Cole Fawcett

Overview

The paragraph should give a three to five sentence abstract about your entire London HUA experience including 1) a summary of the aims of your project, 2) your prior experience with humanities and arts courses and disciplines, and 3) your major takeaways from the experience.

Milestone 1

London's Architectual Preservation of History
Objective: To address and analyze how and why London has successfully preserved and upheld its most ancient landmarks, rescuing them from natural erosion and deconstruction.

Below the objective statement, Insert a one or two paragraph summary of your findings from having reached this milestone. Edit the link below to link to your milestone page.
Read More

Milestone 2

Title of this Milestone
Objective: replace this text with a one-sentence statement that summarized your main objective for this milestone such as "a comparison of the text of Medieval English choral music to that of the Baroque" or it may be a question such as "to what extent did religion influence Christopher Wren's sense of design?"

Below the objective statement, Insert a one or two paragraph summary of your findings from having reached this milestone. Edit the link below to link to your milestone page.
Read More

Milestone 3

Title of this Milestone
Objective: replace this text with a one-sentence statement that summarized your main objective for this milestone such as "a comparison of the text of Medieval English choral music to that of the Baroque" or it may be a question such as "to what extent did religion influence Christopher Wren's sense of design?"

Below the objective statement, Insert a one or two paragraph summary of your findings from having reached this milestone. If this milestone, for you, represents a humanities and arts capstone, please indicate so. Edit the link below to link to your milestone page.
Read More

Activity Journal

The activity journal represents an ongoing log of reflections gained through each and every project activity on the calendar.

Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and the British Library

Monday, May 8th, 2017

Today, as a whole group London HUA group, we visited Westminster Abby. I was taken aback by the sheer number of notable and famous figures interned all within the Abbey's walls. The scale of how much history is concentrated in such a place is nothing sort of remarkable. A place where royal marriages occur mere feet from the graves of the likes of Chaucer and Newton.

The Tower of London, specifically the White Tower within, holds the title of London’s oldest standing building. Despite this, or maybe as a result, the building itself seems to almost meld with the landscape. Nearly one thousand years old now, this ancient work of Norman architecture serves as a beautiful juxtaposition against the post-modern design of the city surrounding it.

Upon entering the doors of the The British Library, the eye is drawn the library’s crowning centerpiece, The King’s Library. A massive column of an uncountable number of books upon books dated centuries old. A monument to preservation as well as exhibition, this display remains behind thick glass and locked doors as if to all at once tempt and deny such knowledge.

British Museum

Tuesday, May 9th, 2017

The British Museum’s entrance itself seems to command some classical authority with its Greek inspired mausoleum front entrance. Boasting exhibits across the worlds ancient cultures to exhibits on modern issues, The British Museum deftly and beautifully captures a monumental swath of human history. Nowhere is this more clear than in the museums "Enlightenment Room." Essentially a glorified hallway with the width of a small ballroom, literary works and art from around the world over the 18th century line the museum's enlightenment room's walls. Pieces and works of all kinds in the vein of enlightenment values of a broader worldly understanding emphasize a unique time when the concept of worldly awareness and recording came to global conscience. Ancient atlases, artifacts from distant trade, and art of all types dominate the space to a point that visitors can't help but be totally enveloped in the wonder of human achievement all cooped up in one room.

Saint Paul's Cathedral

Wednesday, May 10th, 2017

Saint Paul’s Cathedral, as a whole, felt more like a quaint amalgamation of a gallery as well as a cathedral. Art pieces from sculptures to murals to video installations punctuate Saint Paul’s, filling up and adding to an otherwise empty space. These works help bring the cathedral to the modern day in tackling modern issues of immigration, world conflict, and climate change. At the same time as the cathedral exhibits the work of others, the building itself stands as a gorgeous piece of art all its own. Remarkable engineering and inspiring design choices like the cathedral’s Baroque Architecture.

National Gallery

Thursday, May 11th, 2017

The National Gallery presents an almost Alice-in-wonderland-esque experience of artistic exploration. Working down from the top floor, works from artists like Leonardo De Vinci and Raphael blend into Claude and Titan into Monet and Van Gogh. An almost spiritual silence exists around the works in the National Gallery, which only serves to benefit all those involved. In touring the gallery, I found myself getting lost, quite literally. The Gallery as a whole allows for the slow digestion of how painting and sculpture metamorphosed with the renaissance and movements like impressionism and pointillism. Because of how gigantic the gallery's collection is, the experience as a whole benefits from not simply rushing through every exhibit to see the most art pieces possible. In touring, I felt almost like I was visiting an elaborate indoor park catered by the greatest works of the greatest painters of their time.

Natural History Museum

Friday, May 12th, 2017

Walking through the front doors of London's Natural History Museum seemed to transport me back to the visits to the Science Museum back in home in Saint Paul, Minnesota. A clear hands-on experience is encouraged in every single one of the Natural History Museum's exhibits. Whether to simulate how tectonic plates shift and cause earthquakes or to examine what factors account of the formation and stability of a ecosystem's watershed, the museum makes certain there is an interactive component to education within its walls. Designed for energetic infants to curious elderly, The Natural History Museum welcomes all those who seek to share in the science and the knowledge spanning its colossal range of subjects. The museum contains exhibits on the following (just to name a few): Marine biology, prehistoric zoology, ornithology, earth science, human history, and geology.

Tate Britain

Monday, May 15th, 2017

Tate Britain seeks to concisely consolidate art history from the fifteen hundreds to present day. While efficiently conveying art's turbulent change and reshaping over the last five-hundred years seems an almost insurmountable task, Tate Britain proves more than capable of getting the job done. walking to the end of Tate Britain's central hallway, by tracing a path in an anti-clockwise direction follows the arrow of time starting in the year of our lord 1500. The biggest jump in style can be undisputedly experienced with the turning of the new millennium. Realism gently paired with abstraction muddies into self-aware pure abstraction. For better or worse, walking with the flow of time informs a more complete experience than any one single exhibit could convey. The whole gallery as a whole becomes an almost meta work of art about the art itself.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Tuesday, May 16th, 2017

The Victoria and Albert Museum prides itself as a hub of art and style from the medieval to modern age. This museum did a elegant job of dividing exhibit along lines of culture, technique, and age. Yet, the building remarkably remains consistent in its method of presentation, with modern pieces receiving no more of a spotlight than more elderly pieces or visa versa.

I was particularly drawn to the unique architecture exhibit. Just as a result of how immense and all-emcompassing architecture is as an art form, museums or places similar often have a difficult time displaying architecture in a closed exhibition room. The V&A comes to a balanced compromise between a purely outside or inside experience by propping up elements of historic buildings like doors and pillars along side an architecture photo gallery. These photographs were taken soon after practical photography became more readily available and people were drawn to capture architecture of the day and past in hopes of securing a preservation of these sites. Old German castle ruins to London streets are captured alike on the faded film.

Tate Modern

Wednesday, May 17th, 2017

An overbearing modern sentiment purveys every inch of Tate Modern. The central room of Tate Modern harkens back to the style of a industrial warehouse devoid of art or ornamentation. Overall, I felt this gallery's out and inward appearance exuded a brutal sense of taking art as seriously as possible. However, I was delighted to find a excited curiosity to every exhibit I had time to visit. One thing I really enjoy about modern art as an experience is the genre as a whole demands a response as much as its pieces. Tate Modern may not be for everyone, but it remains a place were questions continue to be raised and difficult conversations are shared across people of all kinds.

Museum of London

Thursday, May 18th, 2017

Proving highly self-explanatory, the Museum of London documents and guides visitors through the history of London. Working of fossil records and pre-history artifacts, the Museum of London's top floor dedicated to detailing human life on the land that would become London and its growth through roman invasion and medieval England into the renaissance. The bottom floor documents the economic, fashion, and political changes from the 1840s to 2013. As a whole, this museum offers a well crafted retrospective on what lead to what is now the city of London.