Was it a joke?
Firstly to present any of these projects as an ‘intervention’ cannot be taken seriously. My understanding of an intervention is something that questions local conditions and often tests propositions to, hopefully, make an improvement. Most people do this with little cash, to ask for £10 million to plonk an irrelevant, unconsidered, unquestioned object anywhere is disgusting.
De-cluttering is indeed a popular phrase. One-by-one the panel jumped on this to describe the exciting jumble of the city, with distinct aspects to its make-up of parts. Why then do you need a marker to describe where you are? I don’t wander around the West End, lost and scared until I come across Nelson’s Column and think: ‘Thank god, now I know where I am!’ Anyway, I wouldn’t go there, I go to a pizza shop close-by where you can get a slice at the counter for relatively cheap and its relatively nice-This is my marker.
How does adding another object to the streetscape de-clutter?
How many monuments do we need? A question raised in the discussion. In a tight city like central London, we need a marker on every corner because you can’t tell where you are if you can’t see the next? Oh, but there is, isn’t there, because that café doesn’t exist anywhere else.
Just a note on the Ebbsfleet White Horse (should it have been a White Elephant?). I didn’t like this one either. I had never heard of Ebbsfleet until a few years ago, now it is one of only 3 locations in the country to have an international train terminal-isn’t this marketing enough? No one has ever heard of Northfleet, or Greenhithe or Singlewell, Ebbsfleet’s larger neighbors. I suppose this argument doesn’t sit with the Industrial park’s owners; but to whip-up some localism to satisfy their renewed (after admitted total initial failure) marketing strategy is unfair.
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