“It’s astonishing seeing London at your feet, as if it were all a toy, with the little trains creeping along like centipedes. The skyscrapers of the past look puny from up here and you get a fantastic sense of the way the river curves. I’ve often drawn from Primrose Hill, a more modest height, and there the skyline is more like a frieze on the horizon, whereas here it’s as deep top to bottom as it is wide. It makes the buildings look very different. And from here you can see what an incredible muddle London is. You can see the remains of old street plans, with the railways cutting through. It makes you realise that the scale of the city is changing.”* David Gentleman (www)
“I’m thinking about how at just one glance I can see the events of the past 30 years of my life mapped out below me and it seems a very short time and depressingly insignificant - when I’m gone, all this below me will carry on as if I’d never even existed. I’ve been up the Eiffel Tower and Paris is certainly prettier; I’ve been up the Empire State Building and New York is more impressive. But London is a sprawling warren of street upon street. I can’t believe how medieval it looks. As Edwin Starr said: ‘Show me the back streets’.”
London Evening Standard Magazine *** London at their feet: artists inspired by the Shard
