Wednesday 26 June 2024
The National Trust should act its age
Calvin Po has a most depressing but interesting Critic piece on what the increasingly ghastly National Trust has done to Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire. It's years since we were there, but the infantilism had already taken root. We'll never go back.
The National Trust should act its age
Our main heritage conservation charity wants to be down with the kids
I’ve got a soft spot for fine plasterwork. In the century since Adolf Loos’ modernist rallying cry, “ornament is crime”, it has served as a convenient figleaf for naked walls and ceilings, and a lack of imagination in our buildings. Thankfully, the decorative arts still survive in Britain’s historic homes. For a particularly sumptuous example, an acquaintance suggested a visit to the National Trust’s Sudbury Hall, in Derbyshire.
The first challenge was finding the place. Searching information on the National Trust website, I could only find “The Children’s Country House at Sudbury”. I had to double-check it was the same property. The rebrand turned out to be part of the Trust’s “renovation” initiated during lockdown. The target market is now the littlest demographic and, as a new slogan proclaims, it’s all about “having fun with history”.
The whole piece is well worth reading as a striking example of how dismally inept the National Trust can be when it really tries. It has a remarkable sixth-form assurance whenever it substitutes fashionable ideology for a more mature but more difficult task of telling it as it was.
The final straw for me was the thoughtless treatment of the Long Gallery. Undoubtedly the pinnacle of the house’s architectural drama, it spans the entire 138-foot length of both of Sudbury’s wings. Yet it was interrupted by a “selfie booth” for children to dress up as figures in the family portraits that punctuate the gallery.
The Vernon portraits have not been spared humiliation either: under each one, the poet-playwright Toby Campion has added speech bubbles with quips such as: “Looks like they’ve got me dressed in silk sheets. At least it makes me look classy”. The captions are banal and unfunny. Worse, this infantile guff was paid for with public money from the Arts Council. The children paid little of it any attention.
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6 comments:
And so it goes. My take is that only a few charities (mostly local ones) are worth supporting now - and that includes the Arts Councils. They were once worthy organisations but are now organisations of Worthies pursuing social acclaim.
No thank you.
I loved this bit:
'The inane text is content-free, containing pearls of enlightenment such as, “we welcome you to discuss thoughts and ideas, and to chat with friends”.'
That seems to be the end-point for so many organisations in our country today. Be sociable, sit down and have a chat, exchange some ideas...even though you have never been given the opportunity to acquire any ideas worth exchanging. If people have driven long distances to allow their children to dress up and ponder slavery among ignored architectural and artistic treasures, then it's worth me travelling long distances in the opposite direction to avoid them.
We had the same reaction when we visited The Deep some years ago. It may have changed since, but then it was excessively dumbed down, with bigger shoals of computers than fish.
They've caught this 'disease' from the museum world, where everything was increasingly designed around the perceived needs of children. Nothing must be serious or sombre or have gravitas. It's a world I would have hated as a child. I spent most of my career working in museums and the Nat Trust, but now, I would have nothing to do with either.
Infantile is the exact word, AKH.
DJ - we don't bother with charity giving at all now, apart from filling charity bags which come through the door, but we're only getting rid of stuff.
Sam - it's as if many people in what used to be responsible senior positions won't accept adult responsibilities. Like a fashionable miasma which hides reality and they don't mind it being hidden.
Tammly - that's it - nothing must be serious or sombre or have gravitas. As if appealing to children is an excuse for making as little effort as possible without it being too obvious.
James - yet they seem to treat it as a virtue.
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