The Poultry no. 1 building in London in P. Bronstein rendition from 'Postmodern Architecture in London' (ISBN 978-3-86560-173-5) and my rendition from the test pages submitted to the Danish Art Council last year.
I just got Bronstein book in my mailbox this morning, and was immediately very taken with the classical, hand rendered drawings depicting the buildings neglected in an overgrown, and almost depopulated London.
The one of Poultry no. 1 shows the building perched on an elevation, dirt steps leading down beneath what is today street level to an expanse littered with columns indicating a vast archaeological excavation.
Bronstein's drawing seems informed by the fact that London’s financial centre, where the building is placed, is situated on the site of the old roman market place and close to where the roman Mithra temple was excavated. But an even more interesting fact is that the building as it stands today overlooks the Bank of England- designed by Sir John Soane. In 1830 Joseph Gandy rendered this, at the time brand new building, as a ruin in a distant future. This architectural fantasy resonances well with the post modern sensibility, and I’m sure Bronstein has been looking at Gandy’s drawings when he did his book.
I know I was when I was first planning my comic about a European capital in the distant future.
*quote: HRH Prince of Wales
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