Teatro Alessandro Scarlatti: opera in a shed

A remarkable piece of shedworking built by Argentinian artist Pablo Bronstein, Teatro Alessandro Scarlatti is the world's smallest opera house. Bronstein constructed it as part of an art project on a hill near near Zurich with capacity for five people and a programme consisting of the 'Qui del Sol gl'infausti lampi' aria from the opera 'Agar et Ismaele Esiliati' by Alessandro Scarlatti.
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Shedworking with a buttressed veranda

Martin Lawson from Swift Garden Rooms has been in touch with this intriguing bespoke design. "Unusual and appealing shapes are formed with a buttressed veranda that extends to create a fabulous outdoor room adjoining the enclosed studio," he says. "A contrasting combination of rendering and cedar cladding adds to the impact, while the deep roof and concealed drainage makes for a particularly smooth visual line." In addition, this garden office features a climate control system.

We also rather like this recent build by Swift too which fits snugly into a garden in Manchester which used salvaged decking.
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Hugh and Lindsay Roberts: his and hers shedworkers

Lindsay and Hugh Roberts are his and hers shedworking artists based in the Scottish Borders. "My lovely new (old) workspace is a big converted static caravan which definitely qualifies as a shed," says Lindsay. "I worked on it over last autumn and winter. Hugh meanwhile has a wooden cabin in the garden - a nice generous-sized one, where he paints big bold landscapes." Lindsay worked as a handloom weaver and hand spins, creating unique yarns, as well as salvaging paper ephemera and recycling all sorts of wrappings to use in themed collages and handmade books.

You can see some of Hugh's work here and Lindsay's here as well as at her main site Tart's Art. Above and below are images of the inside of Lindsay's HQ which she describes as "a mature but stately static caravan, retired from active duty at a holiday park".

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Inside Hand Drawn Creative's garden office

We featured Bangor-based illustrator Neal McCullough of Hand Drawn Creative when he started working in a new garden office. And he's been good enough to put up pictures now that he's fully moved in to what he calls "A Nerve Centre. A crackling nucleus of creativity. The Home of Superlative Scribbles". Lots more photos at his nice blog here.

Mahler Week: Mahler's Heavenly Retreats

In this week's final post about Mahler and his garden office experiences, it seems fitting to focus on Mahler's Heavenly Retreats, a fabulous multimedia exploration of the composer's relationship to the komponierhäuschen where he worked on his music. It's the work of architect Keith James Clarke and is made up of a book, a DVD, a web site, and a CD. Together, they evaluate key places in Mahler's life (as well as a new documentary about Mahler's London), describe the reasons for their importance and demonstrate their associations with his music using archive photos and surveys. Here's what he says about it:

"The production of this book lies in my 30 years working as an architect while indulging a passion for the music of Gustav Mahler. As an architect, I'm filled with unease by much modern architecture — particularly monolithic tower blocks — and drawn to buildings of a more modest scale which, with their surroundings, make more allowance for human aspiration and celebration of life, something that Mahler had in a large quantity."

Keith also regularly lectures about the subject so keep an eye on his events page. Below you can see him (and the huts) in action.

Mahler Week: Mahler's Komponierhäuschen at Steinbach

Mahler's first composing hut was in Steinbach near Salzburg and he wrote lots of his second and third symphonies here as well as some of his Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs. “Until I went to Steinbach I didn't know how to provide myself, during the little time at my disposal, with the peace and solitude I need,” he wrote.

Mahler hired Franz Lösch to build it in 1894 on the shore of the Attersee. According to Lösch: "[Mahler] would always say: the lake had its own language, the lake talked to him. From up at the inn he couldn't hear it, so he needed to have a little house right by the shore. When he heard the lake, he composed more easily, and the compositions flowed fully formed from his head." Nicely renovated now, it was briefly used as a toilet block.
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National (Shed) Poetry Day

It's National Poetry Day today. Those of you who enjoy both sheds and stanzas should make a beeline for the work of John 'Shedman' Davies who both writes about sheds and tours the country's festivals performing from inside a shed. His collection 'Shedman' is particularly worth investigating.

Our favourite poem about garden offices and shedworking is Where Eagles Dare by Matt Harvey - in fact we liked it so much that it is included in the Shedworking book. Here it is:

A silver trail across the monitor;
Fresh mouse-droppings beneath the swivel-chair;
The view obscured by rogue japonica.
Released into the wild, where earwigs dare -

You first went freelance - and then gently feral.
You worked from home - and then wandered out again,
Roughed it with spider, ant, shrew, blackbird, squirrel
In your own realm, your micro-vatican.

No name conveys exactly what it is -
Chalet? Gazebo? You were not misled
By studios, snugs, garden offices,
Workshops or outhouses. A shed's a shed -

And proud of it. You wouldn't want to hide it -
Wifi-enable rain-proof wooden box.
A box to sit in while you think outside it -
Self-rattling cage, den, poop-deck, paradox,

Hutch with home-rule, cramped cubicle of freedom,
Laboratory, thought-palace, bodger's bower,
Plot both to sow seeds and to go to seed in,
Cobwebbed, Cuprinol-scented, Seat of Power.

Matt's excellent collection The Hole in the Sum of my Parts in which this appears is published by the Poetry Trust, nicely illustrated by David Hughes, and I would urge all readers to snap up a copy now. You can buy direct from Matt's site shop here.

And here's Dominic Taylor reciting his poem 'The Shed' during the Cuisle-Limerick City International Poetry Festival 2005, recorded by John Davis.

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