Infantilism raised to new heights in the City of London?

Latest proposals for tall buildings in the City of London are slab-sided  square, and  maximise high-value "corner offices"....



...supposedly inspired by Gotham City (tho I don't see it myself)
"....Outside the insurance industry's heartland, construction on the 100 Bishopsgate tower, owned by Canadian developer Brookfield and the Pinnacle skyscraper, backed by Saudi Arabian investment manager SEDCO, has stalled amid a fruitless search for tenants..."

"stalled" 100 Bishopsgate

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2423765/Welcome-Gotham-City-London--400million-skyscraper-complex-inspired-Batman-film-planned-capital.html#ixzz2gOUGUBty
Leadenhall Triangle is near the 19th-c cast-iron covered Leadenhall Market (used in some Harry Potter movies), and the inside-out Lloyds of London building. Henderson are also behind the recent attempt to redevelop Victorian Snithfield Market as offices...

All this despite the "Death-ray disaster" of the Walkie-Talkie building, see (http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/did-walkie-talkie-building-melt-car.html

as I said earlier....
A good friend remarked as we passed by on the 25 bus, "What has happened to the London Skyline? It looks like someone has tipped out the shapes from a a toddlers posting box and stood them on end as buildings...." . It is hard to disagree.

On further talk , my artist friend made a telling point, "Trouble with Architects they think art is about shape. To artists it is the relationships, particularly of shape to space, but also the wider relationships that count".

Anyroad-up. The result of this speculative waste of money is that London will be bequeathed a series of landmarks to navigate by as effective as rock formations "the Bridestone" "Old Mother Baking Bread" and "the Pepper Pot" in Derbyshire.

Pepper Pot

Cheese Wedge

Gherkin

Walkie Talkie

Shard (baby shard to come!)

Unloading Cargo at Mark Brown's Wharf, 1968

Unloading Cargo at Mark Brown's Wharf, 1968 a video by London Metropolitan Archives on Flickr.  This short clip is taken from an Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) film entitled "Looking at London: Tower Bridge", transmitted via cable to schools across the Inner London area during the late 1960s. By coincidence, I remember the last concert given by ILEA at Albert Hall, featuring jazz bands, steel bands, youth orchestras, a lone (bag-)piper.... I can't help thinking that atomising provision first to boroughs, then to individual schools, has been cultural vandalism on a barbaric scale... but I digress
Different world in 1968. The warehouse, where this was filmed, now look like 

Potters Fields Park and City Hall with More London behind

View Larger Map

I visited London in 1968 - as a child. We went to the USSR exhibition at Olympia and i was excited to see the capsule Yuri Gagarin had orbited the world in. We also went down to Tower Bridge and I remember Wapping as being a forbidding and slightly scary place

RUSSIAN EXHIBITION

Sharing the Field (conference): Art in the Landscape and Landscape Archaeology

Saturday, November 30, 2013 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (PST)

London, United Kingdom 

A conference at UCL Institute of Archaeology on 30 November 2013 will bring together artists and archaeologists, with an open invitation to those from related disciplines, to consider the inter-relationships between site-specific art in the landscape and landscape archaeology. The conference will explore the value of artistic approaches to the interpretation of archaeological landscapes - from the deep past to the contemporary past - and conversely how the practice and results of landscape archaeology inform artistic approaches.
...
We are pleased to invite proposals on contemporary landscape art and archaeology relating to recent or current projects. We are particularly interested in papers from the arts which relate to site-specific installations and/or performance in the landscape and those which can consider new sets of opportunities for artists and archaeologists to collaborate on landscape interpretation. We are also interested in papers which consider the public engagement value of outdoor events including public participation in sensory explorations of landscape.

Guiding topics include:

• Landscape and archaeological / artistic imagination.
• Disciplinary freedom and boundaries.
• Challenges to artistic approaches.
• The power of image or experience.
• Art, archaeology & destabilising the familiar.
• The creation & funding of collaborations.
• Artists, archaeologists and public engagement.

Please send proposals (up to 250 words) to Hilary Orange h.orange@ucl.ac.uk  and Red Earth contact@redearth.co.uk by 25th October 2013. Registration (free) on  http://sharingthefield.eventbrite.com/   

Vertical towns and medieval urbanism

A photo that popped up on Flickr (of St Antonin Noble Val) reminded me of the verticality that was so prevalent in crowded medieval towns, bounded by legal distinctions on land and people/ethnicity as much as by their walls

Summery St Antonin, a set by Ruth Flickr on Flickr.

Medieval centre of St Antonin

There is little left of medieval London, a few churches and liveried companies (guild) halls survive on the east side of the city, where they escaped the flames of the Great Fire. An exception though - outside the limits of both fire and the walled city, is that of Staple Inn. It manages to convey both the height of old London buildings and their crowded - even cramped - nature. High-status buildings, such as Staple Hall and/or private dwellings, would combine ordinary shops, rooms ("chambres") and garretts to the noisier street frontage, with yards and gardens behind (the "fore"court and a more private court to the rear)

Staple in as it was

to the sides were stables, kitchens, bakers, brewers, and all the accommodation needed for a great household, and in the centre of the web - the great hall - where communal meals cemented bonds and rehearsed old hierarchies ("below the salt")

Staple Inn today

Great Hall, Staple Inn

The Mole Man of Hackney

The Mole Man of Hackney, a gallery by peter88gate on Flickr.

Hackney Mole Man became famous - beloved of psychogeographers (Iain Sinclair above) and a menace to his neighbours, as he dug tunnels below his house, possibly in need of some social care and sympathetic psychological intervention at an earlier stage..... (I suspect that strangers have derived more joy from his tunneling than either Mr Lyttle, or his neighbours)

View Larger Map

When he died it was alleged that he left Hackney a £408,000 council bill http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10352222
eventually the house sold for £1.12m   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18898642

Installation now on at the Barbican (London)-- his legend continues
http://www.karenrusso.co.uk/en/gallery/47

Population growth/density, foreign owners and flat-dwelling

Population of London and the greater metropolitan region is booming. For instance Tower Hamlets has risen from 196,121 in  2001 to 254,096 in 2011 .Significantly, blocks of flats have been built with an enormous boost of speculative investment money from other countries, so much so that 75% of new-build homes in London are now sold to people in other countries


It is arguable - that for foreign investors - blocks of flats are a desirable dwelling-type to invest in. Generally the growth of flat-dwelling is shown below, but there are some interesting exceptions - such as the change from terraced to detached houses in SW London. This appears to be evidence of the change in wealth, with more poverty, and more people struggling in the middle, with a very few people benefiting and getting wealthier.

Whilst in London, population density is increasing - it is arguable that the whole effect of an asset-price boom is to make housing unaffordable in the rest of England

In London this had led to some resistance -it will be interesting to see the results elsewhere. Tho' it may be that the unsustainable economic model with provoke another profound crisis within capital flows before then

Laura Oldfield-Ford - flypost Savage Messiah zine

See also http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/bo-jo-amends-london-plan-to-limit-caps.html

London the Sterile City

Razi Iqbal chairing the debate

More than half of Londoners believe that London is a sterile city according to a poll that informed an "Open City" (sic) debate  in front of  " The lucky few who secured tickets (the venue held 150)". In the interests of openness - I  repost the LI's summary of their discussion here...

Asked the question ‘Is London building a sterile city?’, 52% answered yes and 48% no, making a fascinating background for the lively debate which prefigures this weekend’s Open House, and proved one of the most popular events.

At the time that the ballot for tickets closed, 9,200 Londoners had applied to attend the event, chaired by BBC correspondent Razia Iqbal, putting it on a par in popularity with the London Eye and the Shard. The lucky few who secured tickets (the venue held 150) heard a discussion, at times impassioned, chaired by BBC correspondent Razia Iqbal. 

The speakers were more optimistic about the city than the respondents to the poll, seeing its bright points, but also worrying about threats. Stephen Howlett, chief executive of housing provider Peabody, said, ‘For me “sterile” is about having no people, a lack of diversity, no trees, no grass and no birds. It is about a loss of leisure facilities. I do believe that we are at a risk of that.’
His worry is that high house prices and an influx of the super rich is driving those on low incomes out of the centre of London to ‘suburbs where they live in not very good housing’. This could replicate the infamous ‘doughnut’ effect of Paris, which has become a rich ghetto with the poor on the outskirts, one of the causes of social unrest. London, in contrast, said Howlett, ‘is a patchwork of diversity and tolerance. We have got to keep that.’ He saw promise in east London, in new development in Stratford, Hackney and Elephant and Castle.

For Leo Hollis, a historian and urbanist who has written two books about London, the largest threat came from the privatisation of public space. ‘I think we read the city wrong,’ he said. ‘We need to discuss public space. All we see are big temples to capital.’ Public space is animated not by shops or ‘events’, Hollis argued, but by the interactions between people in that space.  And this has to be allowed to happen rather than made to happen. What cities need, he argued, is to ‘create life between the buildings’.

Architect Bob Allies of Allies and Morrison, which has designed a good few temples to capital in its time, argued that some feeling of sterility was unavoidable in new places, which had not yet enjoyed the accretions of time. ‘The most important relationships are those between the new buildings and what already exists,’ he argued.

Sue Illman, president of the Landscape Institute, felt that there were some great areas of London, with fabulous open spaces, and others that were much poorer. And, she argued, we need to think very differently about cities in the future. ‘How we plan and design our urban spaces is critical to creating liveable cities,’ she said. ‘There is an urgency to redesigning urbanism from a sustainable standpoint.’ 

There was some heated debate from the floor. One speaker reminded the panel and audience that London might be a great city from the standpoint of the relatively wealthy, but it was a very difficult city in which to be poor. Another said that we should recognise that London is better than it has ever been. There was a recognition that, with projected population growth of a million, and with ventures like Crossrail which will change the geography, there will be massive change in the city in the coming years – an opportunity, and a challenge that must be grasped and not ignored, if poll respondents in ten years’ time are to make a more positive response.

The Landscape Institute partnered with Gleeds and Open City to run the debate

Many good points - but London is far from "better than it has ever been", and the Business districts of the City of London and Canary Wharf are incredibly sterile environments, despite their wealth of historical features and interest. There is something inimicable -if not downright hostile- about such large agglomerations of offices.  You can't help feeling that they reinforce an exclusivity of financial services - which adds to irresponsible investment behaviour....  From the sustainable viewpoint - living and working in the same areas would add to humanising environments 

Compare "Employment density by Built-up Area" with "Population density Change 01-11" by following this link  -especially notice the low density of both around wealthy Kensington and Chelsea -- does the old definition of prevailing winds (from the west) still determine desirability of location?

Thames Floodplain - major capital programme tender - flood protection

Thames Floodplain

London has been made, remade, and occasionally threatened by the River Thames, that provides transport to the sea from the heart of the English midlands. Sea levels have risen continuously since the last Ice Age, and threaten to rise faster with man-made global warming. Profound changes are proposed to the flood management of the Tidal Thames, including a major programme of capital works, which will transform the landscape of the lower Thames valley and estuary. All sorts of questions spring to mind - not least the wisdom of allowing a new port to be built on reclaimed land in the lower Thames - requiring dredging of a main seaway to the port.



2011 Parliamentary C'ttee --  Bronwyn Hill, Permanent Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Dr Paul Leinster, Chief Executive, Environment Agency giving evidence
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=9501

Notice and details for tender for a major capital programme of flood protection measures in the Thames floodplain

The Thames Estuary Plan (TE2100) published in November 2012 followed six years of study and sets out the strategic direction for managing flood across the Thames estuary. It contains recommendations on what actions the Environment Agency and others will need to take to manage tidal flood risk through to the end of the century. Further information regarding TE2100 is available at: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/125045.aspx   This Contract Notice relates to the first phase of TE2100 and is for the Thames Estuary Phase 1 programme (TEP1).
The Environment Agency is seeking a long-term Delivery Partner for TEP1 to provide or arrange for the provision (either itself or through its supply chain) of partnering services and through these the provision and delivery (or the management of the provision or delivery through its supply chain) of a programme of capital investment and improvement works for flood defence assets (both fixed and active) across the Thames estuary over a period of up to 10 years (see also section II.2.2). Fixed assets includes flood protection walls and embankments and active assets includes flood barriers and other structures with moveable gates, outfalls and pumping stations.
Working with the Environment Agency as part of an Integrated Delivery Team, it is anticipated that the Delivery Partner's role may include (but is not limited to):
Management, design and delivery of capital works for fixed and active assets which may include (but is not limited to):
asset replacement, refurbishment, and capital maintenance works;
Asset structural condition inspections and structural intrusive surveys;
Identification and prioritisation of capital works identified from the delivery partner's inspection and survey of fixed and active assets to be incorporated within the TEP1baseline works programme;
Construction engineering works;
Design and consultancy services;
Project appraisal services;
Engineering surveys and other investigations;
Environmental and engineering design of works;
Environmental assessment;
Design, construction and management of compensatory habitat creation schemes (at the Environment Agency's option);
Design and implementation of public amenity and environmental enhancements;
Soft landscaping implementation and maintenance (at the Environment Agency's option);
Asset management;
Programme and schedule management;
Project management;
Project execution;
Spend forecasting;
Supply chain management;
Commercial management;
Risk management;
Safety management;
Quality control;
Document and data management; and
Development of the forward programme beyond the 10 year programme.
At the Environment Agency's option, the Delivery Partner may also be required to provide and deliver (or manage the provision and delivery through its supply chain) operation and maintenance services for the fixed and active capital assets falling within TEP1which services are currently delivered by the Environment Agency in-house. The Environment Agency's requirements for such services will not be known at the commencement date of the contract but may emerge as the contract progresses. The Environment Agency may therefore have the option, but no obligation, to require the Delivery Partner to provide such services during the later years of the contract.
It is anticipated that the form of contract between the Environment Agency and the Delivery Partner will be based on the NEC Term Services Contract with appropriate amendments to encompass the scope and nature of the Delivery Partner's role. Further details will be provided at the Invitation to Participate in Dialogue stage. It is anticipated that this will provide for the management and delivery of partnering services and a minimum scope of services, inspection and investigation works at the outset with separate task orders issued to the Delivery Partner for subsequent, approved packages of work in accordance with the Environment Agency's TEP1 programme of approved works.
Further information regarding the scope of the TEP1 contract is set out in the Descriptive Document which accompanies the Pre-qualification questionnaire.

Present-day Westminster on Thorney island (medieval floodplain / rivers © MoLAS)

Were Rivers Flowing across the Sahara During the Last Interglacial?

Coulthard TJ, Ramirez JA, Barton N, Rogerson M, Brücher T (2013) Were Rivers Flowing across the Sahara During the Last Interglacial? Implications for Human Migration through Africa. PLoS ONE 8(9): e74834. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0074834
100,000–130,000 years ago, African monsoons reached as much as 1,000 kilometres farther north than they do now and brought torrential rains to the mountains ranges south of the Sahara Desert. This may have allowed migration, "....enabling early modern humans to migrate north and eventually to other continents",  Mike Rogerson, a palaeoclimatologist at the University of Hull and a co-author of the study. Follow this link for a full article  http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0074834

Phil Maxwel and Hazuan Hashim.'s films "From Cable Street to Brick Lane" - up for an award - and "East One" on at "Urban Wandering – Film and the London Landscape" at the Barbican

From Cable Street to Brick Lane....

............has been nominated as "best London Film" at the Portabellow Film Festival

well done Phil Maxwel and Hazuan Hashim....


Who's film East One....

.... (12) (UK 2013 Dir Hazuan Hashim, Phil Maxwell 70 min) + ScreenTalk with Hazuan Hashim, Phil Maxwell & Alan Gilbey - Mon 30 Sep 6.15pm, Cinema 3
 East One celebrates a part of London that has seen unprecedented change, yet retains a unique identity.  IS on at Urban Wandering – Film and the London Landscape at the Barbican 
Box Office: 0845 120 7527

Thames Tideway Tunnel

The Planning Inspectorate Inquiry into the Thames Tideway Tunnel has opened in London's Barbican Centre (the centre itself is named after an outwork of the City of London's medieval defences). If consent is granted, consrtuction will begin in 2015. The proposal is a super sewer broadly following the route of the Thames and intercepting water that comes from Combined Sewers

Combined Sewer

Thames Tideway Tunnel map. Credit: ITV London

 it will be paid for by an extra charge on water bills

The development is controversial on two counts -

1. The problem is combined sewers, which overflow into the river with sudden storms. Replace them with Green Infrastructure: French drains for gullies, permeable surfaces, Evapo-transpiration of "green roofs" and the problem is solved. So campainers say that the Supersewer is simply retrofitting extra capacity rather than solving the core problem
2. Throughout the scheme are over 40 local objectors groups and local councils. Their objections include the permanent impact on the landscape as well as the disruption through construction. So far, only construction issues seem to have been addressed, rather than the persistent effects (Evening Standard report)

Local anglers, however, are keen for work to take place as soon as possible, to save fish stocks in the river ( Anglers Mail  report )

Details of documents and measures are available via the "planning portal" http://infrastructure.planningportal.gov.uk/projects/london/thames-tideway-tunnel/

FOR EXAMPLE King Edward Memorial Park at Shadwell is planned to have signifiocant works which wil disrupt the park for a long time

http://www.thamestidewaytunnel.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/DCO_KEMP_Below-Ground-1024x721.jpg

However, objectors are equally annoyed by the permanent imposition of ventilation "chimneys" on the foreshore of the park, as they are concerned about the damage to the park during construction

Potential visual impact 

Campaigners erect  mock ventilation tower

/

Free photo and walking course in Tower Hamlets

A great way for Tower Hamlets residents to encounter and reassess the landscape they live with - a FREE photo and walking course 27th September to 6th December 2013, more details, email graham@walkeast.org

For a "clean" copy of flyer below, click on https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=forums&srcid=MTQ5MDA3NzU5MjQ4NDU2MDAzMTcBMTE2MTMyNDA4MDYyODM4ODUyMjIBbWZlank2SVdHRU1KATIBAXYy

Birmingham's new central library, why has London not got one?

Brums New Central Library

Birmingham has a new Central Library. At £189million pounds it has been a controversial project, and replaces an iconic "inverted concrete ziggurat" which was thought worthy of Grade 2 listing by English Heritage in 2009 http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/news/birmingham-library/

It is the largest civic (not national) library in Europe, and plays a central role in the cultural life of the midlandsv region -- not just City of Birmingham. One wonders , however, how towns like London (7 million inhabitants) fare. Whilst they host National Libraries, their populace is little served by them . Is it not time that the GLA should match and link its excellent local museum (Museum of London) with a central library, to live up to the aspirations of Birmingham?...... just a thought.

Brums old Central Library

Before you think Brum is a "one-off" exception, look down the road at Worcester, where the County and University combined forces to produce a joint library, The Hive. This also provides access to archaeological services and archive in worcestershire. This might be a succesful model London could follow

The Hive, Worcester

Altab Ali Park, centre of Anti-racist resistance again

7th September 2013 saw the return of the Far-right provocateurs of the (so-called) English Defence League  in a third attempt to march on the East London Mosque. Filled with hate, bile, Islamophobia (whipped up by irresponsible newspapers) and a bunch of bare-faced lies (such as this area of Tower Hamlets is under Sharia Law and you can't buy beer in the area --- believe me, with the highest concentration of alcoholic homeless anywhere in the universe, even lifelong beer drinking atheists like myself would like to see a few less off licences, but that's a different matter, there are plenty of beer outlets in TH, and no sign of Sharia Law unless you voluntarily seek it out and agree to abide by it. In this way it is similar to theJewish Law -halacha- administered by the Beth Din in the same area just a few years ago!). Yet again Anti-racists assembled on Altab Ali Park (formerly the site of St Mary Matfelon, the original White Chapel.

https://twitter.com/knight_david/status/376321077880037376/photo/1

Star of David and scales of justice -
used as the symbol for a  former Jewish Newspaper Office

Whilst this is a pale version, it recalls earlier battles against the far right, when Moseley's Fascists attempted to march through this area (see below). The slogan then, adopted from the Spanish Civil war, and the slogan now is ¡No pasarán! "They Shall Not Pass"  ,     In fact, Max Levitas, the 90+ veteran of the Battle of Cable Street was out mobilising for the action to "Stop the EDL"  in the lead up to the march

Kosher Wine Co. Osborn Street 1900-07
 http://www.museumoflondonprints.com/image/141273/john-galt-the-original-kosher-wine-company-premises-e1-c-1900

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/504318/20130906/edl-tower-hamlets-far-right-demonstration-muslim.htm

In 1936 the church still stood, but this area, The top of Leman Street, Gardiners Corner (the west end of Commercial Road) were the areas first secured against the movement of Moseley's Fascists. It was only then that attention moved south to Cable Street.

View Larger Map
The Park itself is named after a young clothing worker murdered by Racists in Adler Street (audio below) in 1978
More on earlier demonstrations and the White Chapel, below

Monday, 12 September 2011

Racist EDL kept out of Tower Hamlets - now celebrate 75th anniversary of the Battle for Cable Street

EDL were prevented from demonstrating in Tower Hamlets on the 3rd of September. They were stopped from going on the rampage like Dudley Click here for film , where they attacked a Hindu temple and an Indian Restaurant. In Tower Hamlets (after their static demonstration) an EDL coach was prevented from travelling through the area BBC report of coach.

It had echos of a far larger struggle - that of the 1930s Battle of Cable Street. Which was fought under the Spanish Civil War slogan ¡No pasarán! "They Shall Not Pass" (tho' with fewer numbers on either side)

Like the 1936 Battle, hopefully this will mark a turning point in the growth of the nasty racist "street politics" of the EDL.

The 75th anniversary of the battle is coming up, with a march from Leman Street (Aldgate East tube) a rally in St Georges Gardens and events in Graces Alley and Wilton's Music Hall click here for more info  from SUNDAY 2 OCTOBER 2011.  Which will be a celebration of a united and diverse community.
Click on the blue blobs and lines for information

View Cable Street 75 in a larger map

Altab Ali Park - placemaking, -naming and identity in Whitechapel

Max Levitas, (Communist councillor of the former Stepney Borough, of Jewish heritage) a veteran of the 1936 Battle of Cable Street, addresses the crowd at Altab Ali Day, May 4th 2012, from the Shaheed Minar, a copy of the Bangladesh memorial to the Bengal language martyrs of the 1950s. For more photos click here

 click here for photos

Altab Ali Park has been has been revamped to designs by MUF ArtArchitecture.  The Park was named after a local clothing worker who was brutally murdered by racists in the 1970s  in Adler Street (named after a famous rabbi). It was formed out of the churchyard for St Mary Matfelon (photo of the 19th-c church left, after a fire). A great many famous - or infamous - people were buried in the churchyard, including the executioner when  Charles I was beheaded (Richard Brandon , tho' he may not have wielded the fatal blow).
The church is first referred to in the 13th century, though its origin may be substantially earlier than that. It became a parish church in the 14th century and it leant its common name of the White Chapel, to the parish and district of Whitechapel. There are no reliable images of the medieval church, but it is known to have been extended in 1591. The medieval church, with its short square tower, is first shown on the Faithorne and Newcourt map of 1658. In 1673 the medieval church was in such a poor state that it had to be demolished. The new church is clearly shown on the Ogilby and Morgan map of 1676. Burials ceased in the churchyard in 1854 and in the 1870s the church was rebuilt again. The remains of the medieval church were discovered in the 1870s after the demolition of the 17th-century church. Observations were recorded by George Birch who stated “on removing the brick walls of the seventeenth century church it was found that they had been entirely built on the old walls of the medieval church”. The new church was barely built when it suffered a fire (pictured) and was rebuilt to look the same. This church was bombed during WW2.
The park was rejuvenated by High Street 2012 and the park reopened formally on March 12th 2012
The design of the new park was informed by an archaeological evaluation

Community dig

and watching brief

Art-off at Altab Ali Park, a set on Flickr