October 2011
12 posts
I’ve decided to map an area which is inclusive of the 10 Bells pub and the Christ Church. The link between the two is Fournier Street. The link is also the division.
Reasons - A road is a clear line which frames and divorces elements that Americans term as a ‘block’. The physical presence of the street as a divide is obvious but on other levels it doesn’t simply divide the physical; a church and a pub. It splits an idea of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. We hide unacceptable personality traits when in architectural forms or the company of people taking on acceptable characteristics; but are the forms and the company unacceptable anyway.
Reasons - the 10 Bells pub has association with Jack the Ripper (he allegedly met two of his victims there). This in itself provides interesting layers of history for Spitalfields but also confronts this theme of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Meeting women in a pub, in the glaring eye of the Lord, is in modern times acceptable but the murder of a woman you meet in a pub is unacceptable always. Conceited, or romanticised, a pub provides a window into a seedy underbelly of the Spitalfields area and possibly London in a wider context.
In the eyes of the Church drinking, fornicating and general debauchery is frowned upon and contravenes many of the parameters laid out by various religions. The theme of Celestial nature and higher beings was created by the Wings of Desire film clip provided by Project 1.1
A smartly dressed city worker (modern architecture?) leaves work in the City and walks home, located in Spitalfields. As he walks he transforms – he begins in a suit and slowly morphs into a casual being … (but possibly it goes further, maybe he becomes a homeless man or even a woman). You actually see the personalities dilute down to a more relaxed state of existence.
He/she stops for a drink in the 10 bells pubs as an act of socializing with his/her friends. After consuming too much drink he/she stumbles out of the pub in a state. Night has fallen and as he/she falls onto Fournier St they are greeted by the shadow of the Church, he/she is stricken with guilt.
After composing himself he begins to walk along Fournier Street where he is attacked and killed.
He lies on the floor in the street until the dawning of another day when he rises from the floor and transforms back in a suit wearing city worker as he rises from the floor.
