Thames South Bank: Art and Design

The Shard

20 December 2015

"What time is it?"

"Ten after nine," Jack said. He was already showered and sitting in the chair by the bed. I hadn't even heard him get up. I couldn't move.

"What time is it?"

"9:30," he laughed.  This time I managed to sit up.

A pot of coffee with breakfast later, we set out for the Design Museum on the South Bank of the River Thames. We were going to see an exhibition on bicycles.

This fuzzy hotel is around the corner from ours:

Southwark, the London borough south of the Thames at the London Bridge, has undergone a renaissance over the past decade or so. Once a desolate maze of concrete office blocks, the south bank was good for the Tate Modern (2000), the Design Museum (1989), the Globe Theater (1997), and not much in between. Now, a wide walkway is flanked by the river on one side and glass high-rises on the other.  There is a clear view of the north bank of the river, where one can see the Walkie-Talkie (left) and the Gherkin (the pickle-shaped thing center right in the background). These buildings have official names; nobody ever uses them.

Tower Bridge:

A Christmas market spreads along the walk. Here is a quintessentially English stall: pick-and-mix candy. Of course I picked, but I like to keep my sugar varieties separate, so I don't mix.

Some of the south bank, with the Shard (it's official) sticking up in the background:

The Shard:

Here's a better view of the Walkie-Talkie. This is the building that melted that car that one time.

Old meets new:

And now, the bike porn!

The Design Museum's exhibition, Cycle Revolution, focused on the cutting edge of competitive design. These bikes were not for the likes of us. I grumbled at the lack of lugged steel and Italian craftsmanship in general. There was a small display of English steel artisan bikes (Mercian included; Ron A's lugged beauty beats out the welded boringness on display), yet there was not a single Raleigh in the room.

I had to concede that, under very special circumstances, carbon can be beautiful:

Old steel:

New Cervelo, not beautiful:

An old, steel track bike, beautiful:

Less beautiful, because the lugs have been painted over:

Road bikes that won races:

Specialized S-Works (yawn; everybody has one of these):

An early Specialized mountain bike:

Modern mountain bikes:

OK, now we're talking!

But that was the only one.

This creature got up to 80 mph. I want that gear on my rear hub.

Lightweight long-distance bikes by Alex Moulton:

I thought it was a folding commuter bike at first and wondered what sort of commute would require two aerodynamic bottles of water. Then I read that this bike was used to win a 3000-mile race across America.

 Hey, Snakehead! Look!

I do not want to see "folding" and "helmet" in the same sentence:

This folding bike collapses down to umbrella-like dimensions:

This is almost every bike in Amsterdam:

Hey, Plain Jim! Brooks saddles!

More Amsterdam-worthy machines:

Wood:

This one was meant to look like carbon, which it does, only it's prettier:

A tall bike, because why not?

Um, what?

An unsightly mashup of old and new:

The sculpture in the stairwell, as seen from the top,

and from the bottom:

More Southwark before the rain started:

We had a late lunch, waited for the rain to stop, and took a bus to the Tate Modern a few miles away. We wanted to see the Alexander Calder exhibit. No photography was permitted, so I'll link instead.

From the museum we looked down on part of the Christmas market and the river.

We went down to the market eventually.  Here's a candy stall that's more English than the last one:

One for Jack:

As we walked back to the tube, we passed under the Blackfriars rail station, which spans the Thames:

My camera battery died at this point, and this is where today's blog stops.