The City

One's perception of a city depends in large part on one's point of view at different times. Urban sprawl can seem uniform and without distinction if one's pov is unfocused and distracted. While each city has its own unique features, by and large most modern cities have lost a great deal of what might at one time have made them unique and recognisable. Maybe not lost, but one has to look harder to find that which truly identifies a particular metropolis.
I have tried to use these photos not as ways of identifying, but rather as ways of looking at the banal, and indistinct.











View from a bridge with the twist emphasizing the tension and forces latent in the structure itself. Lines that draw us to a point that is unseen from a starting base which is disconnected from the strands.


The fractured look of the campanille suggests the juxtaposition of the sacred space overlooked and outmuscled by the secret and anonymous building in whose view the holy is broken and silent.











High street in the old part of town. Reflective surfaces can often bring that which is unspoken and invisible to the naked eye to the fore.
















Looking at the landscape from a different viewpoint suggests something new about the intent of the design. Where does the line end, does the glass road continue forever? Are we looking up or across the city, if we look up what is it we hope to find? Why is it that man's view architecturally is so wrapped up in what lies above? What is it that truly points us to heaven?







Where angels fear to tread. Where is the next footstep?

Distressed brickwork. What has happened here, where has the missing brickwork gone, what part of the stone has found its way into other living stones as they pass by? What forces have been at work to create this particular shape, what other factors have had to be present to shape these stones. How do they reflect our proximity to each other in the urban landscape?



Martin's blog