Cylinders Estate, the site of Kurt Schwitters’ Merz Barn, is named after the charcoal burners of the former gunpowder factory opposite. For two (apparently extremely unusually) sunny weeks in March, it was an explosion of snowdrops and daffodils, while initial restoration works commenced on the Shippon. The landscape architect Harry Pierce rented what became the Merz Barn to Schwitters. He also turned the Shippon, which had formerly been a forge, into a milking shed. In more recent years it served as a gallery for Littoral Trust.

Supervised by conservation builder Tom Don, chipboard, plywood, rotten windows, and cement renders were stripped from the building. Hemp insulation was installed above a beautiful end-grain wooden floor, and the stonework exposed by the removal of the cement was repointed and replastered with a traditional hair and lime mix. While work progressed on the building, a team of volunteers supervised by Grizedale Arts focused on clearing stumps, brambles, and bracken from the pond area next to the Merz Barn.

The highlight of the trip was a visit from Edward and Pauline Thorp, descendants of Harry Pierce, who afterwards wrote:

‘As soon as we opened the gates our spirits lifted. The initial clearance that you’ve done has taken the place back to something we could look at and recognise as the place we knew and loved. Meeting both the building and garden teams was equally encouraging since they clearly approach their tasks with knowledge, empathy and care.’

Nathaniel Mann and Jamie Castell spent several days at Cylinders conducting preliminary research for site-specific performances and sonic interventions. Their work, supported by an existing AHRC research grant, explores the echoes between the artistic legacies of William Wordsworth and Kurt Schwitters, examining how their art continues to reverberate around the landscape.

They constructed lithophones, sang and hooted into valleys, and played instruments in the resonant space of a cave to the bemusement of world-weary locals and live-streaming tourists alike. Their exploratory activities also included spending an evening chasing the calls of uncooperative tawnies with a local owl expert. In the process, they started to draw together plans for further funding applications that aim to use Cylinders as a base for other artistic interventions.

News of events and performances will follow.

The work to restore the Cylinders Estate is ongoing. Dangerous and diseased trees were removed by local tree surgeon Joe Leaper. In mid-‘März’, a team from Factum Foundation will commence initial restoration work on the Shippon, an old blacksmith’s forge, so that it can provide accomodation for the next phases of the work.

At the same time, Grizedale Arts will be supervising a team of gardening volunteers on the estate; there was a huge response to their call out in December 2024, with other sessions planned throughout 2025.  

It is with great pleasure that, as of September 2024, Factum Foundation London announces the acquisition of the Cylinders Estate in Elterwater.

Littoral Trust contacted the Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation in 2023 to request assistance in taking the Merz Barn and Cylinders Estate forward for a new generation.

Factum Foundation is a not-for-profit founded by Adam Lowe in Madrid, in 2009. It works alongside its sister company Factum Arte, a multidisciplinary workshop dedicated to digital mediation, producing works for contemporary artists as well as facsimiles for preservation purposes. Factum Foundation demonstrates the importance of documenting, monitoring, studying, re-creating and disseminating the world’s cultural heritage through the rigorous development of high-resolution recording and re-materialisation techniques. They have initiated and been part of numerous exhibitions, studies, conservation training programmes, and unprecedented joint projects involving major artworks and monuments from around the world.

The transfer of the Cylinders Estate to Factum Foundation represents a significant step towards preserving and promoting Kurt Schwitters’ legacy. Working with other local charities and universities, Factum Foundation will transform the site into a dynamic cultural hub to support the meaningful learning and interaction with Schwitters’ Merz art.

In addition to the barn, the estate also includes a cluster of buildings that will be restored as a centre for artists and scholars passionate about Schwitters and his legacy. Factum Foundation aims to establish an annual residency programme for refugee and displaced artists, providing the kind of sanctuary that Schwitters found on the estate in the years before his death in 1948.

Part of the Merz Barn’s wall was relocated for preservation to Hatton Gallery in Newcastle in 1966 by the artist Richard Hamilton working with Fred Brooks and others. Using its experience recording and replicating artworks and cultural heritage sites, Factum Foundation proposes the reunification of Schwitters’ final installation by creating a facsimile of the missing wall section.

As a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, Factum Foundation London is actively seeking a new model for this unique rural site. It needs local support from those who care about the Lake District and artists of singularity and originality. Success will be measured by the ability to convey the importance of the legacy Schwitters left as a refugee who contributed to a fundamental change to cultural life in England.

Factum Foundation seeks to develop a new approach to heritage management and will need support from philanthropic individuals, institutions, government agencies and artists. Littoral Trust benefited from the generosity of artists including Damian Hirst, Anthony Gormley and the Boyle Family. Many more will now be needed to make this vision of the site a reality. Since its creation in 2009, Factum Foundation’s core mission has been to preserve the past, empower the present, and inspire the future, preserving cultural heritage for future generations.

Through careful conservation and thoughtful programming, the Merz Barn is poised to become a vibrant centre of artistic activity and cultural exchange, honouring Schwitters’ innovative spirit and enduring influence on contemporary art. Working with other local charities, including Grizedale Arts, Factum Foundation aims to transform the site into a place of tranquillity, refuge, reflection and learning in celebration of a great artist whose cultural influence is growing and is more relevant than ever.

Factum Foundation’s work at Cylinders will be judged on the impact it makes locally, the transformation of the garden, the revival of interest in Kurt Schwitters unique creativity and on the depth of experience of those who visit.

READ OUR PRESS RELEASE

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/sep/16/kurt-schwitter-dada-artist-restoration-cumbrian-barn

commemorating the artists labelled ‘Degenerate’ by the Nazis – an artists’ anti-fascist memorial day in support of the Ukraine

2 – 3.30 pm, Tuesday July 19th at the Merz Barn

Cylinders Estate, Elterwater, Ambleside LA22 9JB

commemorating the artists labelled ‘Degenerate’ by the Nazis – an artists’ anti-fascist memorial day in support of the Ukraine

2 – 3.30 pm, Tuesday July 19th at the Merz Barn

Cylinders Estate, Elterwater, Ambleside LA22 9JB

Left: Hitler at the Degenerate Art Exhibition Munich, July 19th 1937. Right:The Mariupol Art School sheltering children from the hospital, bombed by invading Russians, March 20, 2022