INTBAU hosted the first gathering of members of the INTBAU Young Practitioners (IYP) on 8th July 2013. The event was planned to coincide with the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts (PSTA)Degree Show, on display until 12 July at 19-22 Charlotte Road in London. PSTA is one of the Prince’s Charities, sharing a building as well as many core values with INTBAU and the Prince’s Foundation, as well as the Prince’s Drawing School.
IYP member Joachim Tantau, originally from Hanover, Germany, has just completed the two-year postgraduate MA at PSTA. During the course, Joachim studied the fundamental principles of traditional art, including a solid grounding in geometry, and completed practical work in mosaics, ceramics, marquetry, and miniature painting. Many of these disciplines were entirely new to him, which afforded a very beneficial exposure to a diversity of thought, teaching, and practice. Throughout the MA programme, Joachim has retained his love of the material which originally brought him to PSTA: wood.
As evidence of this, Joachim’s main project in the exhibition is a full scale garden pavilion, mostly built of wood and based on traditional muqarnas dome constructions. The structure was created entirely by Joachim by hand, which becomes increasingly impressive as the viewer has time to appreciate the amount of forethought that went into the crafting of the structure as a whole, and of all of the small details which together give it its final form. The stalactite-like texture of the dome’s interior was created using various patterns of seven different shapes carved out of tulip wood. It took over 700 individual pieces in total to complete one section. As Joachim attested, completing the project was very like completing an enormous jigsaw puzzle!
Joachim described his project and the work of his fellow PSTA graduates to the other IYP members in attendance: Robbie Kerr, an architect at ADAM Architecture who has likewise worked extensively with wood; Robert Cox, also an architect at ADAM Architecture, and a very skilled draughtsman; and Dewi Prysor. Dewi is the most recent addition to the IYP, and is a blacksmith with a portfolio of projects that includes gates on the Thames Path, a weather vane in Poundbury, and balustrading for various projects.
As prospective future ICTP members, Robbie, Robert, Dewi, and Joachim and all other IYP members are part of the next generation of highly skilled traditional practitioners. If you are interested in joining the IYP or the ICTP, please have a look on our website or get in touch with us on intbau.members@intbau.org.
Following its display in the Degree Show, Joachim’s garden pavilion will be looking for a new home, hopefully in the garden setting for which it is intended. If you would like to learn more, you can contact Joachim directly on joachimtantau@go4more.de.
Below: IYP members and INTBAU staff in front of the garden pavilion (left to right Jim Haywood, Harriet Wennberg, Dewi Prysor, Joachim Tantau, Robert Cox, and Robbie Kerr).