AROYO 14 // Edward Hollis pt.1

I’m so excited for this episode though – it’s a chat that I had a couple of weeks ago with Edward Hollis – who’s the Professor of Interior Design at Edinburgh University, and the author of books exploring the influence of our surroundings on our lives. His work delves into what’s left behind of historic sites that we know throughout history, and re-constructs them so his readers can find new ways of imagining themselves into them. His books include The Secret Lives of Buildings, The Memory Palace – which we cover a lot in this episode, and more recently ‘How To Make a Home’ for The School of Life.I enjoyed speaking to him so much because of how his answers span so many creative worlds to link back to the meaning of space – especially music. This made for some quite weird turns – as we go from discussing the Palace of Versailles to talking about Berghain and Ibiza.I’ve split this into two parts. In part 1, we discuss his work and his approaches to making meaningful spaces, both in his writing, and how he teaches. In Part 2, next week – we’ll go much more into the history of interiors in literature, and the different ways that they’ve been channeled by different authors at different times – covering some of his favorites, before digging into what the settings that we imagine in our dreams mean, and digging into his own.My favourite thing about our chat was that he talks in the same way that he writes, which is precise and lyrical. To give you a taster, I think this quote from the Memory Palace sums this – and his philosophy of space.- up perfectly.He writes: “There’s nae pockets in shrouds, they say, and none of our things belong to us. We have borrowed, inherited, and purchased them all, and one day we shall lose them.  In the meantime, the rooms we live in are dolls’ houses and memory palaces. We arrange their worthless elements as shrines to departed shades – temporary meeting places, cabinets of curiosity. Settings for tiny plays and reveries, items of exchange, electronic images, texts like the one you are reading now, and ultimately, ringings that fade on the ear even as they are heard.”Apologies for the slightly strange timing of this episode – I’m doing some work in China for the next month – which has been amazing and I hope to create some great content to share with you – but it’s also completely wrecked my schedule.

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