Street Art @ Tate Modern

Street Art:

Browsing the beeb I saw an article about the Tate Modern and that it is commissioning 6 street artists to adorn the front wall of the Tate over looking the Thames in the summer. The external wall shall have a protective layer put on first so that the brick work will not get damaged when it is later removed. I think this is an excellent idea, as you can't get more modern than street art and street art will connect and bring more young people to the Tate Modern. Galleries can be perceived as a rather high brow places to visit with endless pointless annotations about the work on display. It will also show what is inspiring people in the art world and what is relevant in today's society. I do not mind street art I find it creative, inspiring and imaginative.

However, I hate tags that have no point and look terrible. All they do is ruin an area, whilst with good street art it can become attached to the community that surrounds it and become part of the urban landscape.

The six artists being commissioned art are JR from France who uses photos of people from deprived backgrounds and places them in affluent city areas.

Otavio & Gustavo Pandolfo are twins coming from Sao Paulo in Brasil and their name collectively is Os Gemeos, which means "the twins" in Portuguese and their work represents life in South America. The pair also paint on canvases, sculpt, graphic design and also do photography.

Another artist is Blu who's subject relate to death and uses paper montages to create some of his work. One of his works I saw yesterday in Shoreditch, but I never knew who it was by until today and the website is good!

Smithfield to Shoreditch

The beauty of London is that you can quite easily get lost, which is great for discovering new things! However, another good thing about London is that however lost you may be if you walk in a random direction you some how eventually do manage to get to your chosen destination.

Smithfield:

Starting off from Smithfield's market, an ancient meat market that has been trading for over 800 years. Near to the market is St. Bartholomew the Great a church founded in 1123 as part of an Augustinian Priory. I then walked through the narrow streets before coming to the Barbican and Fann Street Wildlife Park. It is one of only two wildlife sanctuaries in the city and helps to create a green grid of habitats. Managed by the city of London and the Barbican Wildlife Group it has areas of rotting wood, beech hedging, cut and uncut lawn that help promote wildlife in the middle of a high density residential area.

Dreamspace Gallery:

Near Fann Street is the Dreamspace Gallery at Adrem. Currently it is exhibiting work by Amin Taha Architects, an up and coming practice in London. The exhibition shows models and projects of current and future projects, including the Custard Factory (Birmingham), Vauxhall Tree Gardens (London) and the New Islington Footbridge, which stretches over a crossroads in the canal system. Existing projects that can be seen are Marlborough House in London Fields and Gazzano House in Farringdon that uses Cor-ten steel to blend it in with it's historic surroundings.

By Dreamspace is Whitecross Street Market, which is Islington's oldest market. Due to it's location near Old Street it has a confused identity of scruffy run down shops and expensive boutiques. In some cases it seems that vacant shops are just used as storage for the various market stalls along the street.


At the end of the market is a church on Old Street called St. Luke's. This is an unusual church due to the fact that instead of having a spire it has an obelisk. The church is a grade 1 listed building and is now home to the London Symphony Orchestra and is used as a rehersal, recording & education space and an intimate concert hall.


Shoreditch:


Wandering along Old Street I came in contact with Shoreditch country. Shoreditch is a great place because although it has a mix of new architecture and expensive bars it also has contrasting run down buildings, street art and graffiti. There are Victorian buildings that resemble ancient ruins being propped up and quirky converted customised tube carriages being used as offices for arty types.




Sweet:

From Shoreditch I went to Bethnal Green to see "Sweet" at the Museum of Childhood. Edible architecture has been created by artist Jaimini Patel and local school children. The work of Jamini Patel uses produce from Britain's colonial past that bought the wealth to construct the actual buildings. With detailed models being constructed from sugar, spices and cocoa. Primary and secondary school children used a trip to the museum to inspire them to create buildings of their own and replicate famous London landmarks out of recycled material, packaging, chocolate and sweets.

Butterfly Conservation Project:

Butterfly World is a new £25 million pound project aimed at conserving world and native butterfly & moth species. The project is aimed to be completed in three years time and will cover a site of 27 acres near St. Albans. The site will be laid out in the shape of a butterfly's face with the eye of the butterfly being the main focal point of the project. Here there will be a tropical dome that uses the same design principals of the Eden Project in Cornwall, but it shall be even larger in size.

Outside of the dome there will be gardens and large wild flower meadows aimed at encouraging, attracting and stabilising British butterfly species as well educating the public on the topic. A key aspect of Butterfly World will be "Future Gardens", a showcase for contemporary and sustainable garden design which will become an annual event from June to September.
The project will approximately attract 500,00 to a million people a year. The project aims to be self sustaining and estimates at bringing £123million to the local economy over it's first five years of operation.


Site Plan:

East London Photos:

As well as all the new developments happening it is still easy to find some dereliction and eeriness, which is good as without it east London would have no character what so ever and all of it carries it's own special beauty!

Focus Week- Go East

New East London Architecture:

Using the DLR, as a means of exploring East London I set off from Bank station along the DLR to West Silvertown Station. It is interesting to see how London's landscape changes from built up offices to baron wastelands, industrial estates and forgotten housing.

Peabody Trust Housing:


At West Silvertown is the Peabody Trust's building designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects. Built in 2004 it cost £1.5 million and the design was chosen as the winner of the trust's competition to find fresh ideas for low cost housing. The main structure is a regular timber frame structure but it is clad in decorative materials inspired by the iridescence of dragonflies, peacocks and films of oil. Iridescence is made by light reflecting off of different layers within a material. Working with artist Martin Richman a cladding was developed using ‘dichroic’ film. The cladding is made up of a sheet of glass and a sheet of aluminium with a layer of dichroic film in the middle and was constructed at a window manufacturers. When the quality of light changes so does the intensity of colour on the building's cladding, turning it into a striking building for the area.

Silvertown Explosion:

Walking along the North Woolwich Road I stumbled upon a small memorial and wondered what it was for. It turned out to be that on this site was the biggest explosion in London's history. In 1917 a TNT factory that was aiding the first world war efforts exploded killing 73 people and injuring 400. 50 tons of TNT exploded damaging some 70,000 homes as well as factories, other businesses and the local fire station. For such a major event the memorial is tiny and faded. Positioned under the DLR railway it is not very noticeable and hopefully shall be more focal when the existing site of the explosion is redeveloped for housing.


Thames Barrier Park:


I have never been here before. However, I did attempt to get to it once before but ended up visiting the south side of the Thames where there is nothing! Thames Barrier Park covers 22 acres on a site that was previously a dock. The centre piece to the park is the Green Dock, where there are contoured Yew and Maygreen hedges. The sunken environment creates it's own micro climate attracting butterflies and allowing different types of plants to grow within. Although it is only spring there are some species that are still out in leaf and in flower like the rows of Daffodils. This park has a similar feeling to the Forum in Barcelona except for the grotty windy weather in it's contemporary design and the Remembrance Pavilion that reminds me of the exposed warehouse on the Forum's waterfront.




Laban Dance College:


By Deptford Creek near Greenwich is the new Laban Dance College, home to Europe's largest school in contemporary dance. Sitting amongst derelict buildings and industrial land is this colourful shiny brand new structure designed by Herzog & de Meuron. The building is wrapped in semi translucent polycarbonate sheeting allowing for privacy, but also allowing the viewer outside to see glimpses of what activities happen within the building. When the sun comes out the shape of the building allows for light to refract and for reflections of surrounding buildings to happen on it's large windows. Like the Peabody Trust housing in Silvertown light plays with the colours of the polycarbonate allowing for varying intensities in colour and could possibly be used for other uses other than just cladding. The building overhangs a platform making it seem, as though the structure is floating on it's surrounding vivid landscape. Grass pyramids are created round the college using timber frames that hold back the soil allowing for turf to grow over it. This minimalist landscape contrasts with the college's 'brown roof'. A roof that mimics the qualities of brownfield sites it acts as a habitat for the Black Redstart, which is one of Britain's rarest birds.

Focus Week- London Open City

London Open City @ Somerset House:

London Open City is on till the 27th of April and is about the uses of London and how it can be changed to be more fun and useful to us all. I thought this was a really good exhibition due to the way it was designed and that through a series of spaces a different topic is discussed.
By the entrance are three telescopes and when you look through them instead of seeing the view across to the South Bank you see views of various projects that are shown within the exhibition. The exhibition is split into three rooms titled City of Surprises, Changing Places and Greening The Grey.


In the first room are a series of plywood houses on stilts and each house is an individual theme. Ranging from geology and the Green Grid in one house to an illustrated map of London and a film of how current areas in Aldgate can be transformed into pedestrianised areas of fun and calm.



In the second room is a large map of London on a wall mapping the proposed 100 new public spaces, as well as people's thoughts of what they think should be going on in their area. There are also three circular canvas's showing moving images from the city supported by a series of works from current projects happening in London including Potters Field Park and Bankside Urban Forest, which was my favourite. The work showed that you could create detailed and accurate drawings or diagrams that can be creative, artistic and have their own identity.


The third room is called "Greening The Grey" and is to do with London's existing green space, how they can be improved and linked together so that London can have a complete Green Grid. The room has chipboard flooring and photographic prints of woodland on the walls to make the room seem like a woodland.

Focus Week - The Building Centre:

The Building Centre:

Underground- London’s Hidden Infrastructure:

On till the 19th of April is an exhibition looking at past, current and future developments beneath London’s landscape. Like previous exhibitions in The Building Centre it is a mixture of models, text, design visualisations and photography. It browses over various topics including transport, services, water, geology and underground buildings.


There are large-scale models on the Kings Cross Saint Pancras development and Canary Wharf Station, Arundel Square (pictured above) by Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects shows that in the need for space to build on developers are looking at buying airspace over railways in order to full fill their development needs.
The exhibition looks at past underground structures, such as the Camden Catacombs beneath Camden Market used for horses to transport coal to the railways, former underground stations and the old post office railway as well as the diverting of rivers underground to enable London to expand.

AJ Small Projects 2008:

AJ Small Projects 2008, which is on till the 29th March shows what architects can create in small spaces and on a small budget with project ranging from a matter of pounds to a maximum of £250,000.

“Green Room” in Ealing by Burd Haward Architects cost 5,000 pounds and is a pre fabricated plywood writers den. A mesh around the outside of the structure allows for plants to grow and become part of the structure.


“Dining Pavilion” in Malta by AP architects with artist Aude Franjou uses steel columns to support a fabric awning. A concertina-like glass screen is decorated with 'trees' made from flax twisted around hemp, which is then woven into the metal framework.


“Mobile Eco Second Home” by Sanei Hopkins only cost £850 pounds to construct is part of a series of temporary looking structures for a home in Suffolk that also include “The Peter Pan House” and “The Wendy House”.


“The Causey” in Edinburgh by Arcade Architects was a temporary installation. Transforming what usually was a busy traffic island into a fun public space that could hold events that involved the community. Acting as a catalyst to make the area have more of an emphasis on the pedestrian than the car.