King's College Chapel in Cambridge - arguably the most important late medieval building in the United Kingdom - marks an important anniversary in 2009. For in 1509, King Henry VII made a commitment to “perfourme and end al the warkes that is not yet doon in the said chirche”. The college was to be given £5000 (worth some £2.5 million in today’s money) and this huge sum enabled the building - which at that time had no antechapel, corner turrets, roof or windows - to be completed to a standard much as we see it today. The 500th anniversary of this bequest, which coincides with the 800th anniversary of the founding of Cambridge University, provides a unique opportunity to celebrate this magnificent building. So with this in mind we began to think about how best to freshly represent King's College Chapel which is already the most photographed building in Cambridge. As the starting point and inspiration for our work, we settled on the conceptual framework of Katsushika Hokusai's famous series of woodblock prints – 36 Views of Mt Fuji - first published in 1827. This seemed appropriate since Fuji and King's College Chapel are both notable landmarks, visible from considerable distances and different directions and with
| | religious and cultural significance. As with Hokusai, our aim has been not so much to illustrate the Chapel from different viewpoints as to show how varied aspects of city life occur at this time within its environ. Within the images, there are two things going on at once - aspects of Cambridge life are set against various viewpoints of the chapel itself which form a linking counterpoint or backdrop. This resonance between two synchronous observations is part of the traditional spirit of haiku. Besides making a response to the visual aspects of these images they also aim to invoke the other senses - the sound of bells, the touch of rain, etc - to make the experience of the images real and immediate. Each haiku has been presented in a strict 5-7-5 syllabic format so as to give uniformity to the series as well as to establish a rhythm and music to the poetry. Like the photographs, the haiku invoke different seasons, different times of day and different moods. As it celebrates this anniversary we hope to have also made clear that King's College Chapel, founded in the 15th Century, very much remains a vibrant, integral and important part of Cambridge city life at the beginning of the 21st Century. |
Introduction