two of us?
As I mentioned before, the prospect of returning to Marlowe House makes me uncomfortable. How to explain the period of experimentation from which this building sprang â the vision of the future we all held back then? And how to square that vision with the conditions in which its residents must live? It wonât be easy. Iâm not relishing the prospect â Iâve no idea what sort of reception Iâll receive. I only wish I had a fraction of your self-belief when it comes to facing my public. But then again, your folly at Darmstadt was inflicted on us for one evening only. My folly at Marlowe House has been inflicted on its residents for decades.
Yet we both did our best, I think â misguided and foolish though posterity might judge our efforts to have been. And, in our flawed and rather egocentric ways, I also hope that we managed to be courageous. Are we not kindred spirits, then, we two old crazies? Products of the twentieth centuryâs collective nervous breakdown? That century has passed now, and the work we produced (even we , ourselves) are its museum pieces ⦠its living exhibits.
Weâre an endangered species, you and I: the last of the old-fashioned Modernists. We need to stick together while we can. So if itâs okay with you, Iâd like to continue our correspondence. Then, like living bookends, separated by the quiet and calming distance of the page, we can ruminate on all our glorious failures.
Otto
He didnât bother reading the letter through again. Folding and sealing it into an envelope, he scrawled Laszloâs name across the front and then promptly threw it into the waste bin. Otto never posted any of his letters, nowadays. They seemed to serve a purely interior purpose.
âAnyway, Laszlo would never forgive me if I sent it,â Otto said to himself. âHeâs as touchy about his opera as Pierre is about fucking Foucault.â
The sound of these last two words pleased him, so he repeated them aloud several times to himself as he washed. The acoustics of the bathroom gave the alliteration an extra resonance. Soon the phrase had developed into a little tune. It was only when he heard a faint knocking sound on the other side of the wall, accompanied by a muffled reprimand, that he realised it was probably time to cease his singing. Glancing at the clock, he saw with horror that it was approaching one-thirty. Sheepishly, he turned off the lights and made his way silently to bed.
Ten
Otto stood on the windswept forecourt, looking up at the imposing mass of Marlowe House, and leaned a little more heavily on his cane.
âMy goodness,â he said, the words almost carried away by the sharp gust that ruffled his overcoat and hat.
He paused awhile, aware in his peripheral vision of the camera slowly circling him. Yet his focus now was all upon the building. He stepped back a pace, then another, craning his neck in order to scan the upper storeys. It was a grey day, bitter. Chip wrappers and other detritus swirled about the public space. Otto held on to the top of his homburg and squinted upwards.
âMy goodnessâ¦â
The clean lines he had once studied from his seat at the Oval cricket ground remained unmistakable. But the concrete now was streaked and badly weathered. Seen on a summerâs afternoon, perhaps, with the sunlight falling at a rakish angle, emphasising the form of the building while darkening out the details, Marlowe House could almost have been the same structure he had known in the mid-1960s. But in the flat and even light of this cold autumn morning, overcast and devoid of all covering shadow, the extent of its decline was clear to see.
Some windows were smashed; others boarded up. A large drainage pipe leaked its contents, the greenish water oozing over the concrete like a slugâs trail. Dense graffiti covered its lower reaches, including the giant circular columns that held the structure aloft.
As I mentioned before, the prospect of returning to Marlowe House makes me uncomfortable. How to explain the period of experimentation from which this building sprang â the vision of the future we all held back then? And how to square that vision with the conditions in which its residents must live? It wonât be easy. Iâm not relishing the prospect â Iâve no idea what sort of reception Iâll receive. I only wish I had a fraction of your self-belief when it comes to facing my public. But then again, your folly at Darmstadt was inflicted on us for one evening only. My folly at Marlowe House has been inflicted on its residents for decades.
Yet we both did our best, I think â misguided and foolish though posterity might judge our efforts to have been. And, in our flawed and rather egocentric ways, I also hope that we managed to be courageous. Are we not kindred spirits, then, we two old crazies? Products of the twentieth centuryâs collective nervous breakdown? That century has passed now, and the work we produced (even we , ourselves) are its museum pieces ⦠its living exhibits.
Weâre an endangered species, you and I: the last of the old-fashioned Modernists. We need to stick together while we can. So if itâs okay with you, Iâd like to continue our correspondence. Then, like living bookends, separated by the quiet and calming distance of the page, we can ruminate on all our glorious failures.
Otto
He didnât bother reading the letter through again. Folding and sealing it into an envelope, he scrawled Laszloâs name across the front and then promptly threw it into the waste bin. Otto never posted any of his letters, nowadays. They seemed to serve a purely interior purpose.
âAnyway, Laszlo would never forgive me if I sent it,â Otto said to himself. âHeâs as touchy about his opera as Pierre is about fucking Foucault.â
The sound of these last two words pleased him, so he repeated them aloud several times to himself as he washed. The acoustics of the bathroom gave the alliteration an extra resonance. Soon the phrase had developed into a little tune. It was only when he heard a faint knocking sound on the other side of the wall, accompanied by a muffled reprimand, that he realised it was probably time to cease his singing. Glancing at the clock, he saw with horror that it was approaching one-thirty. Sheepishly, he turned off the lights and made his way silently to bed.
Ten
Otto stood on the windswept forecourt, looking up at the imposing mass of Marlowe House, and leaned a little more heavily on his cane.
âMy goodness,â he said, the words almost carried away by the sharp gust that ruffled his overcoat and hat.
He paused awhile, aware in his peripheral vision of the camera slowly circling him. Yet his focus now was all upon the building. He stepped back a pace, then another, craning his neck in order to scan the upper storeys. It was a grey day, bitter. Chip wrappers and other detritus swirled about the public space. Otto held on to the top of his homburg and squinted upwards.
âMy goodnessâ¦â
The clean lines he had once studied from his seat at the Oval cricket ground remained unmistakable. But the concrete now was streaked and badly weathered. Seen on a summerâs afternoon, perhaps, with the sunlight falling at a rakish angle, emphasising the form of the building while darkening out the details, Marlowe House could almost have been the same structure he had known in the mid-1960s. But in the flat and even light of this cold autumn morning, overcast and devoid of all covering shadow, the extent of its decline was clear to see.
Some windows were smashed; others boarded up. A large drainage pipe leaked its contents, the greenish water oozing over the concrete like a slugâs trail. Dense graffiti covered its lower reaches, including the giant circular columns that held the structure aloft.
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