JOURNEY'S END (MOTOWN POPPIES)

 

More post-hoc research into buildings I snapped in my brief visit to Detroit City Centre.

One Woodward Avenue designed in 1969 by Minoru Yagasaki who was also behind the ill-fated World Trade Centre in New York.
43 Storey Ally Detroit Centre by Philip Johnson et al circa 1990. I have never been a big fan of his post-modern period. The building is OK, I guess, but to me it's a pale shadow of the Art Deco towers I discussed a couple of days ago. 

 

The Renaissance Centre of 1977 by John Portman with its glass tube aesthetic, including the 73 storey central tower. Owned by General Motors with a prime location on the riverside overlooking Canada. It's kind of dated and simplistic but I imagine many Detroit residents are very fond of it.

Hudson's site mixed use development by SHoP architects is the pick of the bunch for me, at least in terms of its contribution to the skyline. It seems that the form of the tower was reconsidered during construction, including a twisty version.

 

Passing through Basingstoke in cold misty autumn weather. Fallen leaves in the park. Romantic view along London Street. Purples, browns, greys and greens. So different from the Florida I was in just days ago.

Here everything is close by, walking distance. Buildings huddle together against the cold. I spent a very pleasant afternoon with my son inside a new sports bar. Three pints of English beer and a plate of fish and chips. Watching a tightly fought rugby match while probing the nuance of our slightly different takes on the US election.

 

Returning home through Jacob's Alley via an archway opposite the rather splendid portico of the Reformed Methodist Church, and a piece of street sculpture vaguely reminiscent of Barbara Hepworth. Bronze on a granite base. 1993 but I style and substance harking back to at least 30 years earlier. I would have loved to hear my dad's assessment of this work. He also did a couple of small sculptures of "the family" (I still have one in carved in wood)

I'm always struck by how many points of contact there are between British and American culture, but yet how very different they remain in some quite fundamental ways. I love them both and it's a great privilege to be able to move between them so seamlessly.

 

 

Poppy Day, Diwali. Bonfire Night. November is a time of Remembrance and ritual in the UK spanning across different times and sub-cultures. It seems apt to have these events just as winter is knocking on the door.

Boy scouts marching and the war memorial lit up at night. Diwali dancing and a visit to the vegetable market. It's been a brief visit, with a fair amount of sleeping off jet lag, but it was good to squeeze in these activities. A reminder of the distinction pace of life here, as compared to either Florida or Dubai.

I have never quite been sure how to fit monuments and statues into the story of architecture. Forms without function. Symbolism untethered from the realities of daily life. Domestic bliss abstracted in bronze. The horrors of war frozen in cold neoclassical stone.

One last cold weekend in England, en-route between Florida and Dubai