Alexon House: ‘Steinbergs’ : steel, cardboard, audio, 2010.
He had quite often found himself in the grip of dangerous and incomprehensible currents of emotion in the Parisian railway stations, which he said he regarded as places marked by both blissful happiness and profound misfortune…making this comment on what he once later described as his obsession. W.G Sebald ‘Austerlitz’
Architecture is most alive, most meaningful when on the point of collapse. Bernard Tschumi
My own ‘obsession’ is that I am often drawn to everyday places that may no longer function as originally intended and remain largely unnoticed. I seem to thrive on the poetic, historic, andhuman narratives implied and discovered, especially in exploring disused and derelict buildings.
Alexon House: ‘Steinbergs’
Alexon House, or the MEAD / Steinberg clothing factory in Hawthorn, near Pontypridd has been a completely chance encounter with a building I first glimpsed from the A470. This simple, but striking example of post-deco ‘streamline modern’ architecture, built in 1949 was an optimistic response to the austerity of the war years; its glass tower, a beacon of new hope and a promise of a better future.
At its height of success, the Russian-Jewish firm of Alexander Steinberg and Sons employed 1200 people to manufacture Alexon womens clothing at their Hawthorn factory, offering training and secure employment: the workers had their own purpose built canteen, radio station, bus services and football team. Here was a vibrant yet compliant community, where you worked unquestioningly within the factory structures and systems, or you would not work at all.
What I found were bare remains and traces: No machinery, no production benches, no signs of the once thriving community – just a vast desolate factory floor, converted into a weather-beaten storage depot, for recalled out of season stock, now manufactured abroad. All in transit and awaiting uncertain dispatch to cut price outlets in a last attempt to attain some worth and value. A place existing on borrowed time, with just five remaining employees.
As I became a welcomed regular to the factory and my interests became known, stories and memories began to trickle, then flood through; my initial impressions became richly embellished by the emerging personal accounts, from which I have collaged together resonances of past and present, poetic and ideological, specific and universal.
On 31st August 2010 the few last warehouse staff became redundant, the factory completely cleared and finally closed.
Alexon House: ‘Steinbergs’ – Sculpture and Sound Installation: painted steel, cardboard, rubble : Ambient factory audio recordings and interviews
Audio Production – Matt McDade – Fourth Year: Creative Music Technology BMus [Hons] Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, University of Glamorgan, www.mcdadecreations.com
My very special thanks to:
Paul Batten at Alexon House for so much access to the factory and his friendly, patient support throughout the making of this work, and to Chris on security.
Cynthia Gribble and Sid Evans for their stories, artefacts and the use of interview recordings.
Thanks also for all the shared memories and chats with Lyn Williams, Leo Kyte, Derek Soper, Gloria Evans, Dynwen Evans, Jean Roberts, Rita Price, Wayne Davies, and Melissa Carter, plus the invaluable archive findings from Hywel Matthews at Pontypridd Library; and to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for construction and technical support.
christinemarfleet 