Architecture and car design are inextricable, although the styles employed rarely leak from one discipline to the next. True, the architecture critic Jonathan Meades once morosely described Robert Opron's Citroën CX as 'the last Gothic car. And Thomas Ingenlath's Polestars look, from some angles, like a John Pawson sketch for a minimalist bathroom in Tokyo. But I am wondering whether there may be something else, something more fundamental, in the urge to make both buildings and machines. Something that operates at a pre-intellectual, perhaps even genetic level. And this is how I came to be thinking about Harry Ricardo (1885-1974), whose academic study of flamepaths in enclosed vessels led to an understanding of the composition of petrol that, in turn, led to 'octane' categorisation. Octane? A useful word! And here we all are.
Ricardo, a descendant of Sephardic Jews from Portugal longsettled here, had a distinguished family: an ancestor was the author of the 1817 best-seller On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. When Harry was 20, his father, the architect Halsey Ricardo (1854-1928), was completing a house in Holland Park for the department store tycoon Ernest Ridley Debenham. It is clad in Royal Doulton Carrara tiles and Burmantofts bricks.
Bu hikaye Octane dergisinin September 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Octane dergisinin September 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Will China Change Everything? - China is tearing up modern motor manufacture but is yet to make more than a ripple in the classic car world. That could be about to change dramatically
China now dominates the automotive world in a way even Detroit in its heyday would have struggled to comprehend.Helped by Government incentives, the new car world is dominated by China's industries: whether full cars that undercut Western models by huge amounts, ownership of storied European brands such as Lotus and Volvo, or ownership and access to the vast majority of raw materials that go into EV cars, its influence is far-reaching and deep. However, this automotive enlightenment hasn't manifested itself in the classic world in any meaningful way - until now.
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