A Sense of History
People often assume that because I’m a journalism major, my favorite subject growing up was English. In fact, I preferred history — I think because I enjoyed learning the stories of real people, how the different complexities of their lives were connected, and how their lives contributed to shaping the world in which we live today. London’s history is an obvious influence over many aspects of the city, but takes a physical form in the city’s architecture. The London skyline is unusual and interesting because it is such a mix of new and old. Towering above the River Thames is a collection of oddly shaped glass buildings. They clearly have official names, but throughout our trip we tended to refer to them by the names of the objects that they resembled: One looks like a bullet, another like a loaf of bread, another like a pyramid (known as the Shard), and another (London’s City Hall) that looks like one hemisphere of the globe. And yet, sitting along or visible from the same banks, are the Tower of London (dating back to 1078), the Globe Theater (a recreation, but near where the original stood in 1599), and St. Paul’s Cathedral (1710). Though we may have a tendency to group these buildings together as all “very old,” they each come from a different time period and have distinctly different architectural styles. The Tower of London seems more stark and almost hodge-podge from the outside, built more with practicality in mind than beauty. St. Paul’s Cathedral has also gone through several iterations, the previous structures being destroyed by fires. The site itself has been home to a cathedral since 604 CE, and the present building was finished in 1710. There are certainly many factors that contribute to the evolution of a city’s aesthetic and skyline over time, but I couldn’t help but think about how much magnificent London architecture was lost when the city was bombed so heavily during World War II. Especially as we rode the steep elevators downward and scurried throughout the tunnels of the Tube, I could picture Londoners in the 1930s and 40s huddled down here during an air raid. The architectural differences were especially distinct and juxtaposed at the University of Oxford, about an hour outside London, and dating back to at least 1096. The buildings of the college we toured, Balliol, were built with the needs of the medieval student in mind: constructed in a rectangle, so that it was easy to move between facilities and kept out noise; a well-stocked, silent library so the student could focus on studies; a dining hall (with the professors’ or “tutors’” seats on a raised platform so that students know their place); a dormitory; and a cathedral for regular prayer. In one area of the university there are two buildings that stand directly across from one another and are incorporated into the students’ final exams and graduation ceremonies. The Bodleian Library was founded in the fourteenth century, and is therefore designed in the ornate gothic style popular at the time. Directly opposite is the Sheldonian Theatre, which was constructed in the seventeenth century by the same architect that designed the present St. Paul’s Cathedral. However, he based this building off of the Theatre of Marcellus, which stood in Rome in the first century BCE. There are so many other historically significant sites and ways in which history is evident today throughout this wonderful city — I could go on and on! I greatly enjoyed hopping throughout the centuries as we made our way around the city, and at the same time seeing large cranes and construction sites wherever we went. It’s striking to realize how young America is in comparison to the rest of the world and how so much of our world today is shaped by the people and happenings of the city on the Thames. - Stephanie Drucker |
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Art and Performance
One of my favorite things about London is how important and generally pervasive the arts are in the city. From graffiti and buskers to art museums and theater, I had the pleasure of witnessing so many wonderful creations and creators.
One of my favorite things about London is how important and generally pervasive the arts are in the city. From graffiti and buskers to art museums and theater, I had the pleasure of witnessing so many wonderful creations and creators.
Graffiti
Most of what I know about graffiti comes from the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, which is perhaps was I was so taken by the graffiti of London, specifically Shoreditch, because I was able to recognize the works of artists featured in that film and the ingenuity that goes into the creation of these pieces. Walking through that area it was amazing to see massive artworks filling every open space and more so recognizing the work of specific artists like Banksy, Space Invader, and Shepard Fairy. The fact that there was no effort to cover up the graffiti, that it was almost used to enhance the appearance of the neighborhood, covering entire facades of buildings and storefront walls and doors, was absolutely inspiring. The graffiti of London followed the trend I noticed with the buskers, that art, in its various forms, is encouraged and embraced by the community in a way that allows it to flourish in a way I often don’t see or notice in other cities. |
Street Performers In Trafalgar Square alone the pathways are essentially lined with human statues (of varying degree of quality), people doing incredible art on the pavement, or performing music. On a single day in the square we say a guitarist, a gentleman sitting and rapidly making rings for passerbys, a beat boxer, dozens of human statues, including a surprising amount of floating Yodas, and a young man sitting on a toilet allowing people to paint him. And this was all on a single pathway. Arguably, the tourist element is likely a massive draw for these performers and artists, but their presence was nonetheless breathtaking and representative of the sort of respect and admiration for the arts that runs through the city. Theater I’m a massive theater nerd and theater in London’s West End is certainly one of the two most important places for theater in the English-speaking world, so I was essentially in heaven. The West End consists of around forty theaters, with the longest running show, The Mousetrap, having been up in London for around 63 years, for comparison the longest running show on Broadway, The Phantom of the Opera, has only been playing for less than 30. Theater is a staple of the art scene in London and walking into a sold out theater in the West End was one of my favorite experiences of the trip. The two shows I had the pleasure of seeing included a Broadway transfer that recently opened in the West End, Hand to God, and Olivier Award Winner The Play that Goes Wrong, which interestingly enough is set to transfer to Broadway. I was particularly excited to see The Play that Goes Wrong because it seemed to typify that classic quick-witted, yet buffoonish slapstick comedy that I often associate with the English comedic style. It certainly did not disappoint. Theatre in the West End is a unique experience in itself. To begin with each theater is incredibly intimate, both theaters I went to, the Duchess Theatre and the Vaudeville Theatre, had under 700 hundred seats, smaller than most of the theaters in University of Illionis’s Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Though neither had the typical large lobbies that most theaters in the US have, each had multiple bars for both the stalls and the balcony, offering an interesting pre theater experience as well as a chance to socialize. The theater going experience in the West End, compared to my experiences in the US, seemed a far more casual evening out and the prices for the shows were far cheaper than what I would have expected, which is wonderful because it offers more people the opportunity to attend. |
London, from my perspective, was a wonderful mishmash of the high and low arts, sometimes all mixed together in a single, indistinguishable blend. The way the city embraced art and artists was inspiring and allowed me to experience so much of the London’s culture and values by enjoying performances and interacting with both modern and historic art.
-Allie
-Allie