00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Always really
00:07lovely to speak to Alexandra Loska, who is the curator at Brighton Royal Pavilion. Now
00:13you've just written a fabulous book about the Royal Pavilion. And this is all your fascination
00:18brought into a super looking, illustrated book. And as you say, hold it up. Let's see
00:23the book. There it is. There it is. And you were saying something about the Royal Pavilion,
00:28which you've loved for years, the way it draws you in, the way it plays with your senses,
00:34the way it always fascinates. Interesting you say play with your senses. What do you mean
00:39by that?
00:41Well, this is why, and we chose the subtitle very carefully, A Regency Palace of Colour,
00:49because that's my thing, and Sensations. So it is a sensational building, but it's also
00:55a building for and about the senses. Quite literally so, because colour is the obvious
01:02one. So the, you know, you see the white cake, it looks like a sort of sugar coated cake from
01:08the outside. And then when you go in, you see the first interesting colours, so interesting
01:14green, and then that lovely pink, peach blossom pink in the Long Gallery. The deeper you get
01:19into the building, the more intense the colours become. So that's simple.
01:23That's deliberate, is it?
01:24That's completely deliberate. Oh, absolutely, completely. And then how it comes down a bit,
01:28there's palette cleanser rooms where you relax a bit, and then comes another highlight.
01:33So the science of colour was completely understood in the planning then?
01:37Oh, totally. It's not just the science, it was the theory. And that was, the building was
01:41created at a time when people were beginning to think about how colours make you feel.
01:46So, so my countryman, Johan Wolfgang von Goethe said, you know, ideally, if you work in a
01:52study, painted green, that's the best, you know, carning, soothing colour. So that was
01:58completely understood, but also how colours, you know, relate to each other, and how they
02:05sort of, of course, can be more intense or less intense. So that's one thing. It's fairly
02:10simple thing to explain. However, the building also became hotter and hotter, the deeper you got
02:17into it. And the carpets or what you were walking on became thicker and thicker. So it's lots of
02:26sensors, you know, that are sort of played with. So you start on a very sort of quite a sort of hard,
02:33hard, rugged ground in the first couple of rooms. Then you have a woven carpet, Brussels weave.
02:40And then when you go into the banqueting room or the music room, where it's all about indulgence,
02:45you know, whether it's listening to music or dancing or, you know, a lavish feast, a banquet,
02:51you then would have sunk into this thick pile axminster carpet. And in addition to that,
02:59of course, the sounds, which we're currently also playing with in the colour exhibition,
03:04and sort of scents and smells, not just from cooking, the rooms were also perfumed.
03:11So I think it's fairly obvious this book has not exhausted your fascination with the building. If
03:16anything, it's increased it, hasn't it?
03:18Yeah, absolutely. And I feel very, it's such a moment for me, because so many people have been
03:25written, I've been writing about the Royal Pavilion, fantastic books that I greatly admire.
03:30They've been great directors and keepers and curators. And it's such an honour to be now in
03:36that line of people who have done something about the Royal Pavilion with such a great publisher. I
03:43mean, Yale are amazing. They, you know, designers and the editors really believed in me, but I also
03:51believed in them. And they did a fantastic job. And at the very last minute, at the 11th hour,
03:58when it was all about the design, they did this. So this is the famous sort of cross longitudinal
04:04cross section, which lends itself to a dust jacket. But look, when you take the dust jacket off,
04:10see what happens. You then reveal an example of the Chinese export wallpaper that is still in the
04:19building. So I think it's just such a lovely touch. So you have the chinoiserie architectural
04:25extravaganza on the outside. And then if you want the, what actually came out of China on the
04:32inside. So rather lovely. So they are a great, great publisher.
04:35So it looks like in this case, at least you can judge a book by its cover, because it looks
04:39sensational.
04:40I'm sure it is inside, richly illustrated, meticulously researched. Congratulations on
04:46completing it. It must be a lovely feeling. Really lovely to speak.
04:49It is a great, great feeling. But also, I also feel very honoured that I was asked to write
04:53this and that Yale published it.
04:55Fantastic. Well, sincere congratulations on completing it. Looks brilliant. Lovely to speak
04:59to you. Thank you.
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