We surveyed the offerings. Some students had scored and folded, so that the sculptures formed buildings and bridges; others had found ways of curving the board into wheels, stars, bowls. We assembled everything at the front. ‘We need to pay attention to create things materialgerecht,’ I said. ‘The Wilhelmian Age delighted in making things that appeared what they were not. How could iron sprout acanthus leaves and blossom? Why would tin ever look like wood?’ (Whenever I gave this speech I always thought of my mother’s fruit bowl, shaped, unthinkably, like a swan. It had caused a big argument between me and my father about truth in art, and he’d called me humourless, which was probably accurate; it wasn’t long after I’d lost Charlotte.) ‘A station shouldn’t pretend to be a Scottish castle! A hotel shouldn’t be the Alhambra! Truth to materials – in their technical treatment, and truth to purpose in form – should be the target of all our efforts. What we do in here is not art,’ I said, ‘but experiment. Beautiful design may come from it. But that’s a way off until we understand the material’s innate properties, and how we can exploit them for our function.’

After that I gave them a shoebox of gramophone needles to share amongst themselves. Several students ran their hands through the cool needles. This would be a tricky task for them, since they probably wouldn’t be able to build or construct with them. ‘Have a good think about them,’ I said, realising I was hungry, and therefore warming to my words as hunger could make me do. ‘How do they feel? What are their properties? How does light interact with them? I don’t care about the painterliness of what you do. I care about invention. Classical ideas of form and symmetry may still be in your system. Eradicate them! Forget them! Is not the balance of unequals more exciting than symmetry? After the war, what is order? Form? Perfection? It is not a thing; it is not in this world. Tension is everything. Avoid hammers and nails and glue and tape and thread, but concentrate on what the needle itself can do. What would it do standing upright, cast in light, spilled across different textures: velvet, hair, grass? And what would the needle do,’ I said, getting edgy, ‘in skin?’

I could just as well hit my hand on the table and shout, ‘Licenza! Licenza! Licenza!’