May 18, 2006
What is the visual equivalent of a sound-bite? It ought to be eye-candy. The O3 Gallery is decidedly bijou and eye-candy is what it will be offering to people who pop in for a quick shot of culture in between their visits to the coffee shops, wine-bars and restaurants of the new plaza. There’s nothing wrong with this. The gallery is accessible, not intimidating; its scale is intimate and its small size means that it can host smaller, one-man shows by local artists. It consists of two floors at the bottom of a round stone tower. I rather wish I could smack the designer who thought of painting the interior dark grey – the walls are unadorned and would normally be the pale gold of other Oxford limestone buildings – but I suppose if you make the walls look ugly and boring people will pay more attention to the art work on display.
The several examples of Jude Wall’s work on the transformation of Oxford’s abandoned prison into a stylish boutique hotel left you wanting more, which you could get by purchasing the book of her photos for a very reasonable £15. The photographs do not purport to be a record of the process of transformation – which in a way is a pity because that would have been quite interesting. They are dark, haunting, almost elegiac – much more Before than After of this titanic makeover project. She wanted to record the grimness and the lingering atmosphere of grief and pain in the deserted prison, and she has done this very well, while at the same time capturing the inadvertent beauties of its architecture.
Seeing what was there before gives you a sense of unexpectedly vertiginous perspective on what is there now. One can only salute the outrageous boldness of the designers of the Malmaison hotel chain who came up with idea of getting people to pay from £140 per night to stay in a converted prison cell (well, two converted prison cells actually – of course single cells were not big enough to take double beds). They are cheekily and cheerily up-front about the building’s original purpose – the doors of the hotel rooms are the original cell doors, complete with (non-functioning) giant bolts and (obscured) peepholes, and the central area of the cell-block, complete with metal walkways and staircases, is unmistakeably familiar from the opening sequence of Porridge.
Jude Wall worked on the project for three years, and if anything I felt slightly disappointed that she hadn’t taken more pictures than the few on display and the few more in her book. But, if you’re popping in for a pizza, pop in to O3 Gallery too – it’s well worth a look.
The several examples of Jude Wall’s work on the transformation of Oxford’s abandoned prison into a stylish boutique hotel left you wanting more, which you could get by purchasing the book of her photos for a very reasonable £15. The photographs do not purport to be a record of the process of transformation – which in a way is a pity because that would have been quite interesting. They are dark, haunting, almost elegiac – much more Before than After of this titanic makeover project. She wanted to record the grimness and the lingering atmosphere of grief and pain in the deserted prison, and she has done this very well, while at the same time capturing the inadvertent beauties of its architecture.
Seeing what was there before gives you a sense of unexpectedly vertiginous perspective on what is there now. One can only salute the outrageous boldness of the designers of the Malmaison hotel chain who came up with idea of getting people to pay from £140 per night to stay in a converted prison cell (well, two converted prison cells actually – of course single cells were not big enough to take double beds). They are cheekily and cheerily up-front about the building’s original purpose – the doors of the hotel rooms are the original cell doors, complete with (non-functioning) giant bolts and (obscured) peepholes, and the central area of the cell-block, complete with metal walkways and staircases, is unmistakeably familiar from the opening sequence of Porridge.
Jude Wall worked on the project for three years, and if anything I felt slightly disappointed that she hadn’t taken more pictures than the few on display and the few more in her book. But, if you’re popping in for a pizza, pop in to O3 Gallery too – it’s well worth a look.