Preserving the un-preservable at Station X
by catherine croft
I’m intrigued to know more about the current exhibition at Milton Keynes–it’s the result of a collaboration between installation artist Maya Ramsay, sound artist Caroline Devine, photographer Rachael Marshall and film maker Luke Williams. They have been documenting the current state of the WWII code-breakers’ huts at Bletchley Park, aiming to capture something of the very special atmosphere that will inevitably be lost when the restoration project at this extraordinary site gets underway. The C20 has advised on the restoration, which aims to be as light-touch as possible, but these very fragile structures (which were only ever planned to be temporary) will inevitably need to change to a considerable extent. The artists’ works include surfaces lifted from the walls of the buildings, recordings of sounds produced by and within the decaying buildings, and photographic and filmed documentation of the buildings.
Details here http://www.mkgallery.org/news/article/2012_04_27/station_x/, including a link to the Today programme interview with the artists on site.
In WWII thousands of wooden huts were imported from Canada. Many of these huts lasted well into the seventies. If the original huts have rotted why not get some duplicates from Canada again? If the wood was pressure treated with preservative (not done during the war) the huts might last for fifty years or more.