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Dear classmate John here. This isn't an advert, so you don't need to reach for the skip button. If you're enjoying the show, then show your support by liking, subscribing, and sharing on whichever device or platform you are watching or listening to Thinking Class on. You can find me in the show on YouTube at Thinking Class. You can also subscribe to me on Substack, searching for the at thinking class handle, or by entering thinkingclass.substack.com in your browser, and you can receive reflections, blog series, and recommended reading to your inbox. You can also follow me on X at Thinking Classes. Thanks for listening, thanks for sharing, thanks for showing your support. Enjoy the rest of the show, classmate. Okay, well, I would say we should both go down the bookies and stick a stick a bet on, but neither of us will be around to be able to figure it all out. Um but I don't think those glass and steel structures will still be standing either, so maybe they won't. But but but there we go. Well, I was interested to hear that you think things are starting to change and people are moving more towards beauty and decoration. So we've talked a bit about at least implied the difference in visions of the ruling class of today compared with that of those who commissioned the great cathedrals. What do you find within your line of work as a consultant? Do you find that people in public and private institutions care about beauty or is it efficiency? What kind of goes on in those conversations when they're going, this is what we're going to build?

SPEAKER_01 26:35

It depends. Entirely depends on the client. Um, I would say there's obviously a huge move towards sustainability and you know, sort of net zero and all that sort of thing. And I can understand why that might be a focus rather than the aestheticism of how a building may look. However, you know, a lot of what we do are uh it is focused on the sort of conservation of listed buildings. And when when we're doing those sorts of things, it is very much retaining the most significant features of what you know, why is that listed? What's the special interest behind it, and therefore what elements should we we be retaining? And so I think it's a mix. Now, at the same time, even the clients with the best intentions will be looking at the bottom line and saying, is it efficient to keep X, Y, and Z? Is it going to make me money in the future or whatever it is? But I don't think that's anything new. So I think the reason that I say there's a move towards more intricacy, perhaps in design is the last five years, I would say it was very much about building boxes as much as possible. In I'm talking very, very generally, but in that sort of boxes, steel glass contraptions, um, as minimalist as possible. And I think also they're not very practical. So I think I think again it goes, it's sort of cicular. Uh cyclical, cyclical is fashion, really. And therefore, that's why I believe we're moving towards that. We're just seeing more move towards design, you know, real architectural design that I think we've very much moved away from over the last five years, and therefore architects are saying, hang on a minute, but how is this going to look? How is the facet going to look? How does it blend in? How is it in keeping and harmonious with if it's in a conservation area or next to a listed building or whatever it might be? There's far more focus on that and making a good building, a well-designed building, than there was five to ten years ago, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Okay, that's good news. The sustainable buildings front is something I I know of tangentially through some of the work that I've done. Um, and when I do go down to London, I always find it quite interesting when I can see companies' buildings from the whi- the top floor window which I'm at. And I know they've made lots of pronouncements on net zero and the like. And then I'll just see a crane or some kind of bulldozer coming along and just knocking down the top couple of floors, or just knocking down the building because they've leased it to someone else and they're building something new. These glass and steel structures that constantly get recycled, and and this the the the mode of design which you talked about it strikes me as being utterly wasteful. And I I can't help but think of a couple of um more conservative voices that I've come across that have always stuck with me. So um Roger Scruton made a point in one of his books, might have even been in a book called Green Philosophy, where he was trying to recapture the green movement for you know small C conservatism. But he basically said that the ironic thing is these buildings, which are supposedly unsustainable because they're made out of stone, are still standing and they can be repurposed and they're multiple use. Whereas often these glass and steel structures are made for single use, and whoever moves into the matha doesn't want to use them, and they've got to be replaced 30, 40 years at a time. And to add on to that, there was this quote which I remember underlining loads, and I keep on thinking about it every time I'm walking through terrible cityscapes. Um, and it's a John Ruskin quote, and he gave it in a speech to a bunch of the financiers and business people of Bradford when they just built the the um the transport exchange, I think, um, or or some kind of exchange. And the quote was this When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stone stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them, see, this is our fathers, this is what they did for us. And I I don't know if you ever see that kind of let's build from wherever mentality, but does it exist?

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Does it still exist? Is the question.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

This idea of being a steward trying to pass something on down the ages.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Yeah, yeah. And I mean that's what you know people are when they're custodians, stewards of listed buildings. No one really owns a listed building. I think so. Building from scratch now, would I say that architects have that mentality? Some. I would say some, but what's very interesting is those who do, I'm thinking of the likes of Ben Pentreeth or Adam Architecture, those types of architectural consultancies and firms. They are so influenced, they're so very influenced. And I wouldn't say they imitate, but they they're very much founded on the principles of the when when architecture was seen as the sort of the pinnacle of architecture. So I'm I'm thinking the Georgian era, perhaps slightly the medieval era, but largely they tend to imitate the Georgian era. Um, not in a pastiche way, but they certainly aren't creating glass-steel boxes that we see today. They are trying to create, you know, stone, brick, stucco, etc., with beautiful porticos and sash windows and those sorts of things. They're not creating the green buildings that we're supposedly building today. So I think that's really interesting. And even, you know, Ben Pentreith, his firm has created, you know, new model streets and model towns. And again, you would think almost you would think that they were built in the 18th or 19th century. So that's very interesting, is that actually if we're building something to last, we're inspired by the past, not modern architecture. So I think that tells you everything.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah, well, I mean, our king, I mean, he's become known for building new towns like Poundbury, for example, which have just been absolutely um so popular. And I know lots of portions of the media were decrying it as some kind of pastiche project, but people love them, people want to live in them of all stripes and all classes. And what's what's I've been bemused about recently is you know, May 2024 when we're recording this is there's planning permission um being sought for 2,500 homes in for in Faversham and Kent, much in the poundbury style of the Georgian facades, the things that we you know, the reason why everyone goes walking down something like Notting Hill to have their Instagram taken all the time. They want to be around beautiful buildings, people are drawn to them, and yet we've got a such a NIMBY culture. It's like I can maybe understand if no one wants a prison next to them. But when you're building such beautiful buildings, I don't get it. I say, King Charles, make him the building and housing sar for the country, and we'd be in a much better place.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

I I I would agree with you, and and that's the case. I can understand the sort of NIMBY culture if it's a box, if they're putting a load of boxes behind, because I think that's why do you need other boxes? Why not create beautiful houses? You know, we did it for so many centuries, and it does seem to have sort of fallen off what you know, why? Um, particularly when we are moving towards more sustainable housing and and all that sort of thing, is we we could be creating really well-designed um houses, and and we don't seem to, or or buildings at least, we don't we don't seem to. Um but I think I think you're right. And we do see beauty in the past, we do see beauty in this the architecture from pretty much every century apart from our own, I would argue.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Yeah, yeah. And I mean I've got my own thoughts about that, but I don't think they're too different from John Ruskin again. He he said in the 19th century, and for those who don't know him, he's an art critic, amongst other things, he's a bit of a polymath. And um he he believed in that period when people were building all these big exchanges in just a bit of a build em high, build them cheap kind of style, that it was the loss of vitality through a Christian culture that was leading to it, that we we didn't have the same vitality as we saw pushing us through the medieval period. And I guess my question to you um, and this is driven by a comment I'd had from one of the viewers who said there's a there's a great difference in viewing oneself as the temple of the Holy Spirit or thinking of oneself as an evolved ape. The latter view is not going to draw forth great architecture, art, music, or anything else. And I wonder do you think part of what's behind our architectural malaise, and that's definitely my prejudice, you might not agree, is um is a spiritual decline? Do you think that might have something to do with it, the way we see ourselves in the world?

SPEAKER_01 36:04

That's an interesting take. Um perhaps, because I'm trying to think when architecture became less designed, let's call it that way, or less well designed, I would argue was probably around the 40s, something like that. And what happened then was obviously World War II and things very much changed. And I think we, you know, perhaps the the world, not just not just you know, the UK, became quite disheartened, dispirited, and things things changed a lot post-war. So I think perhaps that is the case. If you I think a lot of architects um throughout the past did see themselves as continuing as their actual architecture, as monuments to themselves, as their, you know, as sort of evidence of their great work that would continue on through the centuries. Do we think that now? I'm not so sure. And perhaps that is because of sort of inherent spiritualism. Perhaps indeed. I I don't want to say too much on that because I don't know. I don't know the the sort of religious aspects of and ideals of all the architects. It'd be interesting to look actually at those who are sort of well designing buildings and are they spiritual, are they religious, and those who aren't, it that would be very interesting, PhD or something.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Yeah, it would be. I I think I think ultimately, if you're if you have a religious mindset, whether it's one that you're cultivated in from a young age or one that you get later in life, which is certainly the case with me, is if you find yourself inhabiting past, present, and future all at once. Um, I think you do naturally start to have this idea that you are a steward and a custodian of something for people other than yourself and for something greater. And I certainly know having inhabited a pre the previous mindset of um, well, we're kind of just meat sacks, and we're we're just a it's just blind luck. Um and once we're gone, we're gone. And that's that, you know, we're just on this kind of in this empty void, and it's just a bit weird that we're here. Is I do remember how I both acted in life in terms of how I treated myself, the decisions that I made, how I saw the world, and um I I kind of find it hard to um to disagree with that notion that the viewer came across that uh that put across, which is yeah, but perhaps that very naked view of the world does just make you live in the present and makes you much less inclined to try and bequeath anything if you don't think anything's ultimately worth things, it kind of a nihilism.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Perhaps, I mean, the idea of legacy, I suppose, is is perhaps not something that you particularly care as much about when you're younger. Um but I think also that there's far more issues though with why architecture is the way it is today, which goes back to where does the funding come from? You know, is there sort of financial incentive behind a lot of it? Yes, but it's you know, do them quick, do them for no money at all, and put in as many as possible rather than let's design a beautiful building that will last, that will be my legacy in stone, brick, whatever. I think there's a sort of very different perspective on architecture today, really.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Yeah, that that that the mut the funding source that's actually over overlooked because if it's from some distant bureaucratic authority, they've got much less skin in the game with regards to making sure something is something that you're bequeathing. I I there's a little village in Northumberland called Rothbury, and um and it is um it's it's uh it's not really famous for anything, but it's yeah, but Gaza, yes. Yeah, uh bringing his chicken and his beer along for a serial, a serial killer. Um very bizarre, very bizarre period in English history. Um for those of you don't know, do go and Google it um if you've got time on your hands. But but Rothbriel is also known because um there was the world's first electrified house there called Cragside.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Craigside, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Yeah, and um it was electrified by hydroelectricity. The benefactor or the builder, the the owner in residence was Lord Armstrong, and he got his money um from munitions. He he he built he he effectively owned the factory that built the munitions that won the Napoleonic Wars, and later his sons oversaw it when um it ended up winning us the first world wars and the like. So um very interesting place, but he also became a benefactor for lots of little projects in the town, and there were you know beautiful things like leaving an Anglian cross with Anglo-Saxon um style stylized um kind of carvings into it, but he also left social housing, and the social housing is the most beautiful social housing I have ever seen, and you wouldn't even know it was, you know, it came with all these decorative features, you know, people it's still used as social housing, even though it was built in the 19th century, and he also did it um in um in memory of his his mother, who had recently passed away. He did it in the style she would have liked, and then there was also this this family called the Sharps, and they were from a long line of uh aristocrats, but they were also Church of England clergy, and they would do lots of little projects like have people building follies around the place that were very beautiful just to keep the local labourers busy. And I I don't think you'd find that of today's uh money deletes.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

It's yeah, sorry, I it's funny you should say that because that thinking about why they did because I was thinking Titus Salt, Soltaire near Bradford, he you know that was built for his workers. Same thing, uh Roundtree, Joseph Roundtree built New Earswick, just outside of York. They're all they all really um patronised these great little model villages for all different reasons, but a lot of them were legacy within their own towns, cities, and and we don't see that as much today. But I was trying to think whether there was anyone who has done it today. And I was trying to think, I was going to say, is there as much money, you know, in the world today as there was back then? There was a lot, you know, a lot of people with a lot of money, or few people with a lot of money, but I suppose there still are. There's still there's still quite a lot of people that have a lot of money. But we have billionaires now, don't we? Are they patronizing beautiful architecture? That's what's interesting. I don't think they are.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Yeah, the distance of international capital, I suppose. No one's no one's actually routed anymore to a place. They're just flying around on private jets and have bigger, bigger plans elsewhere.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Is the private jet the previous stately home?

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Um well, Emma, we're probably coming into the the end zone. Uh if you could give advice to people as they were planning our towns and cities, um, the people who govern our built environment, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Gosh, I would say to them many things, but I think one is that I have a couple of a couple of things that we should be, we should be looking at beauty in architecture. We should be looking at how the ensuring that we can have architectural legacies that are gonna last for generations, not just for this generation and then they're gone, which I think a lot of a lot of sort of planning is at the moment, planning development is at the moment. But also it's about far more than just that is that just be for example, just because a building is old doesn't mean it is of significance. And I know, you know, as a heritage consultant, I shouldn't say that, but it is true, you know, not all old buildings are beautiful. You know, not all historic buildings um are really worth it, but but really looking at I think the reason that we we're so interested in and value heritage, you know, historic buildings, what have you, is because they are representations of several generations often. They're not, you don't really get a built a historic building that is just built in, I don't know, 1605, and that's it. You see it was built in 1605, then it was added to in 1701, and then it might have been altered in 1920, and that's the beauty of it. You've seen how it's altered and adapted to the families that have lived there, the the people that have lived there, but also the changing machinations of you know, the political environment, the economic environment, religious environment, all of these different things that were going on. And I think there's a there's a very odd perspective at the moment that is it is it is historic, therefore it needs to be preserved in Aspic. You know, this building was built in 1789, and we should keep it that way. We cannot add to it. And so perhaps this goes back to the fact that we don't think that our modern architecture is really worth anything and that it is ugly and it it's not beautiful. But why are we preserving all those centuries in Aspik and we're not seeing our own century as of any significance? So I think it's about all of these different things and looking at actually what is significant about heritage, what is significant about architecture, what is significant about the built environment, what worked in the past, and therefore how do we replicate it for the future? We need to be looking at different priorities, sustainability as well as beauty. But we we still try to do that, as you said with Craigside. We've always been trying to do that, so it is very much possible.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Okay, well, here's a more hopeful message, and and maybe we'll get our heads together and do a questionnaire for the architects and their religious beliefs. That sounds like fun. Oh, yes. Emma, before I let you go, uh I know you're active on social media, you are also working on another book. Where can people find you and what can we expect from you next?

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Yeah, so they can follow me on Instagram, which is wells underscore Emma, and on Twitter slash X. I think it's Emma J Wells, something something like that. You can find me through through my name that way. Um, yeah, so I'm my next book. Um it's on the way, slowly, but it's on the way, which is about um relics. We'll just we'll just say that relics and Europe in the medieval era and a bit later than that too. So slightly related to my first book on cathedrals. Uh sort of say my second book on cathedrals, my last book on cathedrals. Um, so that's what's coming next. But I I still sort of write here and there for a magazine called Tudor Places. So I write all about Built Heritage for that. And for Welcome to Yorkshire. So I inspire people to come to Yorkshire and see our built heritage here too.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

There you go. Well, I'm sure Yorkshire will be glad of more people throttling through thronging through its little towns, it's its picture perfect towns. Well, look forward to the new book coming out when it does come out, and it'd be great to have you back on to talk about it. Great. Uh good luck with the editing process. I'm sure it's a bit of pain, but you'll get through it. And thanks so much for joining me, Emma. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Thank you very much for having me. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

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