Brutalism – Page 2 – Where is Phil now?

Saturday 07 January 2023 – London.

London, London, London. I do love you so. Sometimes I question that love as it’s very one-sided, and, though today wasn’t the best outing, it also wasn’t a day to be questioning how I feel about this magnificent, crowded, dirty, occasionally smelly and deeply frustrating city I have chosen to (mostly) live in. I wonder if you can have a truly bad day here; other than something untoward happening, which I guess is always a possibility, however unlikely it seems. Of course, if I lived in Paris, Rome, New York or Berlin or any other major city I’m sure I’d feel the same way there as well. Much as I love the wilderness. if I’m honest with myself cities are my real habitat. I should just embrace that more. You can be alone in a crowded place if you want to be, and today I was after a little solitude.

It’s cloudy and grey and cold and windy and rain is threatened, there’s also a train strike affecting all the mainline services into London, though thankfully not the tube. It sounded like a perfect day for a random street walk photo mission into a Saturday deserted city. I had a loose plan, walk about a bit and then take some photos of St Magnus House on Lower Thames St then cross London Bridge and take some photos of Colechurch House on the direct opposite side of the River Thames. Both brutalist buildings. The owners of Colechurch House appear to have big plans for a renovation which I suspect will lead to the destruction of what is already there so it would be nice to capture a little bit of its brutal loveliness.

I have been wanting to take photos of Colechurch House for a couple of years. It is directly opposite the always busy London Bridge Station which is where I leave the train when I go to St Leonards and it’s always busy with far too many people hanging and basically getting in the way of my image taking. I was hoping that with a train strike today it would be quiet. I was going to be disappointed.

Popping out from the tube into the ‘London fresh’ air at Liverpool St Station I was pleased to see it was pretty quiet on the streets with only a handful of people on the ever crowded footpath. I usually come to this part of the city on a Sunday morning; this is the business area so there is little need for anyone to be on the streets, the shops are closed and other than a few stumbling zombies heading home from the Shoreditch clubs the whole area is quiet. I crossed the road and went straight into the back streets and the private Devonshire Square.

I took a couple of photos here, nothing worth sharing and carried on walking through, with no real plan other than ending up by the Thames near London Bridge. I was happy to be aimless and let my camera lead me around.

On the far side of Devonshire Square to Liverpool St is the Middlesex Street Estate, built between 1965 and 1970, with the 23 story Petticoat Tower as the centrepiece, it is named after the much older and world famous Petticoat Lane Market which crowds Middlesex Street during the week then explodes into many of the nearby streets every Sunday. The estate was an unexpected brutalist bonus.

The walk took an unplanned turn for the negative once I left the estate and discovered to my horror there were loads of people about, not thousands but enough to put me off, there didn’t seem to be any reason for the volume of strollers, maybe everyone else thought that a random stroll around London on a train-strike day was a good idea?

I crossed Whitechapel and plunged into the back streets, usually the best bit of any city. I have no idea of the names of the streets I actually walked down as I looped back and forth towards the river. I took a turning here and popped through an alley there though found very little that piqued my photographic interest.

I ended up much nearer Tower Bridge than expected and walked down the riverside towards London Bridge, capturing this reflection of The Shard on the way.

St Magnus House, it appears, was built in 1984 though has the look of classic late 60s brutalism, though missing some of the flourishes. It’s a tough building to photograph as it rubs up closely with its neighbours.

There is a dance school in the building and a number of young dancers were eating lunch and practising on the balcony between the building and the river, prowling around taking photos felt a somewhat inappropriate so I took a couple of images from other sides of the building and then left, hoping for better luck on the other side of the Thames.

For a strike impacted city and train station there were loads of people milling on the streets outside Colechurch House. The roof bar was unexpectedly open, it’s late morning, and there were two bouncers minding the door on the walkway outside; a graffitied area I wanted to take photos of. I left without getting the camera out of my bag, crossed back over the river and walked up to Chancery Lane where I caught the tube home.

it was great getting out for the first time in a while and I really enjoyed the walk, but was ultimately disappointed that I didn’t get to take many photos; however, as I said at the start it’s hard to have a really bad day walking in London.

Saturday 23 April 2022 – London.

I’ve been looking forward to this ‘Brutal Day Out’ walk since it was muted a couple of weeks back. Someone I follow on Instagram was keen to organise a Southbank brutalist architecture photo walk if there was sufficient interest, which there was, from about 20 people, though only nine turned up on the day; which I guess wasn’t at all bad. It was a great group, everyone got on, there was a load of chat and quite a few photos were taken; I mean I alone took 126, which is a huge number for me. I very much enjoyed myself, and though I mostly prefer photography as a solo activity, going out with a group of like minded individuals for a change was a heck of a lot of fun.

As the meet-up point was outside Blackfriars Station I caught the tube to St Paul’s and walked the few hundred yards from there, sneaking a bit of practise in on the way. This is a very cliché shot of the cathedral, but it’s also a great angle and a photo had to be taken. I guess it’s why it’s a bit of a cliché shot.

I lugged the big camera bag around with me today, and used all three of the lenses I packed, but mostly I used the 50mm. I’ll travel lighter if there is another walk, which I think there will be. I will also go back to the National Theatre and take some more photos inside, and try and get there when there are less theatre audience members milling. Apparently taking photos inside can be tricky as security are known to stop people, though I was pretty lucky today it seems.

The walk started at Baynard House at Blackfriars, a place I haven’t previously visited. I think it’s mostly empty now, but it used to be occupied by BT. The building was completed in 1979 and BT have occupied it ever since. It was an interesting place to walk around, and I took quite a few photos, we were here a lot longer than expected due to the group’s interest. I liked it, partly because there was no-one else about and I knew our next stop on the South Bank would be busy. Herding photographers is like herding cats and our organisers spent a bit of time trying to get us to move along. We all like to get the ‘special’ shot, preferably with no other photographer in it.

I particularly liked the steps out the front of the building.

The ‘Seven Ages of Man’ by sculpture Richard Kindersley is a seven metre tall aluminium totem pole, and weirdly I cannot work out when it was either made or erected here. It is definitely strange, and rather creepy. I liked it a lot, though only took photos of the bottom of the seven heads and the text inscription.

The underpass that links the two halves of the building had a well polished metal mirror that was screaming for a photo.

We crossed the Thames on Blackfriars Bridge and took a few photos around the River Court apartment building, of which I can find very little about on the internet. I know the building was here on the South Bank in 1986 as I occasionally visited it when I was a courier in this part of London. The other side of the building overlooks the Thames and the view from the flats must be spectacular.

I have taken photos of the IBM Building, The National Theatre, The Hayward Gallery and Festival Hall quite a few times before, along with the Barbican Centre they are the most well known examples of brutalist architecture in London.

The IBM Building and its neighbour the National Theatre were both designed by the architect Denys Lasdun in the early 1980s. I love the National Theatre building, less so the IBM Building, though am warming to it; it is definitely on the uglier side of ‘brutal’ architecture. I love the stairs on the side next to the about to be/maybe/possibly not demolished ITV tower, I can’t believe I haven’t walked down this side before. They look like the prow of a giant concrete ship.

I’ve never tried to take photos inside the National Theatre (NT) before, and was surprised I was allowed to take so many as I’ve heard tell that security clamp down on it. They did know I was there as I told them I was taking photos when they searched my bag, maybe they thought I was official? I arrived just as a show was being called so there were a lot of people milling about for a while which hindered progress. I was under a bit of time pressure to meet up with the rest of the group, so didn’t stay as long as I should’ve. I enjoyed it in there, it’s great inside; all harsh lines and clean concrete with interesting light lines. I will go back one day soon.

We stopped for a lunch break on the steps at the side of the Hayward Gallery, us and 10,000 other people it seemed. Most of whom were being fed from the food market behind Festival Hall, including me; very nice samosas. A part of me wished I’d stayed inside the NT and taken a few more photos, but I was hungry and it was good to eat and chat. It took a couple of photos around the Gallery, though it was my least inspired location, maybe the lunch break broke the roll I thought I was on.

After the Hayward we milled about the Festival Hall area for a bit, including a return to the roof garden for the first time in a few years. The scene of an almost fight a few years back with some very drunk poshos. We all got told to leave by security.

The group agreed it would be an absolute waste if we didn’t walk to Tate Modern and take photos of the magnificent curved staircase in the Blavatnik building. I have taken (everyone has taken) photos of this staircase before, but it is a modern work of art, and it’s verging on mandatory to take a photo of them if you’re in the vicinity of Tate Modern.

And that was it. A few hours out with likeminded strangers, taking photos of huge lumps of concrete was a lot of fun and I hope there is another walk soon.

Tag: Brutalism

St Magnus House

London Brutal Day Out