Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Deptford Willow Pattern



Here I have all the elements except the three people crossing the bridge. Plus a couple of things that don't exist yet (but are being built, credit crunch or not).

Actually I have two bridges (the Ha'Penny Hatch footbridge and the DLR) across the creek instead of just one (when there are in reality also two road bridges). The Mandarin's house is a jumble of new and old buildings; the newer ones are gated communities. The island is the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf. The two skyscraper images are taken from the developer's hoardings at "Creekside Village" and "Greenwich Reach", their height determined by the cranes currently in place. Yes, they really will be that tall. The building on the left has an exaggerated perspective because it will have a triangular base, but this is how the developer wants it to be seen...terrorising the locals. This same developer has had his architects draw up plans for the whole of the area, featuring endless repetitions of this building all the way down my road. Dubai on my doorstep. Naturally, the birds are vultures.

I am still working on this collage...In his book Willow! David Richard Quintner suggests the Willow image, based as it is on elements of Chinese design, takes one vital aspect from the Chinese, that of non-Western perspective. It is an aerial view. Quintner speculates that the Chinese invented the hot-air balloon well before the French (a hot-air balloon featured strongly in the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony this year, without comment from the BBC team covering the event)...either way, ballooning was the technological advance of its day when the Willow Pattern was introduced...

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