Rusting by design: Michael Caine and companions

The recently installed and already rusting Sustrans Portrait Bench at the side of Greenland Dock has actually been designed to rust. Designed to discolour, degrade and become progressively hideous.  Rust is associated with derelict buildings, decay and scrap heaps.  It is ugly.  Rust, last time I looked, was one of the things that the London Dockland Development Corporation spent quite a considerable amount of time and expense removing from the area.  How lovely of Sustrans and Southwark Council to move it back in.

I am particularly vexed that Southwark Council did not make this transparent when they published a planning notification.  When I saw the notification of the planning application in Southwark News I tried to find out more about it and failed.  Not only did the Southwark Council website not have any useful information in their Documents or other sections under the planning application number, but a phone call to the person on the printed notice revealed that she was not the person responsible for that particular planning application.  She gave me the correct contact details, but a phone call followed by an email to the planning bod actually allocated to the job, Terence McLellan, resulted in absolutely no response. 

In response to recent questions by Southwark News investigator Oliver Pugh, Councillor Barrie Hargrove, Cabinet Member for Transport, Environment and Recycling said: "The Portrait installation is made of special weathering steel that is commonly used in outdoor sculptures and large structural projects. It is expected to rust particularly within the first year of installation. This in itself forms a protective layer that ensures the art has a long lifespan and avoids the need to fund costly maintenance such as painting."  The Sustrans website itself says that “The Portrait Bench is a simple bench with three life-size characters chosen by the community for the contribution they have made to local life, culture or history. The figures are 2 dimensional cut from Corten steel (like the famous Angel of the North) so they will weather to a fine rust surface and become a natural part of the landscape.”

Errrrrr - just to point out the obvious, rust is not something that residents usually want to become a natural part of a residential landscape, which being full of houses and former dockland features is about as far from natural as one can envisage. This is a man-made landscape and it requires maintenance.

Saving on maintenance expenses at the cost of basic aesthetic considerations cannot look reasonable even on paper, because it must be obvious that decay is likely to alienate anyone who has to live in its vicinity.   This type of pseudo-organic/green argument, employing ideas of natural decay and self-preservation to justify cost-saving and lack of maintenance, undermines the really good work carried out by people who are genuinely committed to both local ecological projects and sustainable public art.   We have plenty of other local outdoor art that has neither rusted nor deteriorated in any other way and is often much-loved by local residents.  The rusty Sustrans sculpture does not come into either category; not only have many local residents expressed how unimpressed they are by the rust, but its condition inspires so little respect that some of the local fishermen have started using it as a convenient coat-hanger.

James Walker, the engineer of the 1900 extension of Greenland Dock, was portrayed by lovely sculptor Michael Rizzello in 1988 and was installed in the same corner of Greenland Dock that the rusting Sustrans structure now inhabits.  James Walker has been standing just 10 feet away from the location of the Sustrans travesty for nearly 20 years without a hint of rust.  That's because Michael Rizzello was a true artist and he had standards, and so did those who commissioned his work.

If anyone took the time to ask Michael Caine's permission to capture his 2-D likeness when planning this sculpture (he being the only one of the three people depicted to remain alive), I do wonder if they told him that he was expected to decay substantially within a year and would be distinguished by an all-over coating of rust for as long as his image lasts.

There is so much good going on in Rotherhithe, and so much to celebrate.  It is a sad reflection on Southwark Council that they should undermine all that by agreeing to place something that is beginning to look like scrap on a nice corner of Greenland Dock. This sort of sloppiness and cost-cutting, dressed up as sustainable art and design, is quite simply insulting to those of us who have to live with it, and to those artists who have contributed excellent public art projects that manage to be both sustainable and attractive at the same time.

It's such a shame.  It looked really quite civilized when it was first erected with its smart, shiny black surface.

Already rusting: Greenland Dock's one-month old Sustrans sculpture

For heaven's sake.  Did no-one think of giving the wretched thing a damned good coating of Hammerite?  The Sustrans sculpture, which has only been in place for a few weeks, is rusting already.

You can see the photographs that I took of it when it was brand-new, less than a month ago, on 13th August, by way of comparison. 

Not having walked past it recently I hadn't noticed the rust but several people, who know of my interest in local public art, mentioned it to me. So I went to have a look, camera in hand. 

Top left is the top of Michael Caine's head. The other two are random shots of other details of the thing. Click any of them to see a bigger view of the problem. What a mess.  If anything, the second photograph is the worst of the lot, showing the top layer flaking off to leave the unprotected metal beneath that is clearly exposed to the invasive rust.  To be honest, I didn't much like the sculpture before it started rusting, but that really didn't bother me because public art is a very personal thing and I daresay many people thought it was great.  But whether you loved it or loathed it when it first went up, it is now beginning to look like a serious eyesore.  And of course it's going to get worse, because rust doesn't have the habit of growing any prettier as it spreads.

If organizations are going to build public art structures where everyone can see them, and hopefully appreciate them, then both they and the Southwark Council planning officers who give them permission to erect them really out to be tasked with applying a little basic quality control.  At the absolute minimum, surely there is a responsibility to make sure that public art isn't built of materials that begin to make them look like something derelict within weeks of being erected?

Both Sustrans and Southwark Council should be ashamed of themselves, and you do have to wonder about the sculptor who allowed it to be erected in such a sub-standard condition.  Horribly disappointing and profoundly underwhelming. 

Previous posts on the subject (most recent first):

The official opening of the Sustrans portrait bench and the PedalOnUk event
http://russiadock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/pedalonuk.html

The new Sustrans portrait bench at Greenland Dock
http://russiadock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/new-sustrans-portrait-bench-at.html

A planning proposal for a new sculpture at Brunswick Quay
http://russiadock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/a-new-sculptural-feature-for-brunswick.html

PedalOnUK

A flier was posted through my door this morning advertising a PedalOnUK event, which takes place tomorrow, Friday 16th August from 10-12am at the new Sustrans sculpture at Greenland Dock (at SE16 7PT opposite the Moby Dick pub and on cycle route 465).  

Following the official unveiling of the piece, which is already in place (see previous post, with photographs), there will be a series of activities that you can find out about on the PedalOnUK website.  

www.pedalonuk.org/south-bermondsey

The Moby Dick has been asked to open from 10am for teas and coffees.

New Sustrans Portrait Bench at Greenland Dock

 

I posted a few weeks ago about a planning application that I saw in Southwark News, which proposed a new statue at the northern end of Brunswick Quay.  I phoned the Southwark Council contact name printed on the planning notification, and although she knew nothing about it she was very helpful and gave me the name and email address of the Southwark Council person responsible, one Terence McLellan.  I phoned (no answer) and emailed (no reply) to see if any illustrations of what was being proposed were available and, given the lack of response, simply waited to see what would happen.  And lo !  A sculpture group appeared.

I've been away for several weeks, but on my return I was informed by a neighbour (who had gone through exactly the same no-reply path that I had been through with Terence McLellan) that the new sculpture had just been installed and could be inspected at the top end of Brunswick Quay, opposite The Moby Dick pub.  

As one of the people who commented on my post when I first found the planning proposal, it is one of a set to advertise cycling routes in London, placed by the Sustrans Portrait Bench Sculpture project (Sustrans promotes walking and cycling links).

Notable personages relevant to the given area are depicted in these sculptures.  In our case, representing Southwark, three individuals were singled out.  The first is Barry Mason, Rotherhithe resident, bicycle campaigner and wildlife enthusiast, who contributed a considerable amount to the success of the Surrey Docks Farm before dying in an accident a few years ago. Unless one of the figures has yet to be added, he is apparently represented as a cormorant on a post, with a bicycle leaning up against it.  Rather more conventional representations depict actor Michael Caine (perhaps an odd choice - he was born here but I don't know of any contributions that he has made to the area) and, more aptly, the remarkable Phyllis Pearsell, born in East Dulwich, who created the first A-Z map of London after walking 23,000 streets of 1930s London. 

I was sitting with a group of friends at the Moby Dick on Sunday looking across at it, and throughout the afternoon it was covered by different bands of children, who climbed all over it.  They were clearly not intent on damaging it and were enjoying it very much, and I hope that it is sufficiently robust to cope with one of its roles as a climbing frame.  A lot of people walking past also paused to have a look and it was good to see a piece of public art generating a bit of a response.  We have various pieces of public art in Rotherhithe, some of which are more successful with residents and visitors than others, and it is always interesting to hear how people react to them.

If you are interested in finding out about the other Portrait Benches in the Sustrans project, have a look at their Flickr page.

For anyone interested, the official opening of the Rotherhithe Portrait Bench is at 10am on Friday the 16th August.  I'll probably go and poke a camera in the general direction of the event if I have time.