Links tagged with “london”
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Six Snapshots of St Paul’s - Anne Desmet
Saw a single version of this Bankside Gallery today. Nice, tiny, detailed. A good not-touristy, vertical London landscape.
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Prince Charles Cinema - Slackers presents… Singles
Nostalgic retromania events have definitely reached the early 90s. “Not only will we be presenting the film, but there will also be a selection of music videos with lyrics on the screen for you to sing along to before the film…”
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Barbican - Urban Wandering – Film and the London Landscape
Loads of interesting London-related films at the Barbican in September. Includes a new film about the pedways/highwalks! (via @antimega)
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Jack Nicholson+The Brunswick Centre=V. cool. From… | Modernist Estates
A snippet from ‘The Passenger’ (1981), with Jack Nicholson walking through the Brunswick Centre.
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Whitecross Street Estate - 2010 - Publica (PDF)
A report on the Peabody estate that spans Whitecross Street, from 2010. An interesting read. It sounded like a quite reasonable amount of work would make a big different to a lot of the public/residents’ spaces which are neither car park or useful/enjoyable space. But I’m not sure how much has actually changed since.
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An Independent Appraisal of Henderson Global Investor’s Ltd’s Proposals for Redevelopment of the Western Market Buildings, Smithfield (PDF)
Lots of photos etc, describing the proposals. Mainly: Keep the most of the shallow, street-facing brick buildings (or just the facades?), and replace the large 19th century market space inside with a seven-storey office block. This assessment seems unsurprisingly critical.
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The best burritos and tacos in London – 55 burritos, 83 tacos, 59 eateries, one verdict | The Picky Glutton
Ten years ago I wrote a post wondering why there was so little Mexican food in London. Now look. (via Antimega)
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Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied | Artist Talks at The Photographers’ Gallery | The Photographers’ Gallery
Geocities, 90s web culture, etc. Could be good, see you there.
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New Residential Tower For City Road Approved
Blimey, that’s huge! The current half-built towers (on the left) already look oppressively tall for this spot.
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‘Not believing in God makes life more precious’: meet the atheist ‘churchgoers’ | World news | The Guardian
A few years ago I was wondering what an atheist Sunday “service” would be like. here we are.
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The Last Places
Henry VIII’s wine cellar, once part of Whitehall Palace, still exists under the Ministry of Defence. Although the entire cellar was moved, in one piece, when the MoD was being built. (via ?)
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Barbican, 1969 - YouTube
Documentary about the Barbican, including footage of the then nearly-completed buildings, and (at 15:40) a look inside one of the show flats.
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London Centre for Book Arts
New, in Hackney, devoted to artists’ books. They do classes on printing, binding, etc. (via the Guardian)
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How London’s Silicon Roundabout really got started — European technology news
Brilliant - really glad this got written up. Matt Biddulph’s timeline of how “Silicon Roundabout” became a thing.
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Jones the planner: Hackney Hipsters
Ignoring the hipster stuff, a good look at some of the developing and developed parts of Hackney. “There is a fundamental mismatch between what ‘regeneration’ does and the sort of organic development that resulted in the Shoreditch of today. … Most developers do exactly the opposite of what makes Shoreditch successful.” (via @amcewen)
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At Hyde Park Corner (London Review of Books)
Jonathan Meades on fine form, on the newish Bomber Command Memorial. “The failure of British modernism and of today’s synthetic modernism to devise a memorious idiom provides an ample justification for the mongers of easy-viewin’ classicism to dump their stuff indiscriminately.”
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Old Street – putting the genie back in the bottle? | The power of the network
Yes (except when he says “Old Street” he means “Old Street Roundabout”). Putting a big building in the middle of a horrific, people-unfriendly space won’t help much. I’d go further: pedestrianise everything from the Foundry to the roundabout. (via @cityofsound)
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How a high-rise craze is ruining London’s skyline | Art and design | The Observer
“Strata waddles into the background from stage left, like SpongeBob SquarePants in a production of Hamlet.” Yes, all this. (via @cityofsound)
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I, Anna Trailer - YouTube
Charlotte Rampling and Gabriel Byrne in a movie that seems largely set in the Barbican. Includes a scene in a lift with the blue “lift curtains” that are hung when someone’s moving in or out, to protect the lift. A nice cosy/claustrophobic touch.
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Henderson - General - Henderson launches new plans for Smithfield Quarter
Description of plans for the west end of Smithfield Market. I am never optimistic about these things.
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Tower of London
The Tower of London’s Facebook timeline goes back to 1066. (via Londonist)
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Tait Technologies: Moving Images at Olympic Stadium
About the seat pixel things in the Olympic Stadium. Stunning, and they work so much better than I would have imagined. (via @knolleary)
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Iain Sinclair · Diary: My Olympics · LRB 30 August 2012
He’s usually an entertaining read, despite his relentless talking-down of even incidental things (I’m not sure Zara Phillips’ Olympic horse can be described as a “sore-hoofed nag”). But, more and more, I wonder, “What does Iain Sinclair *want*? I know what he’s against, but what is he *for*?”
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Why the Southbank Centre redevelopment plan is sheer folly | Art and design | The Observer
What is it that makes people want to change pleasant, distinctive locations into chain-filled, plate-glass-fronted, shopping centres? (via everyone with any sense)
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Melissa Price
Topographic maps of (only) London’s rivers or London’s hills. Nice idea, although monochrome relief seems rather dull after seeing Stamen’s terrain maps. And the labels seem rather OTT.
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BBC News - How to read London
Paul Mason, brilliant on the nature of London. Well worth a read.
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#WHENINLONDON
I do like this Tumblr. (via @iamdanw)
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The physical constraints of London’s streets | As Easy As Riding A Bike
Countering the “London’s streets are two narrow for proper Dutch-style cycling lanes” idea with many, many photos of London’s wide main roads. (via Cyclists in the City)
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Another Studio - MONUmini Barbican Tower
10cm tall stainless steel sheet model of a Barbican tower.
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Twitter / mattb: @philgyford those “estimat
“@philgyford those “estimates” always upset me. I didn’t estimate, I wrote down the first 15 companies I could think of in half an hour.” Exactly.
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Demos | Publications - A Tale of Tech City
Free download PDF of the report. Page 53 includes the “15 companies in 2008” meme as only one of several unreliable figures. (via @jwheare)
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Olympic Park legacy plan threatens Tech City growth, report warns | Business | guardian.co.uk
“That compares with an estimated 15 companies as recently as 2008.” The Guardian trotting out that ridiculous stat yet again. Even the Demos report the article is about (but doesn’t link to) says that figure is only one of several unreliable ones.
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Twitter / SeaContainers: The largest ever picture o
100m wide photo of the royal family on the south bank of the Thames. As Londonist put it, “reminiscent of Pyongyang leader worship.” Horrific. Tag “jubilympics”. (via Londonist)
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Cash in the attic: short-term home letting | Life and style | The Guardian
Couple appear in national newspaper showing off their Barbican flat which they let out to strangers, against the terms of their lease. What fun.
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Secret Underground
“Smart ways around the tube system.” I’ll never remember these, but interesting and handy nonetheless. (via @antimega)
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The woman who lives in a shed: how London landlords are cashing in | Society | The Guardian
Sometimes I fear we’re going backwards.
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A Profile of London by A.A. Gill - NYTimes.com
“The natives may, occasionally, if backed against a wall, be rudimentarily helpful, but mostly they’ll ignore you with the huffing sighs of people in a hurry.” “She furiously bellowed; ‘Oh my God, is there no end to these improvements?’” (via Haddock)
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CityDashboard: London
Not the prettiest thing in the world, but really nice as a “state of a place” display.
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New Plan To Redevelop Centre Point
Interesting in itself but also for the developer saying that in the long term, Centre Point will only be sustainable if turned into flats. Nice!
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Barbican Cinema’s Official Tumblog
Documenting the creation of the new cinemas.
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List of windmills in London - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“A list of existing and former windmills whose sites fall within Greater London.” Lists 15 locations in Clerkenwell alone. Internet is brilliant.
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Olympics 2012: branding ‘police’ to protect sponsors’ exclusive rights | Sport | The Guardian
If you were wavering over your opinion of them, every paragraph here takes you closer to thinking “fuck the London Olympic Games 2012.”
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London Trails
“Walking Tours with Old Maps.” Sounds good.
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Olympics 2012 security: welcome to lockdown London | Stephen Graham | Sport | The Guardian
I did think that maybe, as the games approached, I would forget any earlier grumpiness over the vast sums of money spent on two weeks of sport but, ah, no. It is nuts.
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Coutours - Bespoke Tours of London
“Coutours creates entertaining tailor-made escorted tours of London, urban expeditions that will make your visit to London both special and unforgettable.”
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Kettling 2.0: The Olympic State of Exception and TSG Action Figures | Games Monitor
For the large bit on the portable steel cordons the UK police originally acquired for “Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear” situations and are now using to contain protestors. I’d be a bit shocked if I saw police in, say, a Middle Eastern country using these against peaceful protestors, and now…
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Around City of London in Colour aka London Scenes - British Pathe
Some nice bits of (silent) colour film of the City of London from 1961. (Thanks Mum!)
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New Statesman - The tax haven in the heart of Britain
Not sure why I didn’t save this link at the time, in February. Nicholas Shaxson on the City of London.
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City property deals benefit a developer linked to lord mayor | UK news | The Guardian
Could it be that the Corporation of London is going to finally get some of the investigation and poking the shady, undemocratic institution deserves? That “path of progress” euphemism is horrible in itself.