Every now and then I start noticing new shapes appearing around the City in addition to the fascinating Sculpture in the City project that I wrote about recently. Here’s my selection for this week. I’ll start with the largest and most colourful, Holly Hendry’s joyful work entitled Slackwater currently exhibited on the flat roof of Temple Underground Station. That’s what I like, sculpture that makes you smile …
The view from above gives a really interesting perspective (image by CoLab) …
Read all about it …
For over a month I watched the very careful erection of this extraordinary structure on Moorfields …
Commissioned in 2019 as part of The Crossrail Art Foundation’s public art programme for the Elizabeth line (with the support of Victoria Miro Gallery), Manifold (Major Third) 5:4is by British artist Conrad Shawcross RA. ‘It represents a chord falling into silence extrapolated from observations of a Victorian pendulum-driven drawing machine known as a harmonograph, which was instrumental in the birth of the science of synaesthesia. This sculpture is the physical incarnation of the mathematics within a chord’. So now you know.
A crazy oasis outside nearby City Point (EC2Y 9AW) …
Yummy colours …
And finally, have you ever noticed this chap? I often see him looking out of the window of the Chiropractic clinic. Like the Manifold sculpture he’s also on Moorfields, just off London Wall …
I presume he likes to watch the world going by when he’s not treating patients …
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Becauase I was going on holiday I started this blog on a May day when the weather was so miserable, wet and cold that I started browsing through my image library for some cheery pics. This also meant I didn’t have to go out!
This blog is the result – it’s a bit random but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.
My balcony is perfectly situated to watch flypasts on their way to Buckingham Palace. This is the Coronation one …
What do you do with an abandoned car park …
Obviously you turn it into an artwork …
More cheerful street art …
Hot Mexican street food ..
More Pimlico Plumbers licence plate wit …
Posh spare loo roll storage at Mosimann’s …
Nice table adornments too …
Crazy crocheting on a post box in Great Ormond Street …
This is my animal selection.
Faithful doggy in Highgate Cemetery …
Whitecross Street toucan …
Friendly Mudchute Farm goats …
The last animal, the Tower Bridge cat …
My pal Mat …
And, for the first time in my blog history, a food section.
My Hotel Chocolat Easter Egg …
Patisserie perfection at Bob Bob Gerard …
Bombe at the Ivy ..
Add hot chocolate …
And finally, even more calories at Bouchon Racine …
Paradise …
Yep, I quite like chocolate.
Normal blog service will be resumed next week.
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Last week I set off without any particular purpose, seeking shapes, patterns and views that might look interesting as images.
It’s often just as fascinating to keep looking down as well as up and here are some of the curiosities I came across in Spitalfields.
Some intricately designed coal hole covers that have survived road works and redevelopment …
The above is a typical Hayward Brothers plate. One of their greatest services to Victorian society was saving pedestrians from nasty and embarassing injuries or even death-by-coalhole. Falling down coalholes through an unfastened plate was a regular occurrence in those times and the Hayward Brothers ‘safety plate’ using a ‘twist and lock’ mechanism was supposed to cure the problem.
As well as the coal hole covers, the pavements of Spitalfields are also the home of a number of circular metal plates set into the pavement and known as roundels. They are the result of a commission by the 1995 Bethnal Green Challenge and are intended to be emblems reflecting the diverse culture and history of Spitalfields. They were designed by Keith Bowler and you can read more about them in two blogs, one by The Gentle Author and one by Katie Wignall. Here are images of the three I came across.
One of the prettiest is the one on Fournier Street, taken from floral fabric designs by Anna Maria Garthwaite (1688-1763), the textile designer whose official blue plaque is on 4 Princelet Street …
At the corner of Brushfield Street and Commercial street are some apples and pears. A nod to the original fruit and vegetable Spitalfields market with a flourish of cockney rhyming slang thrown in …
And finally this very cute one outside the local primary school on Brick Lane. A boy and girl in a book surrounded by pencils …
There were 25 originally but it’s believed there are only a dozen left.
I wandered around the Barbican looking for angles, shadows and reflections …
Here are some colours and shapes from ‘Them’s the breaks’by the RESOLVE Collective at The Curve Gallery …
I’d also like to include a few favourites from a previous blog where I experimented with black and white images.
Tower 42 …
Plus Leadenhall Market …
Here are some of the more unusual things I came across during my walk.
I have entered the Barbican Highwalk from the Barbican Station footbridge on dozens of occasions and never paid any attention to this doorway which is obviously no longer in use …
Last week I peered through the grubby glass and was astonished to see this lively jungle scene …
I’m trying to find out more about it.
In the Smithfield Rotunda Garden there is a reflection with a poetic message …
‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall … Litter left here reflects badly on us all’.
On display in the Barbican Centre is this stunnng architectural model of the Estate …
The City is still full of new developments despite changes in working patterns and in many cases this means the demolition of existing buildings. A new view has now temporarily opened up looking south from the St Alphage Highwalk showing the north side of the Guildhall with the Shard in the distance …
Finally, I laughed out loud when I popped in to St Giles church and noticed two acknowledgements of the Coronation. Milton was surrounded by flags as he clutched a volume of his works …
But by far the most witty gesture was kitting out the famous parliamentarian and regicide Oliver Cromwell with a golden crown and a ‘Long Live King Charles’ postcard …
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