I have very little idea what's going on with this one. A random accident in a wood-stencil shop? Post-industrialist Berlin Ostalgie? A side-relief in a 30s Italian railway station? Slavonic braille? A coded comment about Facebook? The whole of 20th Century History is probably in this constructivist collage, but it would take a fuck of a lot of deciphering to figure it out.Taken simply, the elements could be a crown, an indeterminate block, a lightning bolt/reversed Nazi ideogram, a star, and perhaps the top of a tree. You can now rearrange those elements to make up a short-story or a semiotic treatise. But I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing the same to make a door. This door is saying "My owner has Art. He is Alternative and Grainy. He is an Enigma (Which is not at all Empty). He has Offcuts and a tin of paint from a Shipyard." And he can think he's in a squat in 90s Bethnal Green when in fact he's in Dartmouth Park and through the door his house is worth north of £800k. Boldly, there are no jaws to the letterbox, which given its height and the fact that there's a pub opposite seems a positive invitation.
You'll notice that the brickwork on the side of the door is irregular, which is likely because the house is on the banks of the (underground) River Fleet. The Fleet rises at Highgate Ponds and empties into the Thames at Blackfriars, cutting past this door on its way down. Formerly bucolic, the Fleet became an open sewer during the Victorian population expansion of London, and subsequently became a closed sewer when it was cased and cobbled around the time this house went up in the 1860s. I've just realised that the door-piece might be an attempt at a ship, albeit not a very seaworthy one. It's like a ship design transmuted through the mind of one of the candidates for 'The Apprentice', who's understandably mistaken "business creativity" with "the first thing that comes into my head".
In most pictures of the doors of this neighbourhood you'll see strange angles and slopes cut into or around the doorframes as the terraces flow resistantly if slowly back into the river. The test when buying a house seems to be to lie a baby on a varnished floor, and if it doesn't slide off gurgling into the opposite wall then you're good to go.
I like the bell though.
6 comments:
This is great. Also, I predict the day will come when you unwittingly critique Wyndham's front door.
Maybe this *is* Wyndham's front door!
That door looks like a lot of hard work, and is frustratingly familiar to me. As I saunter to the cafe in Dartmouth Park Village tomorrow morning I shall attempt to be more alert than is usual. I can confirm that I have been given a lot of hard thought to the state of my front door which is how the situation will probably remain. But living just over the road from College Lane I am fairly confident that the River Fleet runs only a few yards, at the most, beneath my home.
This map can confirm or deny.
I've been loathe to go into that cafe since they halved the size of their pain au chocolat, but Richard is *such* a sweetheart.
Most. North London. Sentence. Ever. Apologies.
Welcome all.
That settles it - I'm happy to say that it runs right beneath me. Which explains why my basement is prone to damp.
I feel suddenly, mystically connected to prehistoric London. I guess they feel the same in the Nando's on Kentish Town Road.
I frequently get laughed at for my obsession with doors. In fact, I've got a whole flickr set dedicated to doors and windows. You can see them here.
Love the blog.
Thanks Vic. I may have cause at some stage to pilfer some of your excellent doors, especially of Manchester and the Marais.
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