My second visit to the Wapping Project confirmed in my mind that it is rapidly becoming one of my favourite places in London. Situated in an old Hydraulic Power Station on the banks of the Thames this is a bit more than the usual post-derelict warehouse art gallery...the gallery space is dramatically dark and is accessed by a modern stairway which makes very light contact with the old building. The first time I came this entire space was flooded and the visitor had to paddled around in a boat, this time you could walk around and discover other rooms full of old machinery. This is a dramatic space which actually does allow the artist to respond to it, rather than being some old building that did have a dramatic space that has been stripped of its old features flooded with north light and sterilised with a polished concrete floor. The cast iron columns are corroding and the brick work is left in a condition far removed from polished off, any original features are kept, but not religiously, so Victorian tiles find themselves partially obscured from view by the machinery that came later and would perhaps have been removed by different preservationists/conservationists.
The presence of machinery in the main area which doubles as a swanky bistro is what makes this place really special though. The posh dining tables and chairs find themselves butt next to hulking great pieces of machinery that, whilst clean still reak of engine oil. Again the machines aren't treated reverently, candles dripping wax to light the tables are on top of them as well as massive old TVs showing video art as part of the exhibition play away. They aren't showcased but nor are they diminished to some sort of stage set background...they are part of the Project. Up above in the vast roof space old vines still creep their way into the building and if you follow the staircase up to the top you can see the vast old tanks of water. Really awesome...and bloody nice hot chocolate too! These are some photos from my last visit to Wapping on 3rd March 2012 where the photography of Edgar Martins was on show "This is not a House"
In yesterday’s Independent I came across a sweet article about interactive advertising that has been installed in a bus stop on Oxford Street. The advert uses facial recognition to play a separate message to men and women when they stand in front of the bus stop. Whilst this is still relatively basic it does add an element of interaction and person specific advertising. The bus stop also has an audio jack so you can plug your headphones into it. This, I think, is where it gets really exciting.
To access the audio experience the passer-by has to physically interact with the bus stop and insert their jack into the port. Imagine if buildings, street furniture, advertising hoardings over an entire city could have bespoke messages within that play for each individual. Or door handles and kerb stones that are touch sensitive and are activated in various ways tailored to the user type.
The bus stop example is like something out of Minority Report and uses technology which is rapidly developing by the Japanese company NEC.
Here are some other cool examples of interactive city elements:
This is the awesome Mr Underwood Sonic-Graffiti piece that appeared in Digbeth as part of Supersonic Festival in 2011. The work was a series of pieces that had to be discovered scattered all over Digbeth. Once they were found they could be activated by pressing buttons and sound recorded from local workshops was played through speakers or through headphones that had to be inserted. Absolutely Awesome, gutted I missed it. Check out the links for videos and blog and stuff.
After yesterdays fanciful trip into the world of mad inventors and contraptions I've been getting back into architectural devices...some of these things are so sweet!
I’ve always enjoyed mad and totally pointless inventions that involve a chain of events that finally culminate in the achievement of some simple task. One such invention was featured in the Metro “newspaper” this morning and I was delighted to see that the inventor was reported to have said,
“this will be the first in a series of eco-machines, which perform simple, energy-saving tasks in complex ways. I’m trying to make it as absurd and useless as possible.”
One has to admire a man who puts such effort into something which he himself acknowledges as totally futile. Camus would be going wild!
My interest in John Madin led to several occasions when I was able to meet people who had worked in his offices and look through some of the archive materials they had kept from those days. What follows are some photos I took of various visuals that were produced by the office for schemes, some of which went on to be built and others which remained on the drawing board.
As any student of architecture in Birmingham I have been exposed to the work of John Madin, a visionary architect with huge ambition whose work has been much maligned by various groups in Birmingham. I don't want to be sycophantic and I acknowledge that some of his work may not be incredibly exciting or even that good, but some of the stuff is just so powerful and was part of such grand ideas of what the new motorised city in the post-war world should be that he has to rank as one of my favourite architects. Wes Jones says in "El Segundo" that
"the architect should approach each work as evidence of a particular understanding of the world, as evidence of the architect's belief that this understanding is the most appropriate...work [architecture] should be offered as an example of the way things should be, not as proof of its own uniqueness. The architect should stand behind the work...and any signature that the work develops through its own consistency should be emblematic of its goodness proven in each example, rather than simply its difference, or its designers fame."
Madin's work displays his understanding of the Birmingham in which he operated, Britain's Motor-City. His buildings are often composed of simple but powerful geometric forms and are, for all their brutalism, fairly modest buildings that don't exhibit the attributes of the shout out "look at me" architecture that is currently par for the course in Birmingham. Madin has attracted a bad reputation amongst some who either don't like the brutal forms of his work or don't like what his architecture represents; Birmingham's post-war concrete redevelopment. But others love Madin's buildings and as one by one they are demolished there is a growing concern that Birmingham will eradicate that past like it has done before, a past which was striving to to create a new utopia. No matter how misguided those intentions and actions might have been atleast it was an applaudable occupation and a life well spent.
Glenn Howells paid this tribute to him in the Birmingham Post
"Glenn Howells, of Birmingham-based Glenn Howells Architects, said Mr Madin was to be admired as much for his output as his architectural prowess. He said: “He was probably the most important mid-20th century architect that the city had in that he brought international examples and experience to bear in the city. "He is probably best known for the major buildings he left behind, but some of the most interesting work he did was in residential development, like the Calthorpe Estate buildings. “He was quite prolific. His output was huge over many decades.”
