'Constructed City' 18: Ground Works

All Images: West Leicester, September 2020

In the last month - or so, several of the major construction sites in Leicester, that I've been visiting regularly, have either reached near-completion, or else appeared relatively unchanged for a time, as work progresses inside.  Whilst continuing to monitor them for any significant visual alterations, my lens has been instead drawn to a pair of new plots - close to the River Soar, where yet more work is now commencing.

These latest sites are relatively adjacent, and represent a next phase of the program of multi-phased redevelopment, extending away from the inner ring road - and effectively following the course of the old Great Central Railway towards Bede Island.  The buildings constructed here will be much smaller in scale than those already in progress nearby - forming the low-level residential element of what will eventually constitute a major slice of Leicester's urban landscape.

The clues to that are already appearing, as complexes of concrete footings, low walls, and plot divisions - standing proud of the newly-levelled earth.  These are far from the grand steel girder  cages and skyline-defying grids, nearby.  Or, indeed - of the Christo-like wrappings, and layered skins of insulation, render or shimmering glass, which soon clad them.  Instead, the emphasis here is of horizontal encroachment into the landscape, and an incremental partition of territory on a more domestic scale.  I'm also struck by the anticipatory menhirs of building materials, strategically placed around these sites.  If the concrete footings and emergent first few brick courses recall the incursions into desert landscapes of 1960s and 70s Land Artists, those modest columns of stacked slabs might evoke a more ancient archaeology too - of some long-abandoned temple complex, perhaps.

But by far the most striking features of these new sites are doubtless the entangled frameworks of vividly-painted fencing, along with a stack of equally arresting (and totally unsoiled) steel skips, and an apparent hand-washing cubicle - all rejoicing in the late Summer sunlight.  The interlocking geometry of steel barriers, punctuated by miniature and directional signage, speak of a notional system of zoning and secured thoroughfares, plotted on some surveyor's plan - but yet to make sense in actual time or space.  The artificiality is only emphasised by those saturated, synthetic colours.  Indeed, the alternating sections or red and white might easily be interpreted as actualised dotted lines, plotted onto physical topography.

Anyway, we're clearly at a much earlier stage of the overall process here, than previous photographic forays have recorded.  Nevertheless, the fascinating relationship between planning, process, and emergent structure - expressed through the intersection of formal geometries, remains inescapable.