T12 London's Urban Markers

The Building Centre Breakfast Talk, 28/10/10

The lack of promised breakfast on this early Thursday morning at the Building Centre hinted at the disappointment one was to feel when talked to about current public art schemes proposed for London and its surrounding regions. The four urban markers presented were unimpressive, mainly due to a lack of design development and strength of concept, and a general feeling of pointlessness. (OK, perhaps I'm getting carried away with the cynicism, I quite like the white horse.) The four schemes presented were:

Anish Kapoor & Arup & Katherine Finlay – ‘Orbit’ an urban marker for the Olympic Park

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8597069.stm

‘A spiralling sculpture designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor has been chosen as the monument to mark the London 2012 Olympic Games. The 115m tall piece, named the ArcelorMittal Orbit, will be placed in the Olympic Park and will be 22m higher than New York's Statue of Liberty. The £19.1m design incorporates the five Olympic rings and will offer visitors panoramic views of London.’

The red spiralling upside down trumpet seems a bit pointless, my favourite description found so far being: “(it) looks like a rollercoaster that’s been in an earthquake”.Read more: http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2010/04/02/the-orbit-tower-olympic-park-stratford-east-london-2012#ixzz15wG3bZN6


Alan Baxter from the Euston Arch Trust – The Euston Arch

‘The Euston Arch Trust campaigns for the rebuilding of the Euston Arch, destroyed when Euston Station was redeveloped in the 1960s.
A proposed redevelopment of Euston now offers the chance to rebuild the Arch.
Built in 1838, the Euston Arch was the first great monument of the railway age – an architectural marvel. Standing an incredible 70 feet high, it dominated the approach to Euston Station until 1962, when it was demolished despite widespread protest. In an extraordinary turn of events, the stones from the Arch ended up at the bottom of a river in east London.'

See http://www.eustonarch.org/

Quite an entertaining folly, doubt it will ever happen, not if they need £10 million

Donis Architects – The London Gate, Aldgate

A tall skinny set of goal posts to be constructed on a traffic island next to Aldgate station as a ‘gateway’ to street 2012. Probably the weakest scheme presented, and the most unoriginal. Descirbed by the architect as ‘mass produced classicism’. Really?!

I quite like the simple comments made in this article:

http://londonist.com/2010/07/giant_rugby_posts_to_be_built_in_al.php

Mark Wallinger – The White Horse

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/4599446/Mark-Wallingers-white-horse-is-a-winner.html

My favourite of the four, I liked the honesty of Mark Darby, the curator of this competition for a new MASSIVE piece of public art in Kent. The budget was BIG (and set before the recession), the scale needed for the site next to the 6 lane motorway BIG. Why not just make a BIG horse? Simple.

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The introductory speech covered ideas of orientation and navigation in the city, a topic that arises often in writings about the city due to their relationship with the legibility of the city and the use of landmarks as a means of identifying place. Apparently, urban markers were used initially as a place around which a city was formed; a ‘stake’ in the ground as it were, though an increasingly unnecessary device in current times due to the ease at which we can orientate ourselves using interactive maps on phones.

If people now turn to their phone rather than looking at their surroundings to navigate and hence experience the city, one might question why these urban markers are necessary. Personally, I believe the character of a place can be strengthened by 'urban markers' but only those that are appropriate.

An interesting question was raised in the final Q&A, ‘how do you masterplan these markers?’ As the nature of London’s plan is ‘adhoc’ should this public art be strategically planned at all? or should it just happen? Or should it not happen? Aren’t we just adding clutter to a city that we are constantly trying to ‘de-clutter’? Don’t we have enough famous markers in London?

In my opinion, if these schemes were conceptually stronger, and perhaps more tastefully designed, then yes, there is a place for public art in both the city and when masterplanning, but the designs shown today were not good enough, de-cluttering should take away the bad, to make space for the good. In Wallinger’s case, it’s an empty field. Go for it (or fill the field with lots of little horses, or even better, cows - they'd also look nice, make money and strengthen the milk industry).