Portable Palaces: Royal Tents and Timber Lodgings 1509-1603

帐篷是跨越几个世纪和不同文明的建筑典范的重要组成部分，但往往被忽视，而偏爱那些在周围留下更持久印记的建筑。在他1979年出版的《帐篷：游牧民族的建筑》一书的序言中，托瓦尔德·费格雷写道：从某种意义上说，帐篷是最真实的建筑：我们的建筑师一词来自希腊的Archi(指挥)和tectos(编织)。已故普利兹克奖获得者弗雷·奥托在1972年为慕尼黑奥林匹克体育场设计的拉伸天篷至今仍被认为是世界建筑的地标之一，也是帐篷建造的巅峰。他的设计表明，帐篷可能是最具未来主义风格和最复杂的建筑类型之一。然而，正如费格雷的帐篷(1979)提醒我们的那样，大多数帐篷履行了更基本的功能，它们也有能力满足基本的避难所需求和情况的灵活性。对于许多不经意的观察者来说，帐篷只是与露营假期产生了共鸣，但这让人联想到的刻板印象分散了人们对帐篷的重要性，因为帐篷是一种能够在一个物体中同时体现自由主义和威权主义信息的结构。因此，建筑评论家汤姆·戴克霍夫在他2014年的BBC纪录片《帐篷：建筑的开端》中总结了他对帐篷重要性的看法，他说，“缝合在所有帐篷的织物中的是一种挑衅的条纹；它们是建筑和整个社会中的一股反叛力量”(《帐篷--建筑的开端》，文化展)。BBC2。2014年7月24日)。该项目通过研究由帐篷和狂欢办公室为16世纪英国宫廷建造的皇家帐篷和相关的临时结构的设计，将帐篷视为早期远地点建筑的重要表现。通过这样做，它回应了上面提到的所有三个主题--复杂性、巡回性和象征性--并打破了我们目前对早期现代建筑的理解，通过联想，拓展了政治的界限。该项目的时机是为了为2020年金布之地500周年的筹备工作奠定基础。可以说，这一活动定义了帐篷和临时建筑作为那个时期欧洲君主制的工具以及作为建筑和设计创造力的出口的重要性。然而，该项目的范围比单一活动的范围更广，以回顾从亨利八世登基到伊丽莎白一世去世的整个时期皇家帐篷的作用。支持该项目的是一系列丰富的证据，包括绘画和素描、账簿、清单、编年史、家具和据说来自皇家帐篷的残骸，这些碎片以前从未作为一个整体进行过整理和审查。通过这样做，这个项目既将突出帐篷在欧洲外交中所发挥的重要作用，也将表明帐篷和狂欢办公室雇用了著名的工匠，他们在临时结构上的工作开玩笑和实验性地推动了建筑和装饰设计的界限，而当时被广泛认为是英国建筑史上的一个伟大发展时期。该项目最终将建造一个重建的皇家帐篷，作为一项实验考古学或以实践为基础的研究，并以一种高影响力的方式吸引广大观众，在都铎宫廷中以建筑、权力和宏伟为主题。

Tents represent a critical part of the architectural canon spanning both centuries and civilizations but are often overlooked in favour of those buildings that have left a longer-lasting mark on their surroundings. In the introduction to his 1979 book, Tents: Architecture of the Nomads, Torvald Faegre wrote that 'In a sense, tents are the truest architecture: our word architect comes from the Greek archi, "one who directs" and tectos, the "weaving"'. The feting of the late Pritzker Prize winning architect Frei Otto, whose 1972 tensile canopy for the Munich Olympic Stadium is still considered one of the landmarks of world architecture and an apogee of tent construction, demonstrates that tents can be some of the most futuristic and sophisticated building types. However, most tents fulfil a much more basic function for, as Faegre's Tents (1979) reminds us, they also have the capacity to serve a primal need for shelter and flexibility of situation. For many casual observers tents are simply resonant of camping holidays but the stereotype that this conjures distracts from the significance of the tent as a structure that is able to embody messages of both libertarianism and authoritarianism in a single object. Accordingly the architecture critic Tom Dyckhoff, summed up his thoughts on the importance of tents in his 2014 BBC documentary Tents: The Beginnings of Architecture by saying, 'stitched into the fabric of all tents is a defiant streak; they are a rebellious force in both architecture and society at large' ('Tents - The Beginning of Architecture', The Culture Show. BBC2. 24 July 2014). This project considers the tent as an important expression of architecture at an earlier point of apogee through a study of the design of the royal tents and associated temporary structures that were built for the sixteenth-century English court by the Office of Tents and Revels. In doing so it responds to all three of the themes cited above - those of sophistication, itinerancy and symbolism - and pushes the boundaries of our current understanding of early modern architecture and, by association, politics. The project is timed to underpin preparations for the 500th anniversary of the Field of Cloth of Gold in 2020, an event that arguably defined the importance of tents and temporary structures as a tool of European monarchy in the period and as an outlet for creativity in architecture and design. However, the project spreads its net wider than that single event to review the role of the royal tent across the whole period from the accession of Henry VIII to the death of Elizabeth I. Supporting the project is a rich vein of evidence that includes paintings and drawings, account books, inventories, chronicles, furniture and surviving fragments said to be from royal tents that has never before been collated and reviewed as a whole. By doing so this project will both highlight the important role played by tents in European diplomacy and will demonstrate that the Office of Tents and Revels employed renowned craftsmen whose work on temporary structures playfully and experimentally pushed the boundaries of architectural and decorative design at a time widely acknowledged as a great period of development in English architectural history. The project will culminate in the construction of a recreated royal tent that will act as a piece of experimental archaeology or practice-based research and a high-impact way of engaging broad audiences with the themes of architecture, power and magnificence at the Tudor courts.