February 2012
9 posts
The back part of Walworth, at its greatest distance from town, is a straggling miserable place enough, even in these days; but, five-and-thirty years ago, the greater portion of it was little better than a dreary waste, inhabited by a few scattered people of questionable character, whose poverty prevented their living in any better neighbourhood, or whose pursuits and mode of life rendered its...
January 2012
5 posts
There are certain unhappy individuals who take no pleasure in London. Such are frightened by its immensity, a magnitude that emphasises the emptiness of the heart. The city is too big for them, a mere desert of bricks and mortar… This reserved, esoteric city, which discloses its secrets only to those worthy of its regard.
Geoffrey Fletcher, 1962, The London Nobody Knows. (Link)
February 2010
1 post
January 2010
5 posts
4 tags
5 tags
“Robinson believes that, if he looked at it hard enough, he could cause the surface of the city to reveal to him the molecular basis of historical events…”
Patrick Keiller, London.
5 tags
Introduction
This is a project about commemoration.
In previous eras, notable personages were honoured with grand portraits or statues. Some still are today. But it is far more common in the modern, economical climate to make do with signs and plaques. Slabs of minimal text that somehow signify a whole life. Ambition and success are contained in simple words.
London is replete with such monumental text. This...