Apollo at 50
Mar. 25th, 2019 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustlamentables sent me to Peterlee. I would have heard eventually from other sources - did, indeed, receive an e-mail about the event from arts organiser Artichoke, a whole day before it started. But it was lamentables who tipped me off well in advance, so that we could make plans to visit, that there was to be a mini-Lumiere event, illuminating Apollo Pavilion, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this masterpiece of brutalist architecture / huge concrete monstrosity (delete where not applicable). I admit to a fondness for the thing, just because it is so extreme and unreasonable. We visited it during the Heritage Open Days in 2007, when we were allowed to climb up and walk through it, which was intended in the original plan, but you know how these things go. I seem to have been ambushed by some urgent form-filling in, and not posted about it at the time. Sorry. But we went back on Saturday 
We arrived with the last of the light, parked as instructed at the school - now Shotton Hall Academy, with a fancy new building - and followed the signs for a ten minute walk through the town. There was no sign of the setting sun, just an unbroken wash of bright red-pink, stronger and brighter than the picture, a striking and impressive light effect, which is appropriate.
Here's our first view of the illuminated Pavilion, as twilight was fading into night. I think it's my favourite of all the pictures I took, which doesn't feel right: did I peak too soon? But the light is good, and the reflection, and I like the double-mirror effect of the little figure in white with the shadow in black, both repeated in the pool below.
Another, closer shot, with another figure carefully positioned: I don't know if it was the same person all the time or a relay team, but they remained in place all the time we were there, through several loops of the 8-minute projection, with the repeating vertical bars of light washing over them, and the music all around (and credit to whoever decided that the music didn't need to be painfully loud).
It wasn't all stripes, though the stripes created one of the best sequences, in which they seemed to drop into position onto the horizontal / vertical grid of the Pavilion itself, then to fall (with a clang) and bounce back into correct alignment. You'd need a video to show you that, and of course plenty of the people there were taking videos with their phones. I don't feel tempted to go down that road, but the downside of this refusal is that I was never quite ready with my camera to catch the shadow of the moon landing module as it drifted across the face of the building. Have a floral design instead:
I have no idea what it is supposed to signify.
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Date: 2019-03-25 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-26 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-28 07:01 am (UTC)I’ve been seeing pictures & video on Twitter and wondering if you made it there. And then I somehow missed this post.
I do agree with your assessment of the first picture: it’s splendid!
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Date: 2019-03-28 09:54 am (UTC)Do you get notifications when someone tags you in a post? I thought that would make sure you saw it...
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Date: 2019-03-28 10:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-28 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-29 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-29 11:48 am (UTC)Not that L'm not haooy to have your attention!