There is no other building in the world remotely
like Eltham Palace. It was built in an architectural style which
was completely new and original, delightful and amusing: it is a
game of symbols and clues.
The game was devised in the 1930s by the architect John Seely for
the owners, Stephen and Virginia Courtauld, to play. In this
game, every single feature of architecture and interior design
inside the house, and on the exterior walls, and also on the
rooftop, is a clue which has a meaning which has to be
deciphered. When the clues have been decoded, we realise that
they are giving out messages about Stephen and Virginia Courtauld
; delightful, amusing messages; a paean of praise, with many
touches of humour. There are also some messages which refer to
the previous owners of the site where the old palace stood
centuries before: kings, queens, bishops, knights and so on.
The architect did not explain to Stephen and Virginia Courtauld
exactly what he was doing. Clearly he hoped that one day it would
suddenly dawn on them that a particular "decoration"
was in fact transmitting a message, and the message was saying
something beautiful or funny about them. How delightful, exciting
and thrilling it would be for them, as they decoded and
deciphered messages in every room, one by one, taking months or
years to understand what their own house was whispering about
them.
However, if the Courtaulds did indeed discover the existence of
the clues, and work out their meanings, they certainly never said
anything about them to anyone. Eventually they moved out of the
house and left England. The architect must have been disappointed
that his plan, so startlingly original, had failed.
(An order form for the book, Eltham Palace:
An Alternative Guide, is at the bottom of this
page.)
To understand this game, let us look at Virginia
Courtauld's bedroom. (Figure 1 above.) It is an odd room, with
half of it semicircular and the other half rectangular. A circle
is carved into the ceiling, with smaller concentric circles
inside it. There are raised panels in a circle around the room,
with rather strange light fittings on them. There is a niche in
the wall and inside the niche there is a tabernacle shaped like a
circular temple. There are several trees outside the windows.
The bedroom door has three panels, with a design on each one.
This door is very important, and needs to be studied carefully,
because it contains a coded message. The top panel has a design
of two letters, meaning Virginia Courtauld ... The
second panel (see Photograph 2 below) shows a circular Roman
temple - another one! It is important to notice that this temple
has a conical roof supported by a circle of pillars, with steps
leading up to it and trees nearby. If we take another look at the
bedroom itself, we see that the room has exactly the same
characteristics: the ceiling, with its concentric circles, is
meant to provide an optical illusion of a conical roof; the
raised panels in the bedroom are the pillars; outside the window
are several trees, and on the nearby landing are the stairs. So
the two top panels of the sliding door, so far, read: Virginia
Courtauld's temple ...
|
|
The temple on the door is in fact a picture of
the temple of Vesta in the Forum Boarium in Rome. (See Photograph
3 above.) It seems that we are being told that Virginia Courtauld
is like the goddess Vesta. Why? Vesta was the goddess of the
eternal flame, the flame in the hearth, bringing warmth, comfort
and hospitality. Virginia Courtauld was indeed a warm, hospitable
pe rson, welcoming many guests to her house; she was a famous
society hostess. (Virginia was Italian; are we also being told
that she was a fiery Italian lady - get it?)
|
|
The light fittings on the pillars are a
distinctive shape (see photograph 4 above) and are entwined with
flowers and leaves. The light streams upwards from them. They are
meant to be flaming torches tied to the pillars of the temple.
When we look at the third panel of the door (see Photograph 5
above), we see the same distinctive shape of the light fittings
in the pair of flaming torches, which are also entwined with
leaves and flowers. Flames are of course the symbol of Vesta. On
the fireplace there are engravings of a phoenix and a salamander,
creatures which in mythology were associated with flames. We can
now see that the complete message on the door reads, Virginia
Courtauld's ...temple of Vesta ... with flaming torches.
Now it becomes clear that every single feature in the room is
calling out to us to Think of a temple! Think of flames!
The tabernacle in the niche is telling us to Think of bread
and wine! The three symbols of Vesta were fire, bread and
wine. The symbolic meanings of every item in the room are now
very clear. Circular Roman temples consisted of an exterior, with
walls, pillars, a dome and steps; and the bedroom represents only
the exterior of the temple, not the interior. However, Roman
temples of course had an interior, which consisted of two rooms:
one for the public to use, and one for the priest. These two
rooms are also depicted as follows:
Opening the door to Virginia Courtauld's suite of rooms, there is
a tiny, circular room with a dome roof with a window in the top.
This area appears to have no function; it is not a dressing room;
its purpose was puzzling. However, this is the architect's
representation of the circular interior of the temple, which
would have a dome roof with an open space to allow light to
penetrate. It has niches on which statues could be placed.
The bathroom represents the part of the temple to be used by the
priest alone. This is where he would store the gold and other
valuable offerings from the faithful. The statue of the goddess
of the temple would also be there. This is exactly what one finds
in the bathroom: gold, and a statue of a goddess.
Now we must look at the front door of the house.
(See Photograph 6 above.) There is a row of pillars in a curve.
If in our imagination we extend the curve, it will of course
become a circle of pillars. Above the roof of the front door, but
invisible from the ground (hidden behind a stone balustrade),
there is a large dome. So the entrance is like a small slice of a
circular Roman temple. There are trees on all sides. In the
centre is a carving of a woman in Roman dress with fire, bread
and wine: it's obviously Vesta again. In this way, the front door
secretly reflects the bedroom and introduces to visitors the
theme of the goddess Vesta from the moment they arrive. It is as
though Virginia, in the secret form of Vesta, is at the door,
welcoming her guests.
We have now seen the principle on which the entire house is
designed. Every room in the house is a hidden
representation of somewhere else entirely, and once deciphered,
it is clear that the theme of each room forms a comment on one of
the owners. The theme of each room is also depicted on the
exterior of the building. Which is why, looking at the
front door (Photograph 6 above), we see that on top of the Roman
temple is a Tudor house (because one of the rooms is on the theme
of a Tudor king who owned the ancient palace). On each side is a
tall gable which is a copy of a building in Stockholm (because
one of the rooms represents a ship called The Stockholm),
but with chess pieces stuck on the end as finials (because the
site was once owned by a king, a queen, a bishop, a knight etc).
This is the most amazing piece of architecture you will probably
ever see in your life. We are not meant to admire its beauty; we
are meant to be astonished, then struggle to work out its
meaning, then laugh and say how clever and funny it is.
Incidentally, it has nothing to do with art deco; it is
completely original in style: a one-off; a work of art of the
most incredible originality and imagination.
We should also be aware that there are cross-clues, so that if we miss the meaning of one room, we will find its meaning suggested somewhere else. For instance (see Figure 8 above), in Stephen Courtauld's bedroom (which actually represents Kew Gardens), the adjoining door leading to his wife's temple-bedroom shows a picture of the circular temple which is in Kew Gardens. (You will need to look very carefully at the picture above in order to see the tiny temple, which is on the right hand edge of the door.) It is as though we are being told that the door leads to a temple. Sometimes one single clue has two or three symbolic meanings; the degree of lateral thinking of which the architect was capable is astonishing. (Actually, the wallpaper showing the temple is no longer to be seen on the adjoining door. When the room was redecorated, the section of wallpaper showing the temple was put o n the opposite wall.)
We shall now look at the dining room (see Figure 9 above) . It
is the ceiling which tells us what the dining room represents.
The ceiling outlines the shape of an impluvium in the atrium of a
Roman house, ie a rectangular opening in the roof over the
courtyard of a Roman house, where a reservoir below would collect
the rainwater. In fact everything in the room is Roman in style:
the table, the chairs, the wall table, the key pattern, the
pictures on the walls depicting Roman ruins. Why should the room
represent a Roman atrium? Because in ancient Rome there was a
building which the Romans called the Atrium of Vesta (atrium
Vestae), and which we call House of the Vestal Virgins. We are
back to the theme of Vesta again.
Virginia Courtauld was a well-known society hostess, and her
dining room was the scene of many a famous dinner party. She was
a very sociable person who liked to stay up till all hours
entertaining, though there are many stories of how her husband
used to nod off at the table.
We know that every room inside the house is also depicted in
another form on the exterior of the building, so we must now go
outside and search for the House of the Vestal Virgins depicted
on the outside. Walking round the exterior, we find it (see
Photograph 10 above): a rectangular Roman building. This 1930s
mock-Roman re-creation of the House of the Vestal Virgins is in
fact a squash court, and is built straight on to the end wall of
the genuine 15th century banqueting hall. We have simply got to
laugh.
Visitors emerging from the dining room late at night after one of
Virginia's famous dinner parties must have been astonished to
notice that on the wall a few yards away (see Photograph 11
above), was a tiny but eye-catching sculpture of the mad
hatter's tea party, complete with the dormouse asleep at the
table; an unmistakable comment on the dinner party that had just
taken place. If Virginia Courtauld had understood its meaning,
would she have been amused?
In this house, all the secret messages which describe Stephen
Courtauld are full of respect and admiration, and compare him
with the Greek god Apollo Epicurius, who was worshipped as the
god of the arts and a benefactor of mankind. Since Stephen
Courtauld was an art collector and a great benefactor of the
nation (as were many of the Courtauld family), this was a very
appropriate comparison. If Stephen Courtauld had ever succeeded
in deciphering the clues which say this, he would no doubt have
been very flattered.
Every room, every single feature of the house, inside and out,
and even the garden itself, has to be interpreted along these
lines. (It is sad that part of the garden has been redesigned
without taking this into account.) There are several more very
important themes to the house, including that of ships, in which
Virginia is depicted as the captain of a great ship, and Stephen
as a wealthy and honoured passenger.
John Seely must have waited all his life for someone to discover
the meaning of the house, but it never happened. Today, we must
regard the house as a unique and enchanting game, a walk-in
puzzle, a fantasy world which will fill us with delight,
amusement, and intellectual challenge.
What a pity that it is constantly mistaken for art deco.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
TO ORDER A COPY OF THE BOOK: ELTHAM
PALACE: AN ALTERNATIVE GUIDE,
by Judith Habgood-Everett:
Please highlight the following Order Form, then use Print,
Selection, to print out.
Send by post to Judith Habgood-Everett, 5 Woodhurst Avenue, Petts
Wood, Orpington, Kent BR5 1AR,
with a cheque for £5 made out to Judith Everett.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
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Orpington, Kent BR5 1AR.
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Alternative Guide, by Judith Habgood-Everett, price £5 each
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