Sunshine and shadow

In front of Kingsway college in Camden is a garden surrounded by a low brick wall, a square of mossy tarmac made special by the seated figure nestled among the dingy bushes. On this occasion there were in fact two seated figures, one permanently immobile, the other sitting in almost exactly the same attitude but busy texting. Taking photographs, you often miss this sort of moment, but the two remained still while I got my camera ready. Even so, it took a lot of work in Photoshop to reconcile bright sunshine and deep shade.

The statue is made of ciment fondue, which means working with wet cement rather than casting. It was made by Jean Bullock in 1977, the same year as the Sex Pistols released Anarchy in the UK, although it has nothing else in common with the whole punk thing.

A splash of colour

The chaos that is Charing Cross Road, cut off from Tottenham Court Road by mega-construction work on the new Crossrail station, is temporarily made even worse by Foyles, which seems to have taken over the whole block. Scaffolding covers Foyles, at least I think it does, but most of it is something to do with Central St Martins Lofts who are presumably converting the old art college to disgustingly expensive apartments. The scaffolding does feature a rather nice mural by Rebecca Hendin, huge but not big enough to cover all the building works. Of course nobody paints a mural full size these days - it was probably done on her iMac - but there is plenty of detail. It's been there for ages apparently, but I just noticed it.

Watch the birdie

Regent's Place is an island of high-rise development on the edge of Camden, now pushing its boundaries to squeeze in as many square metres as possible. The result is an uncomfortable jumble of very large buildings, all different and competing with each other for attention as well as plot space. Although there are four elements in the last part to be completed, they were designed by two architects, one doing the offices and the other the residential parts. The offices are glossy glass structures which might not be too bad if they had a bit of space around them.

The residential tower, though, is quite possibly the ugliest tower in London, a grim grey structure that looks puny situated as it is alongside the no-frills bulk of Euston Tower (once the home of Capital Radio). A relatively low-rise block of flats along Hampstead Road was designed by the same architect. Come rain or shine, that overall matt grey finish and the complicated balconies do nothing to make the building seem friendly. The final touch, perhaps, is this surprising but not entirely welcome image of a bird fixed high up on the facade. Maybe there will be more of the same, but for now there is just the one. The artwork is by Gary Hume, the YBA who does extremely simple paintings using domestic gloss paint, so simple there is little to appreciate except I suppose a certain degree of abstraction. Here we get a biggish bird, some leaves and a stick, or at least it looks like a stick, although one's first thought is that it's badly drawn leg. Perhaps there are art world characters who think this is an achievement, but it seems perfectly valid to call it an unfortunate bad decision. If not something ruder.

There used to be a giant mural by Michael Craig-Martin on the site, not in the same place but nearby - a pop-art image of an electric fan, several storeys high and lit up at night. It didn't appear to have any particular relevance but it was quite nice as a landmark. The bird doesn't come close to replacing it.

 

Colour explosion at Kings Cross

This splash of colour is what used to be the worthy but dull Kings Cross branch of Barclays Bank. As a matter of fact the bank is still there, but the rest of the building is a newish fashionable hotel, the Megaro, with interior designed rooms at more than 200 quid a night. At first sight it's quite striking, but a splash of colour is all it is, there's nothing very inspired about the design, and it completely muddles the architectural language of the building. It's not illegal (although it's in a conservation area no planning permission was required) but you could say it's short-sighted, not really worth the permanent damage.

The hotel is a typical London block, built in the early twentieth century in red brick with lots of fine carved limestone details, nothing very exciting by London standards, but just try looking for that kind of thing in an American city, for example. That paint is guaranteed for twenty years, apparently, but the novelty is going to wear off much sooner than that. Will it come off? No, most unlikely: even intensive graffiti removal techniques don't entirely remove all the paint, and over an entire building that would be ridiculously expensive. Sandblasting might work but it destroys the surface of bricks. So the original natural materials are likely to be covered up permanently.

One can only hope the owners will keep the facades freshly painted, and maybe next time do something that actually makes use of the architecture instead of camouflaging it.

Street sculpture in Notting Hill Gate

Dotted around Notting Hill Gate you might notice little bits and pieces of sculpture, on top of buildings mainly. There's an arcade of shops with stripy mosaic decoration on the pillars, and an abstract mobile that looks like a broken television aerial, clinging to the side of a building. These are all projects carried out by the unlikely-sounding Notting Hill Improvements Group, and it's apparently privately funded and in their own words, 'dedicated to improving the general environment including the character, appearance and facilities provided by Notting Hill Gate for the benefit of both local residents and visitors to the area'.

Star of the show is this quirky stylised elephant, the Carnival Elephant by Lebanese urbanist and sculptor Nadim Karam, made as a sort of trelliswork of delicate stainless steel bars. It's on the pavement outside Waterstones, at the bottom of the steps leading up to a bleak 60's tower block. You might not realise at first what it is, but look closely and there are four legs, eyes and trunk. The eyes are pair of little aluminium propellers, one of which spins but the other one has blades missing, putting it off-balance. The lack of safety measures is refreshing: in 2004 the Group discussed some kind of warning texture in the paving to stop anyone walking into it, but that never got done, so you have to assume people have more sense.

More to Life than Money

Against expectations, the Occupy camp at St Paul's cathedral looks likely to stay until the new year, with St Paul's and the City of London Corporation both deciding against legal action to evict the protesters. Crowds gather on the cathedral steps every day to hear what's being said at the twice-daily assemblies. A powerful PA system mounted on a tricycle means the speakers can now be heard clearly, and disruptive heckling is relatively quiet. Some friction yesterday as a man took the microphone to pursue his own agenda, evidently deemed not relevant by the organisers, and shouts of "get off" failed to discourage him, but he soon lost the microphone. Elsewhere, a man was putting on a suit of armour and a Guy Fawkes mask, and a giant Monopoly board (reported to be donated by Banksy) sits next to the row of portaloos. Meanwhile the tourists continue to make their way through the crowds to tour the cathedral, which remains imperviously serene inside.

St Paul's - Forgive us our trespasses

The doors of St Paul's are closed today, just like it says in the news. That makes the steps and forecourt into a fantastic natural amphitheatre, with the massive corinthian columns lending their imposing presence to the event. The protesters are making good use of the location, although most likely everyone would have been happier if that was not at the expense of closing down the cathedral. This afternoon a succession of speakers made their points from a microphone set up by the Queen Victoria monument, to an audience sitting on the cobblestones, and more people standing around them and all over the steps. A sizeable turnout, with more people arriving by bus, Tube and on Boris bikes, but not overcrowded. The weather is fine and everyone seems cheerful, even the police.

The Portland stone colonnade of the Paternoster Square buildings opposite has been taken over as a poster wall, with the piers and columns covered in imaginative printed and handmade posters - more arty satire than political rant. There's no pasting, everything is carefully taped to the stone, some with printed tapes reading 'Capitalism means War' and 'Another World is Possible'. One of my favourites was just plain stencilled lettering reading 'More to life than money', with the 'O's drawn as bombs.

Organisation is better than it was earlier in the week. A busy kitchen is handing out free meals, and they have lots of boxes of apples. Bins are labelled with instructions for recycling and sorting, and there was a council rubbish collection in progress. Portable toilets, although only two of them, are locked until the public ones close for the night. A fenced-off fire escape route for the cathedral is presumably now redundant but still kept clear. Some bigger tents have appeared but there is still plenty of room to walk through the site. No litter and no vandalism to be seen. This does affect local businesses though - the staff in Paul, the French sandwich chain, say that their takings are down because they usually have tables outside and there isn't enough room now. Policing remains low key: Paternoster Square is fenced off and both police and security guards are making sure no-one gets in, but there are no police lines, just pairs of officers walking around in hi-viz uniform.

See It Now Remember It Forever

Today, a real piece of street art. This tribute to TOX, the tagger jailed for persistent vandalism, appeared on the end wall of a house in Camden during the summer. Tox, real name Daniel Halpin, is notorious for the quantity of his tags, not for any artistic merit. Londonist once called him a serial wall-spammer, and commented "Poor Tox just can't help himself". Banksy's take on that affair is a small boy with his face blanked out (to protect his identity?) blowing red bubbles spelling out T-O-X. It's open to various interpretations: sympathy or solidarity, piss take, opportunism. The image appeared overnight, and by the following afternoon the property owner boarded it over, and then installed a protective perspex cover and frame. A couple of months later the prospects for this theoretically valuable work of art do not look very promising. The perspex is no longer very transparent, with a new tag scribbled on the surface. Someone has bashed a hole through to spray paint onto the image behind (with limited success). The passing bus unintentionally provides an ironic commentary.

Pavement art in Dalston

Rubbish masquerading as art, litter louts with a sense of humour - or a bit of a laugh, done by someone who has already arranged for this old mattress to be responsibly recycled? Discarded mattresses are not unusual in this part of town, and at least this isn't a particularly disgusting example, but the art reference is a bit off. Ceci n'est pas une pipe reads the text on the famous surrealist painting. This version is a bit mangled, and mattress certainly isn't a French word. Whatever the motivation, there it sits on Dalston Lane waiting to be removed. The bin men were there today and one of them asked what it was about, but they were doing a proper regulated collection, not just picking up any old stuff.

Cool Camden

Earlier this year, the top floor of a residential tower block in Camden bore this bold and somehow pleasing message in two metre high letters. You can work out the height by the architect's technique of counting the brick courses, and multiplying by 75 millimetres. The eyes make it, reinforcing the words and giving the whole tower a sort of face. Despite the large size and the height of the building, it wasn't visible from many places and although I'm sure it must be on a website somewhere, I've not been able to find out anything about it. This is in Stanhope Street, an area of well-kept postwar public housing still run and maintained by Camden council. It's far from being the most desirable of the housing blocks around there, but prominent graffiti is really out of place in these surroundings and inevitably, walking past today I see it's been painted over in a tasteful shade of cream.

Camden Lock on a rainy Sunday afternoon

A street vendor, blowing enormous bubbles in Camden. The bubbles came in clumps, each one more than a foot across, too big to be perfectly spherical, but glistening with rainbow colours. Nobody paid much attention. The bubbles burst against passing cars or got punctured by raindrops. Then the rain set in for real and the crowds dispersed into shops and doorways. An afternoon of sunshine and violent showers, spent dodging from one bit of cover to another. The object of the expedition - to find churros, the elongated doughnuts with a caramel centre. Elusive in Spain last week, where the churrerias always seemed to be closed, but right where you want them on the Lock.

Bike Week - Street art or annoying intrusion?

How did this bike get so rusty, and why is it abandoned? In fact it's advertising. Take an old bike, customise it without making it valuable, and leave it locked up to a street sign. It's been done before, with old bikes sprayed the same colour all over. Rusty chic is a logical progression. Notice how this is a perfectly functional bike, with everything apparently in reasonable working order, except there are no brakes. Perhaps it's a fixed-wheeler and doesn't need brakes? No, it just doesn't need brakes because it's not going anywhere. The front wheel and a discreet logo are the clues to what it's advertising - zoom in to the picture if you want to find out. Westminster council are clearly not amused, that's a Notice of Removal of an Abandoned Bicycle attached to the crossbar. So is it cynical exploitation, littering the streets with yet more commercial overload, or does it provide a little harmless street art - probably without having any useful advertising value?