If you wander through Belgravia, you might spy a large metal map of London and wonder why it’s there.
The artwork is a celebration of the River Westbourne, one of London’s “lost” rivers that runs from the Serpentine to the Thames, and was created in 2009 by London based artist, Julian Stocks.
It’s a steel triptych screen that you can find on Kinnerton Street, which is also one of the streets that the Westbourne (just about) flows under.
The art blurb says that the art “assets the link between the city and nature. It strives to return this London river to our lives and imaginations. It is both a monument and a navigator to the hidden waters beneath our feet”
Appropriately for an artwork dedicated to water, the steel was cut using a water jet.
The artwork was placed here as part of a redevelopment of the buildings on the street. There had been a 1960s row of houses here, but these were demolished in 2008 and replaced with the current modern row of flats, which also now ran above the entrance to the underground car park behind the flats.
In order to support the flats, a column was required in the middle, and to lighten the effect of the structure, they installed this perforated artwork.
It was spotted while out with Diamond Geezer and Matt from Londonist exploring the local public houses.
What we didn’t spot at the time, and only discovered in the research is that there’s a matching work of art right above our heads. If you look at the flats directly above the car park entrance, their Juliet balconies are all decorated with the same metal design as well.
Truly a secret hiding in plain sight 🙂
So we have a work of artbwhich is ruined by a series of signs!
An unusual place to put something that would benefit from some studying, without being run over by cars wanting to access the car park.