Voyage à Londres

Eurostar
Grace à des points accumulés depuis quelques années, j'ai eu la chance d'obtenir un voyage avec la SNCF. J'ai choisi d'aller à Londre (England), c'était en novembre 2005. J'ai fait le voyage en TGV Eurostar, pour l'aller j'ai choisi le premier train qui partait de Paris, et pour le retour ... j'ai pris le dernier train qui partait de Londres pour rentrer à Paris. Prendre l'Eurostar c'est un peu comme prendre l'avion, avec enregistrement, passage de douanes quand on part et arrive.

Tamise ou Thames

Toute la matinée à Londres j'ai longé la Tamise. Loin devant on aprecoit Big Eye, ou la grande roue de Londres, et je me suis arrétée à la terrasse du café, juste en face.

Big Eye

C'est comme la grande roue qui était au jardin des Tuillerie à Paris pour l'année 2000; On y était monté dedans avec Colin et Killian, 10 ans. Les Parisiens avaient critiqué la grande roue afin qu'elle ne reste pas, et elle a été démontée. Aujourd'hui the Big Eye est un objet de fierté pour Londres, elle est partout présente sur les souvenirs et les présentoirs de carte postales... Je marche beaucoup, j'acherais au fil de la journée deux sandwichs, et quelques café dans des endroits "stratégique" j'ai amené une bouteille d'eau avec moi.

I have read somewhere that since Chicago's World Columbian Exposition in 1893, Ferris Wheels, have been included at many of the great expositions throughout the world, and are considered to be traditionnal structures at great occasions of celebration. At the time of the dreaming up of the Millenium Celebration, people were discussing, how to make Britain's corporate image more fun and less stuffy and stiff-upper-lip, and some suggested a huge fairground wheel in the middle of the city of London. The architects winner of the competition for Big Eye are husband and wife team : Julia Barfield and David Marks. Their big wheel became operational in January 2000, standing proud in London's Jubilee Gardens, on the south bank of the river Thames focal point in the Nation's Celebration of the New Century. The weel is the largest of its kind ever to be built at height of 135m!

Tate Modern
Je suis allée au Musée Tate Modern où j'ai regretté l'expo de Frida Kalho à peine terminée 2-3 jours plus tot. Moi, j'aime beaucoup cette femme artiste peintre, un jour j'irai voir sa maison la Casa Azul (Maison Bleue) qui est un musée, c'est au Mexique. J'ai lu deux ou trois biographie-monographie sur elle, dont le bouquin de Le Clezio.

"Tete moderne" at Tate Modern /Somethings thoroughly cultural… about my picture...
Yes, I took this picture along my short trip to London in Eurostar. I was in the Tate Modern art gallery. For this selfportait, I was posing in the Turbine hall, among a gigantic labyrinth –like structure- of 14,000 white opalescent boxes pile up in stack : a Rachel Whiteread art’s work.

In spring 2004, Rachel Whiteread was offered the annual Unilever Series commission to produce a piece for Tate Modern's vast Turbine Hall, delaying acceptance for five to six months until she was confident she could conceive a work to fill the huge space. Throughout the latter half of September 2005 and mid-way into October her work Embankment was installed and was made public on October 10.

A team of workmen on cherrypickers and forklifts built the stacks to Whiteread satisfaction while she stood in the middle orchestration them with a laser pointer, then she went around with glue gun and wet wipes titivating (to titivate: se faire beau) and finalising the details. The result is 14,000 transluscent, white polyethylene boxes (themselves casts of the inside of cardboard boxes) stacked in various ways; some in very tall mountain-like peaks and others in lower (though still over human height), rectangular, more levelled arrangements fixed in position.

Rachel Whiteread had spoken of wanting to make the Turbine hall of the Tate Modern Art Gallery into a kind of warehouse, and this is an intringuing response to a space which was once industrial but is now a museum. For what is a museum, after all, but a storage depot for art? (As a reminder, Rachel Whiteread seems to be one of the artists whose art had been destroyed on 24 May 2004 in a fire storage warehouse of the Charles Saatchi collection.)

Standing at the heart of London, on the Thames bankside linked to St Paul’s Cathedral by the new Millenium footbridge, opened in May 2000, the Art Gallery is in fact, a combination of a old building converted in new one by the leading Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. The title “Embankment” refers to its riverside location, close to the Thames embankment, but also to the nature of its contruction with the piles of individual boxes stacked up in both ordered and disordered piles forming a series of barriers.

The box obsession-inspiration involving packing and moving comparable boxes, began about two years ago when Whiteread was moving. All her life was in complete chaos ant it was all in boxes, her new home and studio ( an ex synagogue) weren’t ready to unpack, then her mother died and she had to pack her stuff. As inspiration, she cited the end scenes of both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Citizen Kane as visual precursors, and her recent trip to the Arctic.
The white opalescent ice cube is merely the colour the polyethylene comes in. The boxes were manufactured from casts of ten distinct cardboard boxes by a company that produces grit bins and traffic bollards. Embankment will remain in the Turbine hall until April 6, 2006 then all 14,000 boxes will be granulated and turn into bollards. Whiteread said she wouldn’t want to litter every corner of the world with her sculpture.
By then her work will exist only in memory and photographes.

[ Written for : Dear Jonglio/Claude
This point is an exert from a travel blog for my people in Canada, and specially choosen for you to show how the lady I am, might mingle in cultural matter…
Hope you like it, let me know
All the very best
Mary for Marie…-Claude]

Biography :Rachel Whiteread : was born and raised in London. She is the third of three sisters, the older two being identical twins spoking secret langage; part of Whiteread’s personality was formed by having to “fight her corner” in a two-against-one situation. Her father, a geography teacher and polytecnic adminitrator, died when Whiteread was studying scool in 1989. Her mother, Pat Whiteread, was also an artist, she died in 2003, aged 72, in heart routine surgery. Her death having a profund impact on Rachel’s work. Many of Whiteread’s works are casts of ordinary domestic objects carrying “ the residue of years ans years of use” : cast of ward robe; table, hot-water bottle, space under the bad. Denatured by transformation, ordinary things turn strange. Ten years ago, Rachel Whiteread was obsessed with mortuary slabs (dalles) and discarded mattresses.

Je suis étonnée, Londres à beaucoup changée depuis les années 80. Mai j'imagine, que la ville à juste évoluée avec le temps, qui lui, ne s'arrete pas. Sur les quais de la Tamise, très bien ammenagé comme promenade, on voit loin en perspective, et je trouve qu'il y a partout, ici et là, de très grandes grues qui signalent autant de chantiers qui vont encore modifier la ville

Au bord de la Tamise on se rend compte que le fleuve subit les influences de la marée, à vu d'oeil on ne sait pas vraiment de quel coté coule l'eau. Au fil des heures, il y a un effet marais perseptible, avec des clapotis, inconnu des bords de seine. A certains endroits, le rivage se découvre avec des bancs de sable. Dommage, le jour où j'y étais, il n'y avait pas de baleine en vu !!!


Millenium Bridge

J'ai traversé la Tamise sur une passerelle le "Millenium Bridge", il y avait beaucoup de joggers, là en plein centre ville. c'est leur nombre qui faisait, à mon avis, vibrer la passerelle. Sans exagération, je trouvais ça un peu vertigineux.

Facts on The Millenium Bridge

It opened on 10 of june 2000 as London's first new Thames crossing in more than 100 years. The 320m long structure was designed by a architect, a sculptor and an engineers (Sir Norman Foster, Sir Anthony Caro, Arup). It was opened by the Queen. The bridge uses "lateral suspension" an engineering innovation that allows suspension bridges to be built without tall suporting columns. The designers predicted it would be a "blade of light" across the Thames. Also "An absolute statement of our capabilities at the begining of the 21st century"... unfortunately, within days the bridge was close to the public.

Whats to be known about the controversy on the bridge:

On its openning days, tens of thousands of people crossed the bridge . The structure suddenly developed a very worrying and obvious wobble. On viibration, the bridge began to sway and twist in regular oscillation. The worst oscillation occured on the central span where deck was moving by up to 70mm leaving people unnerved ans unsteady. It happen, as the structure begin moving, pedestrians adjusted their foot step to the same lateral rythm as the bridge magnifying the motion. Would the Millenium bridge become a millenium flop? The attempt to limit the number of people prove unworkable as much as using street furniture such as bollard and barriers because they would have changed the shape and look of the bridge. Instead the engineers decided on damping mechanisms -giant shock absorber- which limit the bridge's response to external forces. Construction cost 18 Million, modification 5Million!

Saint Paul Cathedral

Après je me retrouve sur l'autre rive, à la hauteur de la cathédrale Saint Paul, mais autant que je peux vérifier, c'est le début d'aprés midi, et c'est déjà fermé aux visiteurs. Il y a nombreux scouts autour. J'aurai du venir avec un vrai guide touristique afin de tirer un meilleur parti de ce voyage... La prochaine fois, mais quand?

Saint Paul Cathedral Events:
For century numerous events took place in baroque Saint Paul Cathedral : the funeral of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Winston Churchill, Jubelee Celebreation for Queen Victoria, King Georges V, the 80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the 100the of Queen Mother, the Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer.

London City

Enfin, je suis dans la vraie ville, le trafic est dense, il y a des taxis traditionnels et des plus modernes réactualisé, les bus à impérial (2 étages) typique !!! Typique, aussi, la pluie qui m'obige à me réfugier, d'une boutique à une autre, un café ici ou là. Enfin pour pas trop me mouiller je me résouds enfin, à acheter un parapluie : ça me fera un souvenir...







Retour à la gare où je fais un serieux tour des magasins et carteries. Et puis comme j'ai un peu de temps je m'aventure en contre bas d'une rocade automobile, où je me retouve dans un charmant quartier résidentiel, surement en cours de mutation de population. Le pire et le meilleur, le populaire et le branché se jouxtent. Il y a un jolie café cubain avec tables et chaises multicolore dont je prends une dizaine de clichés photographiques. C'est beau : la lumière, les couleurs, les gouttes de pluies qui perlent : tout ça ensemble. Retour à Paris confortable, en 2 heures de temps. A noter : entre Paris et Londres il y a un décalage horaire de une heure, quand il est 7H à Paris, il est 6H à Londres.

Grignan montée du rempart

Bonjour, ceci est un essai de blog. Pour ecrire et mettre des photos.

Je vais essayer d'installer une photo de la montée du rempart, à Grignan, c'est dans la Drome (Provencale), dans le sud est de la France.