Day 8

Cayleih left for Seattle today. Jayme brought her to the airport without a hitch. Paula and Jenna scoured Harrod's for something, anything, affordable and lunched in Kensington Gardens. At least until the pigeons became a bit much. They took it easy for the rest of the day: watched a current (!) BBC show of Merlin on the web and rested.

Today's the final day of the 2-day Open House event. I wanted to try a new neighbourhood so drew up a plan to explore events in Southwark. Ended up doing London City Hall, Pioneer Health Centre, Blue Fin Building and Tate Modern Phase 2.

London City Hall acts like a civic corporate headquarters. The view from the top and the spiral staircase were fun.

The Pioneer Health Centre (aka the Peckham Health Centre) was very exciting. In the 1930s, an innovative group of socially concerned architects and progressive health care providers promoted the idea that preventative medicine through good food, active lifestyles and fresh air could positively affect peoples lives, especially the inner city working poor. While overshadowed by Berthold Lubetkin's Finsbury Health Centre, the Pioneer Health centre is a lovely example of Modernist architecture. Called by Walter Gropius "an oasis of glass on a desert of brick" the building has a radically different appearance from neighboring yellow and cream colored row homes. Fine lines of black steel against swathes of white walls of dense concrete (requiring diamond drills for a late 20th century conversion to condos), floor to ceiling windows, an internal swimming pool under a glass roof, and a gently flexing face to the south elevation mark this building as a simplier sister to Gropius' Bauhaus building. Current condo residents suffer from the intense solar gain and heat loss through the huge single paned windows but declare this tolerable in the face of the rare opportunity of living in a classic, historically significant Modernist building.

After grabbing a train by accident and not the tube but making it back to The City anyway (via the monstrous, empty, and utterly forlorn Battersea Power Station), the Blue Fin Building was next. Basically, I was so hungry, I was thrilled to find out I was 24 hours and 10 minutes late for the architect's talk. I spent my time more wisely by going to the 11 floor and having a lovely salad lunch with a panoramic view of the Tate, St. Paul's the Thames, Canary Wharf and the rest of the city.

While I had thought I'd skip the Tate Modern based on the crowds we faced during a fast run through last Monday, I went anyway, refreshed from my respite. I started with listening outside to a lovely architect from Herzog and de Meuron describe the Phase 2 expansion of the TM. Inside, skipped along quickly to pause at a few works: several Miro paintings, Alexander Calder's T and Swallow sculpture, Magdalena Abakanowicz's fiber art, Francis Bacon's triptych of George Dyer, Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, etc. Hoped to see some Lucian Freud but none were on display.

Home again and Paula and Jayme kindly brought in supper of sandwiches, pizza and beer. We're all set for Oxford tomorrow by train. The Foot Smell Police left with Cayleih so Jayme's in the clear.