This was one of my favourite pieces in the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale this year. The sketches are beautiful for their subtle nuances and expressive penwork, you could practically spend hours discovering the unseen world behind the front facades of London’s high streets. This piece is especially worthy of note because of the recent debate surrounding a renewed recognition of the importance of our high streets, with Boris’s recent campaign High Street 2012 and last year’s riots. Here is what the architects, Gort Scott said about it;
“We never inhabit all of the city at the same time, and when we think generally about a place like London we choose how we conceptualise it. In this exhibit, two contrasting understandings of London are presented, one concerned with the skyline and London’s status as world city, the other with the infinitesimal detail of the street.
The Shard, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, is the tallest building in Europe and is promoted as evidence of a visionary, future-facing city. Robert McKillop’s film observes its striking effect in the sky from across London. Fiona Scott of Gort Scott Architects, in contrast, depicts the high street at the foot of the shard in meticulous detail through perspective sketches, cherishing the fine urban grain that is inevitably absent from large commercial developments.”
