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Wardian
Cases
Public Commissions .
The BBC and "The Ladies Paradise"
. To be aired in 2013.
The BBC will begin filming "The Ladies
Paradise" in May 2012. The drama is due to be
broadcast in 2013. If you click on the following link
you will know as much as I do
about this forthcoming drama....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/06_june/17/paradise.shtml
The commission in April 2012
for this drama was to design and make two
different Wardian Cases. They will be placed in the
department store as described in the link above, which
store is set somewhere in the north of the country .
All I know of the location is that the cases
will go to Durham. There was some talk of the cases being located
"on islands" within the store , such that the camera can
see them from all angles. The completed cases may be seen below. Planting, if
any, will be undertaken on set.
Case 1 - Octagonal
Below; The Octagonal case is 800mm tall and
500mm across the flats. That is BIG !! To try and give sense of
scale I have put a 6 litre watering can both beside and inside
the case.
Such a large case is pretty much at the
limit of what can be achieved using the "copper foil" technique. The strength of the fine
seams falls off as the glass area increases. To
compensate, I have set fine picture wire into many of
the seams to prevent the case from flexing when being
handled.
Each case took about 4 long days to
construct. The cases each have wooden base to
stand on although the bases are not shown here.
Below: Broadly similar to other cases
that I have made this one has a wooden finial
that I turned up from a spare piece of sapele.
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Below
The Octagonal case in a different setting, with
alternately, the green and
red glass towards the camera. In the r/h picture the
close fit of the single door to the case may be
seen.
Case 2 - Traditional
Below
This "Traditional" case is not dissimilar in style to the
Jane Eyre case below, though it is an altogether more complicated and ornate
structure. Unlike the octagonal case above
there is no coloured glass in it.
There is a pair of opening doors for access
and planting. The case is approximately 600mm long 400mm
deep and 400mm high.
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Jane Eyre -
Pinewood Studios
The Wardian Case ( below) was a commission
from Pinewood Studios in 2010. The brief was that it should be large, pick up
a few design cues of the period and not be overly fussy.
The
studio told me only that it was to appear in a
new film of Jane Eyre and
that it would sit on a long table in the library
of the house. At the table in this library would be sitting
the young Adele with Jane Eyre her governess .
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1229822/
19th September
2011 . Just been to see
the film - lovely and beautifully made. Sadly
the Wardian case does not enjoy the attentions of the camera
for long. Five or six seconds in the background
was, I should think, the maximum exposure it received.
This Case is some 24" long,
14" deep (355mm) and 15" high (380mm) high . There are
82 discrete pieces of glass (excluding the base) and about
3 kilos of lead solder in it. It took 3 long ish days to
make and 99% of the shape, size, angles etc were
achieved by eye. The planting includes: Maidenhair
fern, Boston fern, Asparagus fern and a small
Aspidistra.
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