It is to do with the height of the buildings. By surrounding myself with tall buildings, I create a particular perspective. I frame my body in a relationship to the scale of the environment. This is the core of my experience. The truncated skyscrapers that punctuate the view seem terribly un-english – rather impolite for a suburban market town. Momentarily I feel that I am on holiday, the sense of alien familiarity that one gets in a foreign city. This is the dream of Croydon. At its heart is an old surrey village, but it dreams of being Marsailles.
The dramatic verticals dare you to climb them, tease you with vistas seen only by a select few. In my mind I climb higher and higher, scale the brick and glass, until I become those gods and builders. But even The Great Architect is subject to the whims of another: The Great Planner, who sketches out masterplans and zonal development schemes across the canvas of time. Croydon is a present from him: a seed, a late flowering perennial, a sterile mutation that needs needs human assistance to propagate, but which gives to lifea rare flavour.
Towards Croydon
Seen from above, seen from below.
It is to do with the height of the buildings. By surrounding myself with tall buildings, I create a particular perspective. I frame my body in a relationship to the scale of the environment. This is the core of my experience. The truncated skyscrapers that punctuate the view seem terribly un-english – rather impolite for a suburban market town. Momentarily I feel that I am on holiday, the sense of alien familiarity that one gets in a foreign city. This is the dream of Croydon. At its heart is an old surrey village, but it dreams of being Marsailles.
The dramatic verticals dare you to climb them, tease you with vistas seen only by a select few. In my mind I climb higher and higher, scale the brick and glass, until I become those gods and builders. But even The Great Architect is subject to the whims of another: The Great Planner, who sketches out masterplans and zonal development schemes across the canvas of time. Croydon is a present from him: a seed, a late flowering perennial, a sterile mutation that needs needs human assistance to propagate, but which gives to lifea rare flavour.