#january29 — Public Fediverse posts

#HörBerlin
#January29 / #2024
#MarcoResmann

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=meMK2a6Q5Uo

Joy Is A Recipe That's Not Quite Right

https://pixelfed.social/p/poligraf/658396923462581832?fs=1

#BecauseYouHaveToBakeAnother #365joys #joy #baking #food #vegan #veganfood #plantbased #glutenfree #WhatsCooking 🍽️🍜🌱

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#Memories #January2021 #January29

A very Edinburgh gothic horror story: the thread about the demolition of Rockville

The Merchiston Pagoda; Tottering Towers; Crazy Manor; Sugar Loaf House; the Chinese House; the Strangest House Edinburgh Ever Built. Call it what you like. Rockville is (was) one of the most important and inspired buildings in Victorian Scotland. Perhaps ever. And it was unceremoniously demolished in 1966.

Rockville‘s architect, builder and original resident was Sir James Gowans; stone mason, quarry master, builder, architect, engineer, railway contractor, theorist, philanthropist and local politician. Gowans’ father let quarries, including nearby Redhall, and James would take on the role of lessee amd quarrymaster there. He developed a deep understanding of and interest in stone as a building material and would build almost exclusively in it – the name Rockville for his new project was therefore entirely appropriate. When he set out to build it he used not only his own stone, but reputedly stone from a quarry in every county in Scotland, as well as from England, the Continent and as far away as China.

It’s hard to summarise how important Rockville is. Or was. On the face of it, it looks like an extreme expression of Victorian Gothic, the romantic fever dream of a madman. But this belies the fact it is actually a structure of incredible rationality, whose design adhered rigidly to strict system of geometry, repetition, patterns and materials. It has as much in common with the work and theories of the Modernist Le Corbusier as it does with some of his Victorian contemporaries.

James’ theories formed a complete system of design and building – and Rockville was the ultimate expression of this. The whole house rigidly conformed to a rule of 2ft x 2ft units, a room could not be 3 times longer than it was wide or 1½ times taller – it had to be in twos. The gingerbread house effect on the exterior of Rockville was actually a dressed stone framework carefully infilled with decorative rubble and this “skeleton” formed the basic unit of the house. Everything else in the entire building was some sort of multiple or fraction of that. The house was 26 units (or 52 feet) wide. its two principle storeys each 7 units (14 feet) tall. From the front, the projecting right bay was 9 units wide, the central bay 7, the entranceway 6 and the tower 4. The top of the cupola which capped the tower reached a height of 33 units or 66 feet.

There was no angle in his house that wasn’t a right angle, or a limited division thereof. It had to be 0°, 30°, 45° etc. and nothing inbetween. All the mouldings were based on right angles, regular octagons or circles (or halfs thereof). The only places where James allowed himself to break his system was on the mansard rooflines (where the overall profile was a triangle with sides at 60°, but there is a steeper section with a slight flares at the bottom to help with runoff) and the base of the cupola atop the tower, which also had a slight flare to its lower profile.

I won’t go on too much about the house here – I’ll do that in another thread more dedicated to the details of the house, but suffice to say some of James Gowans’ ideas were a century ahead of their time. He went from building rather dull and predictable Georgian New Town blocks to Rockville almost out of nowhere, in only a few years. His inventiveness, skill and understanding of the materials he worked with, strong sense of colour (the house glistened green or red or gold or silver in the light depending on how the sun caught his carefully selected stones.) and his attention to quality and perfection marked him out. His biographer, Duncan McAra, says he was “not only one of the most important of Scotland’s Architects, but one of the most original European Master Builders of the 19th century“. And Rockville was his most important creation – it was Gowans in its purest form.

James built Rockville for himself and his young family but his wife, Elizabeth Mitchell, tragically died in 1858 before they had moved in, drowning in her bath in a house they were renting in Greenbank at the time. She was the daughter of another railway contractor, James Mitchell of Ross & Mitchell, a tunnelling expert who had built the Scotland Street Tunnel. Gowans would remarry and with his children, new wife and the family that followed, settled down to a good life at Rockville.

He was a successful business man, a builder, quarrymaster, railway engineer or architect as required, but sometimes his schemes did not come off as intended. Ultimately he over-reached himself. Together with Frederick Thomas Pilikington – another rogue architect with an uncanny skill with stone – he designed and overly-invested in a new theatre for the city he loved. The concept of the New Edinburgh Theatre, winter gardens and aquarium was ahead of its time and far too big for the city and the venture soon failed. James lost heavily on it. He organised the city’s International Exhibition of 1886, which was a triumph, but again he put too much of his own time, effort and money into this project and it broke him; financially and physically. He was bankrupted and had to move out of Rockville and let it, his health was never to be the same again and four years later he was dead from the prostasis that he had long been suffering from.

Rockville was initially used as a preparatory school for the entrance exams for the Civil Service and Army Commissions, but soon found a careful new owner in a family who had a similar mindset around public service as James did. This was the Harrison family headed by Dr John Harrison CBE LLD, (1847-1922) and who moved into the house in 1891. John was the son of Sir George Harrison, former Lord Provost – if you’ve ever wondered where Harrison Park or Harrison Road get their names, it’s from Sir George. John was a two times Town Councillor, two times runner up for the election of Lord Provost, and a council member of the Old Edinburgh Club.

The Harrisons added an extra bathroom, a garage for a car and electric and Rockville remained fundamentally unchanged. His widow and daughters lived on there after John’s death in 1922 and its last permanent resident, Helen Roberts (Mrs John Harrison) died in January 1949. At this juncture, the house was put up for sale; it would never again have a long-term occupant. In May, Lyon & Turnbull listed for auction a huge array of “SUPERIOR HOUSEHOLD FURNISHINGS” including the “silver removed from Rockville” as the house’s contents began to be dispersed.

The house then came into new ownership and was partitioned and sublet. Occupants came and went: Newton; Crawford; Brown. Classified adverts in the Evening News throughout the 1950s list various items of furniture and clothing for sale from the address. The house was in decline however; Gowans’ masonry was true and sound but the interior timbers had dry rot. In 1960 it was purchased by Mr Raj Bodasing, a retiree sugar cane farmer from South Africa who moved in with his family, and for a brief spell it was once again a single family home. However Raj’s untimely death in 1962 saw the house sold again. In 1962, on the same day that it was announced that the Corporation were preparing a Building Preservation Order to conserve Charlotte Square, a proposal was refused to demolish Rockville and replace it with a Mormon church for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Scottish Development Department blocked this application and the house went back on the market. However being unoccupied it rapidly began to deteriorate further and was soon on its way to becoming just another decaying Victorian villa in a city filled with decaying Victorian villas.

In 1963 it was purchased by the local building company James Miller & Partners. Now known as Miller Homes, this was the company of former Lord Provost Sir James Miller who had built much of interwar suburban Edinburgh. Millers let it be known that their plan was one of demolition and replacement. Local Councillor Maurice Heggie, for the Progressives, and a group of architects including Alan Reiach spoke up for the conservation of the house. He noted that while a number of Napier Road residents considered it “a monstrosity which should be pulled down“, it could make an ideal addition to Napier Technical College. Patrick Murray, curator of the Museum of Childhood, said Rockville was a test-case for the conservation of more recent historic buildings (at this stage it was only 106 years old).

Millers were unmoved and on August 6th 1965, the Dean of Guild Court, an institution once chaired by Gowans, granted permission to them to demolish Rockville. There was an instant howl of public outrage. Millers were at this time still very much an Edinburgh company, with a reputation to maintain, so as a conciliatory gesture, director Roger Miller wrote to the Scotsman on August 10th announcing that the company was willing to sell the building, at cost, to any society prepared to face the cost of its preservation and adaptation for public use. A three month deadline, expiring in November that year, was set.

November came and went, and no offers were forthcoming. Millers had not yet decided when the house would be demolished so in the meantime, three local students set about raising a petition to have it publicly preserved. Douglas May (19) and Raymond Fraser (18) were studying law and 19 year old David Alves, Art. They had spoken to that outspoken advocate for the preservation of Victorian architecture, Sir John Betjeman, and he had encouraged them that the majority of preservation societies just did not have the money to buy and renovate the house and that state support was needed. The students collected 2,500 signatures and hoped that the Corporation might be enticed to buy the house and preserve it as a museum of Victoriana and public garden. Someone else suggested that it should instead be offered to Disneyland in the hope they might move it stone-by-stone to the US.

But Millers were running out of patience, they had a business to run and a bottom line to serve. On January 12th 1966, the Scotsman reported Roger Miller as saying demolition would come “very soon” – the structure’s condition had been made worse by fire-raising by vandals in previous weeks. The students lodged their petition with the Corporation to try and have a stay of execution granted to allow them to present a plan to have the house bought by the City and converted into a children’s home, funded by a public appeal for £25-35,000 for renovation, and have the building placed into trust under the auspices of “a national charity“. The Corporation’s Planning Sub-Committee rejected this on January 19th. On January 27th, the vultures moved in to pick over the carcase of Rockville, the Scotsman reporting that bulk of its Victoriana was “trundled off in lorries to London dealers“, leaving little for local sale. On the 29th, a “gang of Cockney demolition workers” moved in; the lead was stripped from the roof and the rain poured in while the Scotsman’s reporter looked upon the wrecking squad ripping up the dance floor. Miller’s wrecking ball did the rest.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/monochrome_trains/4588896602/

Millers erased Rockville and ploughed up and levelled its gardens. In its place they erected 3 very mundane blocks of flats quaintly insipid named “the Limes” (Rockville was famed for its Pinetum, not its Lime trees). Gowans’ beautiful, signature gateposts remain, like the gateway to a cemetery someone has desecrated by building upon. Perhaps the greatest insult to Gowans’ memory and ideals was that the brick he had fought so hard to keep out of the city as Lord Dean of Guild Court was used to build upon the grave of Rockville, complete with a cladding of synthetic Fifestone.

It has been said that the end of Rockville was inevitable – just another Victorian villa when people wanted bright new things. The irony is that Gowans’ rigid adherence to his geometric theory, his building system and his prefabrication made Rockville right at home in the 1960s. That year, the city further danced upon the grave of his career by spending £30,000 demolishing the Synod Hall, the former New Edinburgh Theatre that almost ruined him. Sadly it turns out that they demolished one failed concert hall to make way for another, which in turn failed and would never be built. Instead a painful gap site was opened in the city and lay there for almost the next 30 years. To complete the addition of insult to injury, a few years previously they had spent £386,000 building a multi-storey car park upon the Castle Terrace Gardens, a strip of land that James Gowans had purchased at his own expense to form a pleasant public garden for the street.

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"Thank you @NCCM for organizing tonight's event on Parliament Hill for The National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia.

"Good to see everyone come together against hate."

— Salma Zahid, Member of Parliament for Scarborough Centre

| #SalmaZahid #Scarborough #ScarbTO #ScarboroughCentre #cdnpoli #Canada #January29 #Jan29 #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #Islamophobia #NCCM #ParliamentHill

Islamophobia is a problem across Canada and beyond.

Politicians trying to divide Canadians on the anniversary of the Quebec City Mosque massacre is beyond disappointing.

Thank you Jagmeet Singh for focusing on the need for unity to fight against hate,

And for not using the occasion to divide people.

| #Islamophobia #JagmeetSingh #Canada #cdnpoli #January29 #QuebecCityMosqueAttack

"On the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia,

"Town of Oakville Town Hall is lit up in green to commemorate the victims and survivors of the mosque attack.

"We stand with Muslim Canadian communities against hate and racism."

— Rob Burton, Mayor of Oakville, Ontario

| #RobBurton #TownOfOakville #Oakville #Ontario #Canada #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #Islamophobia #January29 #cdnmuni #cdnpoli

At the commemoration at the Quebec City mosque,

We were reminded of the strength and beauty of our communities and the steadfast hope in a future without Islamophobia.

Perhaps the most striking moment of the night was the deeply moving remarks of Aymen Derbali.

Aymen was there that night when the gunman opened fire on the congregation.

He took several bullets in an attempt to save other worshippers.

| #AymenDerbali #January29 #Islamophobia #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #QuebecCityMosqueAttack

"Today, the Toronto Sign is lit green in commemoration of the Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia."

— Mayor of Toronto

| #CityOfToronto #Toronto #TOpoli #Islamophobia #GreenSquareCampaign🟩 #January29 #cdnmuni #Ontario #Canada #TorontoSign #NathanPhillipsSquare #TorontoCityHall

"At the request of @NCCM,

The City of Vaughan has illuminated City Hall green this evening in recognition of the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia."

— Steven Del Duca, Mayor of Vaughan, Ontario

| #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #Islamophobia #StevenDelDuca #VaughanOntario #Vaughan #Ontario #Canada #January29 #cdnmuni #cdnpoli

"Last night & over the past week,

"Kitchener City Hall & Carl Zehr square

"Were lit green to commemorate the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and taking Action Against Islamophobia.

"We must never forget the victims & their families."

— Berry Vrbanovic, Mayor of Kitchener, Ontario

| #BerryVrbanovic #CityOfKitchener #Kitchener #KitchenerON #cdnmuni #cdnpoli #Ontario #Canada #January29 #Islamophobia #OurLondonFamily #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​

"Ibrahima Barry,

Mamadou Tanou Barry,

Khaled Belkacemi,

Abdelkrim Hassane,

Azzedine Soufiane,

and Aboubaker Thabti

were fathers, husbands, friends, Quebecers, and Muslims – and their lives were cut short six years ago.

Today, we came together in Quebec City to honour their memory."

— Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

| #JustinTrudeau #January29 #Jan29 #Islamophobia #cdnpoli #Canada #QuebecCityMosqueAttack #QuebecCity #Quebec #CCIQ #QuebecCityMosque #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​

"Today I am wearing a Green Square to honour Abdelkrim, Aboubaker, Azzedine, Ibrahima, Khaled & Mamadou - six Muslim Canadians who were killed five years ago in their place of worship in Quebec City.

"Together we must combat hate & stand against Islamophobia."

— Lisa Marie Barron, Member of Parliament for Nanaimo-Ladysmith

| #LisaMarieBarron #Nanaimo #YCD #cdnpoli #BritishColumbia #Canada #January29 #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #Islamophobia

"On this National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack,

"It is important to honour and remember those whose lives were lost six years ago.

"We will continue to stand up for the dignity of all Canadians and work towards a society that is welcoming and inclusive to everyone."

— Paul Chiang, Member of Parliament for Markham-Unionville

| #PaulChiang #Markham #Unionville #January29 #Islamophobia #QuebecCityMosqueAttack #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #cdnpoli

As evening falls on January 29th,

Take a moment to remember the fallen tonight by visiting one of these monuments that will be lit green.

Thanks to all that have lit their monuments in green as part of the #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ to commemorate the 2017 Quebec City attack,

Which took the lives of six worshippers.

Remembering them is the first step toward change.

Tag us (@NCCM) in your photos and videos.

| #NCCM #January29 #Jan29 #GreenSquare🟩​ #Canada

"On this National Day of Remembrance of the Québec City Mosque Attack and Action against Islamophobia,

"We must reaffirm our commitment to fight Islamophobia, discrimination & hate.

"Hate has no place in Canada."

— Patrick Brown, Mayor of Brampton, Ontario

| #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #GreenSquare🟩​ #PatrickBrown #Brampton #PeelRegion #Islamophobia #January29 #Ontario #Canada #cdnpoli #cdnmuni

"Because Islamophobia has no place in Canada,

"And we must continue our work to help Muslims feel safe.

"So today,

"Let’s also reflect on the progress we’ve made – and the work that remains – to build a better, more inclusive, and safer Canada.

"My statement: https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2023/01/29/statement-prime-minister-national-day-remembrance-quebec-city-mosque

— Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

| #JustinTrudeau #January29 #Islamophobia #cdnpoli #Canada #QuebecCityMosqueAttack

"On the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia,

"We pay tribute to the people whose lives were cut short six years ago.

"We stand with their loved ones and the Muslim community.

"And we recommit to putting an end to Islamophobia. ...

— Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

| #JustinTrudeau #January29 #Islamophobia #cdnpoli #Canada #QuebecCityMosqueAttack

"On January 29 we mark the National Day of remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque attack and action against Islamophobia.

"Six years later,

"Many Muslims still live in fear.

"Hatred has consequences, and we must continue our efforts to combat Islamophobia in Canada"

— Hon. Ahmed Hussen,

Minister of Housing and Diversity & Inclusion

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/news/2023/01/statement-by-minister-hussen-on-the-national-day-of-remembrance-of-the-quebec-city-mosque-attack-and-action-against-islamophobia.html

| #AhmedHussen #January29 #Islamophobia #Canada #cdnpoli #QuebecCityMosqueAttack

"Today on National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia,

"We mourn the innocents lost during the attack in Quebec City.

"Manitoba is committed to continue fighting to end Islamophobia and hate of all forms."

— Heather Stefanson, Premier of Manitoba

— Obby Khan, MLA for Fort Whyte

| #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #HeatherStefanson #ObbyKhan #MBpoli #FortWhyte #Manitoba #Canada #Islamophobia #January29

"Today on National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia,

"We mourn the innocents lost during the attack in Quebec City.

"Manitoba is committed to continue fighting to end Islamophobia and hate of all forms."

— Heather Stefanson, Premier of Manitoba

— Obby Khan, MLA for Fort Whyte

| #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #HeatherStefanson #ObbyKhan #MBpoli #FortWhyte #Manitoba #Canada #Islamophobia #January29

"Today on National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia,

"We mourn the innocents lost during the attack in Quebec City.

"Manitoba is committed to continue fighting to end Islamophobia and hate of all forms."

— Heather Stefanson, Premier of Manitoba

— Obby Khan, MLA for Fort Whyte

| #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #HeatherStefanson #ObbyKhan #MBpoli #FortWhyte #Manitoba #Canada #Islamophobia #January29

"Today on National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia,

"We mourn the innocents lost during the attack in Quebec City.

"Manitoba is committed to continue fighting to end Islamophobia and hate of all forms."

— Heather Stefanson, Premier of Manitoba

— Obby Khan, MLA for Fort Whyte

| #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #HeatherStefanson #ObbyKhan #MBpoli #FortWhyte #Manitoba #Canada #Islamophobia #January29

"Today on National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia,

"We mourn the innocents lost during the attack in Quebec City.

"Manitoba is committed to continue fighting to end Islamophobia and hate of all forms."

— Heather Stefanson, Premier of Manitoba

— Obby Khan, MLA for Fort Whyte

| #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #HeatherStefanson #ObbyKhan #MBpoli #FortWhyte #Manitoba #Canada #Islamophobia #January29

Today marks the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action against Islamophobia and the sixth anniversary of the attack on Januaary 29th, 2017, that took the lives of six worshippers.

As we reflect on the fight against Islamophobia and hate, we start with remembering our brothers’ names,

Some who perished while trying to stop the gunman from claiming more lives.

| #IRememberJan29​ #Islamophobia #GreenSquareCampaign🟩 #GreenSquare🟩 #Quebec #Canada #January29 #jan29

Thanks to all that have lit their monuments in green as part of the Green Square Campaign 🟩​ to commemorate the 2017 Quebec City attack,

Which took the lives of six worshippers.

Remembering them is the first step toward change.

Join our campaign & light your local monument green.

Thank You.

Visit our website for an up-to-date list of monuments.

https://www.nccm.ca/monument-lighting/

| #GreenSquareCampaign🟩​ #GreenSquare🟩​ #January29 #cdnmuni

It will also be the second year that commemorates January 29th as the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia.

We can always do more to remember.

Start by joining our Green Square Campaign.

| #GreenSquareCampaign #Islamophobia #January29 #jan29 #cdnpoli

Later this month,

It will be the sixth anniversary of the Quebec City mosque massacre that shook the entire Muslim community in Canada.

| #GreenSquareCampaign #GreenSquare #NCCM #cdnpoli #Jan29 #January29 #QuebecCityMosqueAttack #Islamophobia

The victims of the Jan 29th, 2017 attack on the Quebec City mosque perished as they stood to pray.

They are survived by those who are trying to build a future without hate.

Over the next two weeks,

We here at NCCM will launch our annual Green Square Campaign.

https://www.NCCM.ca/greensquare/

| #GreenSquareCampaign #GreenSquare #NCCM #cdnpoli #Jan29 #January29 #QuebecCityMosqueAttack #Islamophobia

Today's Friday Congregational Prayer

At Sayeda Khadija Centre in Mississauga, Peel Region, Ontario

The National Council of Canadian Muslims ( @NCCM )

NCCM was asking Congregants to consider signing this Letter to the Prime Minister:

https://www.nccm.ca/hate-support-fund/

Today I also began wearing my Green Square to Jumah...

https://www.nccm.ca/greensquare/

...Remembering the Quebec City Mosque Attack Anniversary on January 29 2023.

| #GreenSquareCampaign #GreenSquare #NCCM #cdnpoli #Jumah #Jan29 #January29