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London, England
The English are waiting and I don't know what to do
It’s not that hard to get to Paddington Basin from the Paddington Railway Station, although its not quite as easy as you might think. After you leave the station and walk up the ramp/street, make a hard 180 degree left turn and walk along the wall and creepy side of the station for a while. The road eventually turns, and then, right before you get to the hospital, turn left down the creepy alley until you see a sign directing you to a narrower, even creepier alley and then, before you know it, you’re there, standing along the water on the wrong side of Paddington Basin.
The reason that you did all of this (and likely got lost and/or seriously doubted the route along the way) was to see this, the Rolling Bridge designed by Thomas Heatherwick. Sure you’ve seen it before, but if it’s noon on a Friday and you’re in London, there is almost no better show to see. The Rolling Bridge is exactly what you think it is, a bridge that rolls up on itself into a little circular ball, and then re-furls to once again to span a side inlet at the basin. Once a week, a noon on Friday, strangers gather from all over with nice cameras to watch it in action because, if it’s noon on a Friday and you’re in London, there is almost no better show to see.
I have been to London ten times so far (or eleven if count that stopover between JFK and KWI, which really shouldn’t count), and more often than not, it’s in early September. If I’m there on Friday at noon, you know that I’ll be at Paddington, but even if it’s another day, chances are that I won’t be all that far away since I usually stick to Paddington hotels because of the Heathrow Express trains. Either way, at some point I’ll find myself walking south from Paddington, crossing into the park at Lancaster Gate, taking pictures of the Italian Garden and heading here, to the Serpentine Gallery, where every visit it totally different than the last.
Every year, the Serpentine Gallery spends a lot of money on an elaborate summer pavilion designed by a famous architect, and every architect brings something completely different than the last. In 2017, Francis Kéré created a wonderful shaded pavilion with a center oculus that (honestly) did not look that promising in pictures but (honestly) was wonderful in person.
And if I just walked all the way from Paddington to the Serpentine Gallery (it’s not really that far), why stop now? I’m going to keep going south, stop and take pictures of the Albert Monument (not pictured) and then walk down Exhibition Road to the V&A.
There are two reasons to always consider a visit to London in early September, and one of them is the London Design Festival. It takes place all over London but really infests the always wonderful Victoria & Albert Museum with scattered installations that you find in a kind of scavenger hunt, looking at the map and the gallery number and figuring out where to go next to find something like this, “Reflection Room” by Flynn Talbot, where for just a week or two in September, everything is about the reflections.
The second reason to go to London in early September (and by early, I probably really mean mid) is for London Open House Weekend, where too many buildings to see suddenly open up to let you see them. If I have been to London ten (or eleven) times, then I have been there on London Open House Weekend at least six or seven of them, and will likely be back for an eighth or ninth or tenth in the future.
If there is a downside to London Open House Weekend, it’s two-fold. First, there are just too many damn sites and London is huge. Even if you concentrate in a small area, you’ll never see everything. And the other issue is that it is exceptionally popular, with long lines at many sites and, even at out of the way unpopular sounding sites, more people than you’d expect. Even at an early morning tour of the rooftop gardens at the new Norman Foster Crossrail Station all the way out at Canary Wharf, people are waiting to hear way too many details from the tour guide about what kind of plants we’re all ignoring as we try and get the perfect shot of all of those repeating, endless wooden triangles we came to see in the first place.
Not every building open for London Open House was designed by Norman Foster, but if you wanted, you could probably spend a whole day just going to Foster buildings and not see them all. And of all of the Foster buildings to see, none is as much fun as London City Hall.
Your experience begins outside on a long, slow line to wait to go through full metal detector security stations, then a quick elevator ride takes you to the top floor with access to an outside balcony. Considering all of the people outside and on line and in the elevators, surprisingly few make it outside to the balcony since everyone else heads directly to the stairs. A shallow stair circles and spirals up against the glass, back around and all the way down to main chamber, with killer views of the building and the stair in literally every direction.
Way out in the middle of nowhere (ok, that’s kind of harsh) in a somewhat boring, nondescript building (again, still pretty harsh) is a showroom like no other. The Roca Gallery isn’t just a good place to buy a sink, it’s also a rare London project designed by London architect Zaha Hadid. It’s also a small, complex, hard to photograph space, although that didn’t stop me from trying to take its picture anyway.
