Monday, 13 July 2009

It's Just a Facade

facade2

One of the great things about living in a city as ancient and diverse as London is that you can discover the most magnificent sights in the most obscure places. And sometimes, in the least obscure.

facade

This incredible installation is right in the middle of town - no more than five minutes from Tottenham Court Road - but you would never know it was there if you didn't stumble across it. It's all that remains of the radium wing of the Middlesex Hospital - a magnificent Victorian building that once housed the pioneers of cancer research.

facade3

I love the way that the tough industrial geometry of the brackets contrast with the decorative elements of the facade.  The combination is so sculptural, that it's hard to imagine that it was created purely as a practical solution to preserve what is left of a listed building. Even if it's not intentionally aesthetic, the structure reminds me of the work of artists as diverse as Rachel Whiteread and Christo. An extremely beautiful combination of the past and the present.

1 comment:

  1. christopher Griffith21 July 2009 at 00:49

    WOW. obvious i totally love this. looks oddly like a picture i might take. but more importantly, it is the hospital that my father did his training and i much later had my wisdom teeth taken out in. sad it is gone.

    ReplyDelete