For an instalation at Price Waterhouse Coopers London headquarters I built a 'Plumb Line', a device for determining the ‘true vertical’: a necessary calculation for the construction of any building and appropriate to the long drop of the Atrium Gallery. However, in context of this space, a rectangular box suspended, somewhat fluidly, over rail traffic into Charring Cross Station and the flow of the river Thames, the idea of a ‘true vertical’ is an intriguing contrast of perception and reality. To fix an axis as verification, under such circumstances, seems like a curious act of faith.
Of more immediate impact on my imagination were the possibilities within that drop, perhaps targeted onto the flowering cluster of inflatable office pods below, and in particular the compressor, which joins and nourishes them: a dynamic, creating both tension and unity.
At the centre of focus was the ‘bob’, the weight on the end of the line. Shaped like a cone, its tip should have been pointing towards some immutable truth, the point of contact, verifying the ‘true’ vertical axis.
The ‘bob’ I constructed was not so specific, there were more possibilities, its surface was a ’drawing’ of steel wool, its tip coarse and less precise, there was a certain flexibility to its boundaries, the journey was not straight down the line but a detour around an asteroid or comet on its way to make contact. It contrasted with the polished precision and intent of the materials around it and at the same time its ‘edge’ set them in dialogue. Suspended at the end of its cable it would not land but was not frozen: time, light, vantage point and the imperceptible? shifts within and of the building would see to that.
A well-made building has a precision to it and is reliant upon tools of accuracy to guide its calculations. It also needs regular and less predictable intervention to stir and renew the breath of its purpose.
Of more immediate impact on my imagination were the possibilities within that drop, perhaps targeted onto the flowering cluster of inflatable office pods below, and in particular the compressor, which joins and nourishes them: a dynamic, creating both tension and unity.
At the centre of focus was the ‘bob’, the weight on the end of the line. Shaped like a cone, its tip should have been pointing towards some immutable truth, the point of contact, verifying the ‘true’ vertical axis.
The ‘bob’ I constructed was not so specific, there were more possibilities, its surface was a ’drawing’ of steel wool, its tip coarse and less precise, there was a certain flexibility to its boundaries, the journey was not straight down the line but a detour around an asteroid or comet on its way to make contact. It contrasted with the polished precision and intent of the materials around it and at the same time its ‘edge’ set them in dialogue. Suspended at the end of its cable it would not land but was not frozen: time, light, vantage point and the imperceptible? shifts within and of the building would see to that.
A well-made building has a precision to it and is reliant upon tools of accuracy to guide its calculations. It also needs regular and less predictable intervention to stir and renew the breath of its purpose.
