Category: Urban sketch

Sketching in Kennington and Vauxhall

In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens there is a strange geometric building. I drew it, sitting on the grass.

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There is a tiny sign on the Tyers Street side of the building which says “Cabinet”. We saw someone come out. They said, “It’s an art gallery, you should check it out!” We pushed the door and went inside. There is indeed an art gallery on the ground floor. Currently it is showing an exhibition of the notebooks and sketches of Antonin Artaud: “Cahiers de Rodez at d’Ivey 1945-48”. Rodez was or is a mental asylum.

“An unclassifiable volume of writing and drawing. Portraits, names, calculations, glossolalia, sigils, lists and drugs and foodstuffs, formulae, totems, lexicons, anatomies, objects, […] machines and implements of obscure purpose” (curation, 132 Tyers Street SE11 5HS)

We asked the receptionist what the building was. It was designed by Trevor Horne Architects. It is financed by Charles Asprey. There is a gallery on the ground floor. On the top floor there is a “project space”. In between there are two “residential floors”. The tiles on ground floor were identical to the tiles on the Barbican Podium, but newer. The walls were unfinished concrete inside, with pleasing concave curves.

Charles Asprey has many interests.

“CHARLES ASPREY is a publisher and arts patron. He runs an exhibition space in an award-winning building he commissioned on the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London. He is co-editor of the arts quarterly PICPUS and Chair of the Grants Committee of the Henry Moore Foundation. “

He is also an initiator of the “London Fountain Co.” which aims to provide fresh drinking water in London “helping to provide the infrastructure needed to move away from plastic bottled water”. The quote about Charles Asprey, above, comes from the London Fountain Co. website.

The windows of the building have “A” shaped frames:

My sketches of the windows
Tyers St Motif downloaded from Charles Asprey website

A for Asprey.

Off to the right of the picture is Vauxhall City Farm. The Christian cross you see to the left of Asprey’s building is on top of the “All Nations Apostolic Church” on Tyers Terrace. The neat house on the far left is 127 Tyers Street. It is now residential, a fine conversion of a row of shops.

In the far distance you see the tower blocks round Elephant and Castle.

Here is work in progress on the picture. It took about 1hr45min.

Then I walked along Tyers Street and towards Waterloo.

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This is a view from outside “Mountain House”, a 1930’s block on Tyers Street.

You see Arden House on the right. The huge modern block is “Parliament House Apartments”, which is on Black Prince Road on the North side of the railway tracks. In the middle is a row of 1970s houses, odd numbers 1-21 Vauxhall Walk.

This was a really quick sketch: about 15 mins, drawn and coloured on the narrow pavement outside Mountain House.

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From Lauderdale Place: Eastern Cluster

It is amazing how many buildings you can see from Lauderdale Place. Lauderdale is the Westernmost of the three Barbican Towers. I am standing beside it, looking South-East, over Lambert Jones Mews.

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The towers are members of the so-called “Eastern Cluster”. The new building, 22 Bishopsgate, with its 60 floors, makes the former “NatWest Tower” look small. The NatWest Tower used to be the tallest tower block in the City. It is a mere 42 floors, and is now called “Tower 42”. Perhaps that is because of the number of floors. I never thought of that before.

You can just glimpse “the Scalpel”, the pointed crystalline building on Lime St, near the Lloyds building. In the picture it is between 22 Bishopsgate and St Giles’ Church.

I have annotated all the buildings here:

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Here is work in progress:

We think of the Barbican as concrete, but in fact there is quite a lot of brick. I studied the brickwork on Lambert Jones Mews carefully, and then found it was more difficult to draw than I expected. The pattern is very particular: long-short-long-short.

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The drawing took 1hr45min, drawn in bright sunlight and a light breeze. I finished it at 12:15pm. Then I went home and had a Hot Cross Bun which I had bought from St John’s Bakery. The bag was standing beside me while I was drawing, smelling spicy.

 

A walk to Wapping

Today was a beautiful day. It was a day to go for a walk.

I went to the river. Near Old Billingsgate I looked under London Bridge and saw Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast. This is a 15 minute sketch, watercolour-only, no pen.

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Onwards towards the East, I stood on Sugar Quay, which has only just re-opened after years of being closed while the nearby hotel is built.

Here is the Shard, in context,  from a wooden bench on Sugar Quay.

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This map shows my walk:

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Tourists congregate around Tower Bridge. East of Tower Bridge, after St Katherines Dock, there are no tourists at all. It was suddenly very quiet. I went down “Alderman Steps”. There was this great view. The wind was fierce, and my eyes were streaming. I had a go anyway. Two mallards bobbed around amongst the floating quays, chatting away, looking around as if searching for something lost.

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Then I went on East. I had lunch in a hipster café called “Urban Baristas” on Wapping High Street.

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Lunch at the hipster café “Urban Baristas”

A man at the next table discussed flats on his mobile phone. He said Shoreditch was too expensive, so he was looking in Wapping. He’d found a good place, a view of the river, open plan, lots of space. Maybe it was offices he was describing, not flats.

Then I went on East. The river opens out here, it starts to feel more like an estuary. There are 1980s flats, brick-built, but in the river shores are the remains of the old trade: the old chains, the stanchions, huge shafts of timber, rotting piers.

Then the river bends again, and there’s a magnificent view of Canary Wharf.

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I drew this in about an hour, sitting in sunlight spiked with the smell of someone else’s fish and chips.

Here is work in progress:

Here is me drawing:

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St Alphege Gardens, flowering tree

This tree is in blossom. It’s by the old London Wall.

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I cannot do it justice. You should go and look at it. Everyone should. It’s a miracle, in amongst the buildings.

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The Shard from Borough Market

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Walking back from Intaglio Printmaker in Southwark, I thought it would be a good idea to walk through Borough Market. It was not. The crowds were so closely pressed together, and walking and stopping, that I could make no headway through the main part of the market. So I went round the edge, and glimpsed the Shard, high above the roofs.

The roofs, and the lights, look old but they are not really old. The lights, the nearest ones, are gas lights, with real gas flames. They are recent. The market was re-created and enlarged in the late 1990s. It’s now easy to believe that it’s always been a thriving London market.  But it hasn’t. The “Blueprint” website from developers CBRE says:

In the 1980s, the surrounding area of Borough Market had undergone severe decline. The market’s days as a wholesale hub were threatened by the growth of supermarket retailers and the nearby development of the New Covent Garden market in Vauxhall in the 1970s. By 1994, the market had as few as nine traders and an income of less than £400k per year…..

The first “green shoot” for the market emerged … in 1996. The market had hit rock bottom with little left but a few traders and a mobile barber’s stall operating from a caravan. Neil’s Yard Dairy approached the market seeking additional space in damp conditions for the preservation of their expanding cheese business. Damp space, according to [George] Nicholson [market chairman], “was something we had lots of.”

 

fullsizeoutput_331bI drew this picture standing up in Stoney Street. There was a strong wind. Papers, mostly takeaway food wrappers, rushed along in the air as if they had somewhere to go.

There were huge crowds outside Monmouth coffee. The whole of Stoney Street, to the right of my picture,  was occupied by people.

Astonishingly, cars appeared. This picture took about 45 minutes and in that time I must have seen about 10 cars, one every few minutes. They arrived and stopped, seeing the crowds. Then, no doubt consulting a GPS which said this was indeed a street, they pushed on.

People walked past me, eating food from wrappers or drinking beer from cans. One drinker rolled over to me. “Are you drawing a picture?” he leered, ready to make fun.

“No,” I replied, “I’m riding a bicycle.” In his drink-fuddled haze, he had a problem to process that.

He turned to his fellow drinkers. “She says she’s riding a bicycle,” he announced. His wise companions hurried him on.

 

Strawberry Hill House

Strawberry Hill is about 40 minutes out of Waterloo, towards Twickenham.

Here is the summer villa of Horace Walpole (1717-97) son of Sir Robert Walpole, the “first British Prime Minister” according to the leaflet.

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Amazing what you find, and this was still only in Zone 5. This is “Gothic Revival” style. Out of the picture, to the right, was a hospitality tent, where an event was bring held. The tent was 21st Century basic style, not at all Gothic.

Here is a picture I drew after we had toured the house, which is like a stage set of rooms leading off rooms, and pictures which look at you from ornate frames. It would make a good set for an episode of “the Avengers”*. It was very stuffy indoors, and the rooms were surprisingly small, or perhaps surprisingly crowded. I came outside and found a bench in the garden. There was birdsong, and a distinct smell of marijuana.

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Pictures took about 40 min each.

*The Avengers: British TV series, 1961-69, espionage and thriller, featuring John Steed played by Patrick McNee and a series of his assistants, notably Emma Peel played by Diana Rigg (1965). A formative part of my education.

A wall in Waitrose Car Park

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I like pictures of walls. It seems to me they have much to say. This one, for example, talks of the house that it once supported, of the concrete small bunkers that were at its base. It has been there longer than the development called “Cherry Tree Walk” which is above Waitrose, to the left. And now, behind and above, is the new YMCA hostel.

This wall is brick. It must have taken a long time to build. And it’s still there.

I drew the YMCA hostel from the other side, in December 2017:

YMCA site, Errol St EC1

88 Golden Lane

Today was a glorious sunny day. I walked out into the sun and everywhere was worthy of a sketch.

Here is 88 Golden Lane, a strange thin building. It is an architects’ practice: Blair Architecture.

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I sketched this standing on the side of the road in the sun, then retreated to sit on my case by a nearby wall to add the colour.

It must have looked as though I was sitting on the pavement. An elderly woman, pushing a shopping basket on wheels, stopped and asked me if I was alright. I said I was, and explained that I was drawing a picture. “Oh,” she said, “because I was going to say that if you needed a sit down, there a bench just around the corner here.”

I gestured to the building I was drawing. “Ah yes, you wouldn’t be able to see that if you went round the corner.” She told me she had wanted to be an artist. She always got the art prize at school. But then the schools closed. “We were blocked,” she said. I didn’t know what she meant. “I’m old,” she said, smiling at my blank expression, “the war.”

Because the school closed, she left at 14. “I wanted to go to the art school, St Martins, but that was closed because of the war.” So, she said she’d be a typist. Then the firm she worked for closed down because of the war. “So I went on War Work,” she declared. “Oh, I’ve had a good life. I’m 93. Although people say I don’t look it.” She certainly didn’t look it.

I suggested she take up art now.

“I can’t,” she said, “it’s the hands.” She held up her arms. Her hands were balls, in gloves. “Arthritis,” she said. “But I’m alright. I was ill. And I recovered. So now I think, well, I’ve got a new life. Get on with it.”

She waved her balled hands cheerfully and pushed her trolley on. She turned round. “I hope to see you again,” she said.

 

 

Barbican Towers in winter

Here is a sketch I made yesterday showing Shakespeare Tower, the middle one of the Barbican Towers.

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I drew it sitting on a bench in Fortune Park.

fullsizeoutput_329aWhen I sat down, there was an agitated rustle under the bench, and a blackbird emerged onto the grass, looking rumpled. Another squawked among the leaves. I had the distinct impression that I had disturbed the creation of the next generation of blackbird. He, on the grass, squawked his annoyance at me.

I offered crumbs from the rock cake which I had bought from Big John on Whitecross Street market. The blackbird accepted the crumbs, fluttered a little way away to enjoy them, but was not appeased. His mate, having adjusted her make-up, hopped out, and asked for some rock cake too.

This picture took 1hr 15, drawn and coloured on location.

Here is a picture I’d done 2 days before, from an extremely cold and windy position on Chiswell Street. From left to right, Cromwell, Shakespeare, Lauderdale.

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You see the infamous “Beech Street Tunnel”. This is an area of illegally high pollution levels, as the street is usually full of vehicles, and is covered. I haven’t shown the vehicles. Or the numerous pedestrians.

The odd circular tower type thing on the left of the tunnel is the vent to the car parks below. It is an architectural feature.

This was a much quicker picture as I was very cold and the location was busy and difficult to work in. 15 min on location and 15 min to do the colour at my desk.

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Britannic House and Angel Court

Here is a view of Britannic House, 1 Finsbury Circus, from the back entrance of Moorgate Station.

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It was 5 degrees C. I was standing outside 45 Moorfields, at the junction with New Union Street.

Behind the blue hoardings is the Crossrail site. When the buildings above Crossrail are finished, this view will have gone.

As I was drawing, young people emerged at intervals from Moorgate Station, pointing their mobile phones like laser guns. They glanced up from the screen, and chose New Union Street. This is a poor choice. New Union Street doesn’t go anywhere you want to go. It joins Moor Lane about half way along Willoughby House in the Barbican. Then you have to turn either left or right. Either way is a long draughty walk.

Nobody asks for directions these days. Eventually a young woman hesitated. My curiosity overcame me. I asked if she needed directions. “No”, she said, “I’m just going to “Bad Egg”. It’s that way, isn’t it?” She pointed down New Union Street, no doubt following the advice of her phone. “Well, no,” I said, “You’re best off going this other way, and across the Piazza”. She looked doubtful, and glanced again at her phone as if asking it for permission. But she followed my instructions. She will get there ahead of the people in front who are walking three sides of a square. The phone doesn’t know about the Piazza in front of City Point, which is where “Bad Egg” is located. “Bad Egg” is a very noisy restaurant. I walk past it on the way to Moorgate.

I carried on drawing. More young people emerged and set off down New Union Street. I let them go. Then a woman emerged and walked in the other direction, pointing her phone at the Moorgate Crossrail site. She kept walking until she was right close to the hoardings, and then stopped. She looked accusingly at the hoardings. They should not be there. She should be able to walk south unimpeded. But there is a huge Crossrail site in the way. Evidently this feature was not apparent on the online map. She rotated gently, but still the reality on her phone refused to match the reality on the ground. She made an impatient gesture and walked out of sight, towards Moorgate.

After I finished the drawing I wondered what the tower was that is behind Britannic House. So I walked in that direction, and found it is “Angel Court Bank”, a multi-use office space.

It soars up, planted in a very ancient part of the city, near the Bank of England. Angel Court itself is an alley way which joins Copthall Avenue with Lothbury.

I liked the disjunction between the smooth modern architecture and the decorated banking halls on the other side of the alley. The black thing on the pavement is a hunk of black granite intended as a bench. It has slots cut in the side to stop skateboarders using it as a jump.

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In this picture you see the modern tower “angel court bank” on the left. It is also called “One Angel Court”. It slopes outwards, as you see, and is totally smooth, made of curved glass, which must have been really hard to assemble. On the other side of the street are old banking halls, once grand. Number 11 is the one which is ornate, in the centre of the picture. It is dilapidated, apparently empty. Its pillars really are green and white marble, albeit that one of them is held together with a rusty iron band. On the right of the picture is Numbers 9-10. I was surprised to see the bikes locked to its iron railings, as this practice is generally frowned on, and bikes are cut down. This building also looks empty, but a notice in the window declared that it was inhabited by “live-in guardians”. A note on the letter box instructed the Royal Mail where to put the post for residents. The bikes, evidently, belonged to the live-in guardians. They have great place to live, for the time being.

I was really cold by this time and my eyes were streaming. So I came home.

I have down Britannic House before:

1 Finsbury Circus, across the Crossrail site

 

Here’s a bit, from the “Open House” site, on Angel Court:

Original design
Fletcher Priest Architects, 2017
Refurbishment
Fletcher Priest Architects, 2017
Type
Restaurant/bar, Offices
Period
Contemporary

  • Overview

    Fletcher Priest has completed Angel Court for Mitsui Fudosan UK and development partner Stanhope. The last tower of the ‘first generation’ of tall buildings in the Bank of England Conservation Area, Angel Court is located at heart of the City’s financial district.

  • Refurbished

    Extensive studies were initially carried out to examine new-build, re-build and refurbishment options for the 1970s structure before it was decided to replace all but the core and foundations of this 25-storey building, increasing the net area by 60%. The new tower hovers above pedestrianised Angel Court, formerly a cut-through from Lothbury to Copthall Avenue, now improved to create 40% more public realm.

  • The Translucent Building

    The most noticeable aspect of the tower is its skin, which flows as a softly curved homogenous surface around the walls and roof of the original octagonal form. During the day, glimpsed through the close-knit grain of the City’s streets, its translucency gives it a distinctive, light presence. These effects come from a double frit, a ceramic dot baked onto the glass surface, which allows views from inside to out and offsets solar gain. The sculpted lower garden floor buildings with deep-set windows faced in rough-hewn Carlow Blue limestone sit comfortably in their context and contrast with the softly curved tower. At night, the tower transforms to reveal a simple square grid to match the lower buildings, unifying the whole composition.