The night before we had drinks with an old roommate from college who also happened to be in London. Just like in college, liquor somehow found a way for me to miss deadlines. So, a little later than expected, we started the walk to the two big churches in London: Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Westminster Abbey
Having arrived in England about a month after the wedding ceremony between Kate Middleton and Prince William and am happy to report there were no shortages of nuptial memorabilia around the historic structure. Now, I love love, but truly, madly, deeply love spectacle. And am therefore not at all disgusted that the faces of the newlyweds have been plastered on everything from T-shirts to Tea Towels. Even though, I remember being in Baltimore the day of the actual ceremony and thinking “Didn’t we have a Revolution for the specific purpose of not having to hear about Royal Weddings?” While not a historian, I’m about 99% sure the Boston Tea Party was a reaction to rumors of the Prince Regent popping the question.
Onto for the building itself
To be honest, a lot of the hub-bub that surrounds Westminster Abbey has to do more with who is buried there (Oscar Wilde, Geoffrey Chaucer, Anne of Cleaves, etc.) than the architecture. It is marvelous, that’s not a question: the scale is epic, the detailing refined and the emotive response awe-inspiring but as far as a remarkable bit of architecture, it gets out shined easily by its own celebrity: A victim of spin.
When you think about Westminster not as a building but as a physical record of the history of England , the importance of the material seems almost trivial. This building has seen it all, from Londinium roots, through the middle ages, onto the break from the Catholic Church and further still to the funeral of Diana Spencer. This structure has been created to house the events of a unified people, a backdrop to what has happened and what may happen next. Westminster Abbey is not the star of the show, it’s only a set.
Also, it costs 16 Pounds to get in. Seriously Guys, that’s like 30 bucks. Come on!
We can’t speak about Westminster Abbey without also mentioning its noisy neighbors....
The Palace at Westminster and Big Ben
Big Ben, as it turns out, is not a Paul Bunyon-esque Giant. (So bringing my giant griddle-cake butter skates was for nothing).
Though Big Ben is the most dominant feature in the Palace Parti, it was not added until long after the Palace at Westminster had been established. The site can date back to c. 1016-1035 when it was used by Cnut the Great. (And NO it’s not an anagram for anything, you horrible people). The site, like many others in Europe was burned, beaten and built-up until it became what we see today, which is actually considered “Neo-Gothic” which is ironic as the basis of much of the building is “Actual, Like, For Real Gothic”.
The Clock was added in the reign of Victoria and it serves as a testament not only to the goals of her reign, (expansion, commerce and propriety) but also as a memoriam to the Victorian revisionist treatment of history and English culture. Big Ben seems to yell: “We were Glorious. And still are...also nobody in the past ever did anything wrong… ever…also, no one has ever been, or will ever be gay…EVER. Love, VR”
Moving all the way across town we make our way towards St. Paul’s.
St. Paul’s Cathedral
You might remember St. Paul’s as the setting for a creepy-ass song about birds from a well known and delightful children’s movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHrRxQVUFN4
People love this song. Whatever. Guess what’s better? Dancing Penguins and Horse Racing, this was also in the movie. (I’m indifferent towards tea parties on ceilings)
Like Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral has a long and sordid history, along with more than its share of fire. Tracing its lineage back to pre-Norman roots, this was a standard story of Built, Beloved, Burned, Rebuilt, Revered, Razed, and so on (oh but let’s not forget the dissolution of the Church under Henry VIII, because this is, after all a Cathedral). All this architectural uncertainty ended in 1667 when it fell upon Christopher Wren to come up with its next incarnation. The previous embodiment had been influenced about 40 years earlier by Inigo Jones, who is generally thought to be England’s first “classical” architect.
In 1666 the entirety of London Burned to the ground and a huge upcrop of building took place. Wren actually had the foresight to come up with schemes to completely redesign the urban landscape of London. Why not? Rome had done the exact same thing a few decades earlier to make Churches easier to access for Pilgrims entering the city. It had done wonders for their economy (Those crafty Popes).
Unfortunately his design was dismissed in favor of replacing what already existed, the Cathedral was still workable, so suspicion remains that the powers that be decided to throw it in as a consolation prize.
Wren decided to pull a DJ mash-up and combined Greco-Roman, Gothic and Renaissance into one enormous structure. With all of these factors at play it’s to be believed that Wren was much more concerned about it as a famous poem implies:
Sir Christopher Wren
Went to dine with some men
He said, "If anyone calls,
Say I'm designing Saint Paul's."
-Edmund Clerihew Bently
Whether you love it or hate it (and there are people who do both) one thing that cannot be avoided is the sheer scale of the structure. It stands on the hill top near the Tate Modern: all-consuming, tall, romantic and slightly overbearing, like a Bronte figure. There is a poetic kind of closure that St. Paul’s has, a silver kind of sadness that hums seamlessly with the constant drone of the city. It’s also pretty hard not to like it when you know it survived the Blitz.
Plus the views from the top are phenomenal.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/3637082.jpg
Speaking of views, let’s not forget our last stop in London, The Serpentine Gallery, located in Kensington Gardens.
The Serpentine Gallery
The actual gallery is nothing really to write home about. However, like many small packages it’s what inside that counts. Or at least that’s the case usually.
When I got there, the exhibit was one called “See, We Assemble” which I am sorry to say was just awful. According to the artist’s statement, his intent was to “explore the potential of the human imagination to appropriate and to animate a concept, an object or an environment. Drawing on his personal experiences, [Mark] Leckey returns frequently to the themes of desire and transformation.”
Wait a second.
You mean I have to go into a green screen room with a fridge in it, and the instruction video for said fridge playing stupidly loud on super slow and tell YOU what it means. Call it what you want, but I call it lazy.
Fortunately The Serpentine can back up its street cred in the world of Architecture without question. Since 2000, The Serpentine has had a world-class architect design a pavilion every year. The cast is as follows:
2000: Zaha Hadid
2001: Daniel Libeskind
2002: Toyo Ito
2003: Oscar Niemeyer
2005: Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura
2006: Rem Koolhaas with Cecil Balmond and Arup
2007 pre-pavilion 'Lilias': Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher
2007: Olafur Eliasson, Cecil Balmond, and Kjetil Thorsen
2008: Frank Gehry
2009: SANAA
2010: Jean Nouvel
2011: Peter Zumthor
The Serpentine Pavilion Challenge is a chance for these architects to make the impossible possible for 4 months out of the year. With such a small scale, structure is only a minor concern and the scheme is everything. There are too many to go through each individually, but I highly recommend checking out the website:
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/architecture/
The aesthetics range from something vaguely reminiscent of a stewardess (Lilias) to the firm and patriotic countenance of a Royal Marine (Nouvel).
On the way back a Swan in Hyde Park and I had some words over a sandwich (THAT HE DID’NT EVEN PAY FOR). My sister and I had a drink and we plotted our Southern Escape.
Next Episode: How to Say “Bonjour” and other helpful French Phases.
No comments:
Post a Comment