As so often, I
embarked on what I thought would be a fairly brief post to showcase a few
photographs taken at Birmingham’s Five Ways Junction, only to discover that a wider
theme had established itself in my mind/camera.
Hence, this is the third in a trio of recent posts on the subject of
subways and underpasses in Birmingham and Leicester. The subterranean element of urban topography
is a general subject I’ve touched on before, (and I’m sure I will again), but
for now, this reflection belongs together with the previous two, as a discrete little
trilogy.
Last time, I
discussed a favourite resonant location beneath the dual carriageway of Leicester’s
St Margaret’s Way. The site depicted
here is actually only a few hundred metres further along the same route, at the
point where it terminates at the Inner Ring Road that bounds the city
centre. As such, it forms a nexus, not unlike
the Burley’s Flyover/Roundabout that features in my ‘Belgrave Gate Project’. I’ve wondered occasionally
about embarking on an in-depth study of the entire circuit, and the junctions
that punctuate it. However, recent
progress on the BGP itself has been sporadic to say the least, and appears to
be a bit stalled again currently, so the last thing I really need is to bite
off even more than I can chew. A little short
term organisational discipline is something I’d do well to keep in mind within
my artistic practice generally. Who
knows? – perhaps these piecemeal explorations will all just join up organically
one day.
The Friday Street underpass, and associated pedestrian subway, link two slightly liminal zones,
but this system lies beneath the far more significant junction of St Margaret’s
Way, Vaughan Way and Burleys Way, in the Inner Ring’s northwestern quadrant. Here, one really sees how a city like
Leicester was significantly remodeled after the Second World War to facilitate
the explosion in motor transport. Such
dualled thoroughfares were clearly designed to aid the passage of vehicles in
and out of the commercial centre without overwhelming it, and carry immense
quantities of traffic each day, [1.]. As was the trend at the time, pedestrian
access was very consciously separated out at the junction, (not necessarily a
misguided strategy), and driven below ground, (with implications possibly rather different from the planners’ original intentions).
This three-pronged
underground complex feels much tighter in than Five Ways in Birmingham, lying
as it does beneath what is essentially a T-junction, rather than a huge roundabout. What really characterises it is the way its
three narrow tunnels meet in a small, triangular non-place
at its centre. Although open to the sky,
this isn’t the wide, communal space, complete with refreshment stop, at the
centre of Five Ways. It’s anonymous and
largely functional, featuring minimal, desultory landscaping and neglected
planting. Wedged between high, blank
walls, it’s almost invisible from the road above and really little more than a
light well.
And yet, as so often with these
overlooked holes in the map, this place captures my imagination in a surprisingly
powerful way. I’ve already noted, that they often only really resemble
themselves and they can certainly seem highly specific and strangely hermetic. To loiter in this one feels like being
isolated in a negative space, separated from normality, and (literally), on a
different plane from the urgency of the surrounding city. Perhaps this essential strangeness was always
at the heart of the Modernist dream, (for, surely that is what it was). There was an unashamed futurism in its
intent, and an unfamiliar space age aspect to its aesthetic after the War,
generally. There is, I think, still a
kind of alien thrill to be experienced in such places that recalls numerous
visions of Science Fiction, however dystopian.
More prosaically, it seems
that, despite a willingness to provide separate, (and theoretically safer)
provision for pedestrians, walking was somehow deemed to be becoming a somewhat
marginal activity in the minds of the town planners and social engineers of the
period. In an era when cars, (or even
monorails or helicopters), seemed set to dominate the urban landscape, perhaps
it felt more natural to direct foot traffic through a proscribed warren of
functional but potentially alienating hidden conduits, with little thought for
the psychological implications.
And, inevitably, it’s that psychological
or perceptual element which impacts on me most strongly in these places. The tunnels at St. Margaret’s are narrow and
relatively dark, and as is so often the case in these places, one enters them
at an angle to one’s direction of descent from street level. Apprehension over exactly what might be
waiting in the shadows or around corners is natural and would likely be
hard-wired on an instinctive, animal level, even were we not already socially
primed with the fear of potential muggings, (or worse). The designers of these passages couldn’t have
created a situation more suited to ambush if they’d tried, to the point where subways
have become a recognised cliché of urban paranoia. Some of my photos capitalise on this rather
opportunistically, but it’s impossible not to read an air of vulnerability or
isolation in the silhouetted figures of passers-by.
In this context it’s always a
shock to encounter the huddled forms of rough sleepers in these places. The immediate reaction is to feel wary of
these subterranean denizens, but I quickly end up suspecting they are the most
vulnerable of all down there, and can’t shake off my impression of lost
phantoms haunting the deepest, forgotten levels of society. Should that all sound too fanciful, it’s
important to remember these are real people, each with a story to tell. We could all be there given the wrong set of circumstances,
and who wouldn’t seek out the shelter and relative quiet of the tunnels in a
similar situation? Either way, it’s
another aspect of how far a society’s dreams of its future, (or the stories it tells
about its present), can diverge from reality.
This idea of the dark tunnel
as a potential refuge is an obvious one.
Although we generally feel safer in well-lit places with unbroken sight
lines, it’s worth remembering that the population for whom these tunnels were
constructed were only a few years removed from memories of Blitzkrieg bomb
shelters, or indeed, the notion of the Cold War nuclear bunker. If, as a society, we now prefer to walk more
confidently in the light at or above ground level, and to construct
environments of a far less austere or authoritarian stamp [2.], does this imply we feel more secure? Are we niaive to feel that way, or do the
real potential threats to our wellbeing now come from within rather than from
above?
As before, it’s the qualities
of illumination in these subways that possibly affect me most on a purely
perceptual level. Indeed, looking back,
I realise that light, (and it’s artificial provision), runs through all three
pieces as a major theme. Thus it is
that, several of these images here self-consciously accentuate the limitations
of photography in dealing with my movement in and out of dark tunnels on a
bright day. I’ll openly admit to some
fairly overt Photoshop manipulation in order to maximise both the sense of
profound, impenetrable shadow, (and resulting trepidation), within, or indeed
the overwhelming overload of light one can experience on emerging. In either situation, it’s that sense of
sensory deprivation, and of being unable to accurately locate yourself within
your surroundings that packs the real psychological punch.
I’m also very drawn to the
play of reflected light on the internal surfaces of the tunnels
themselves. This is particularly
interesting where it deflects off layers of glossy industrial paint applied to
crumbling and flaking ceilings, and where heavy duty, textured rubber floor
coverings also display a surprising reflective sheen. Again, there’s a distinct flavour of
dystopian grunge to this. Much has been
written about how the bright techno-fetishism of 1960s and 70s Science Fiction
visualisations, gave way to the grimmer, disillusioned chiaroscuro of the Post-Modern
era. I’m often led to think of a film
like ‘Event Horizon’ [3.], or Ridley Scott’s vision for ‘Alien’ [4.], as I move along the passages.
Aesthetically, the ramps and
steps down to the tunnels at St Margaret’s lack the switchback dynamism or
attempts at tiled enhancement seen up the road.
The high walls are generally blank and colourless and overlook
dilapidated, yellow-painted crash barriers that only magnify the air of bald
functionality. It’s also difficult to
overlook the strong smell of piss that lurks down here. The prosaic fact is that the subways lie
close to various nightspots and drinking holes, and that intoxicated public
incontinence is a defining feature of the British weekend. However, such places were becoming generally despised
by the British public, almost as soon as they appeared, and the squalor and
neglect which most now display just illustrates the mismatch between the baldly
rational assumptions of planned Modernism and the messy, organic realities of
human behaviour. It’s tempting to think
of the glee with which lab rats might casually soil the mazes that research
scientists have constructed for them.
If any further proof were
needed of just how arbitrary was the twentieth century remodeling of portions
of a city like Leicester, one need only return to ground level via the ramp
adjacent to St Margaret’s Church.
There’s an open area of landscaping here that differs from the rest of
the complex with its red brick masonry and elements of vegetation. It was obviously intended as a place that
people might want to sit and relax, (and perhaps take lung-fulls of heavily
polluted air from the adjacent road system), but is generally populated by
street drinkers these days.
The medieval building of St
Margaret’s itself is a sizable edifice and one of the most significant churches
of old Leicester. I note with interest
that much of the land in this part of Leicester was once owned by the Bishop of
my hometown, Lincoln, a fact that points to a very different, system of organising
urban territory that was taken for granted up until the twentieth century. To pass into the church grounds, amongst tall
trees and ancient grave stones, is to step back several centuries, but it’s now
a small standing pool of abandoned time, constrained on all sides by the
physical manifestations of commercial, workaday Leicester.
 |
All Images: St Margaret's Way/Vaughan Way/Burleys Way,
August 2014 |
St Margaret’s Way itself follows
the old Church Gate route, a significant artery of the historical street plan,
but the contrast couldn’t be greater between the narrow section still lying
within the ring road, and the major dual carriageway that now sidelines the
church rather than leading to it. Seen
from this perspective, it’s possible to appreciate to what extent the inner orbital
is as much a fracture in time, as in physical space. The assumptions that shaped the subways
beneath it are themselves increasingly lost in time as illustrated by the
presence of the recent Highcross shopping development overlooking the ring a few
hundred metres away. It’s mirrored
surfaces, and elevated glass bridges augment a shiny, happy cathedral of consumerist
lifestyle, and represent a very different relationship of the public to urban
space. But that’s a different story…
[1.]: Architecturally, this whole stretch of the inner
ring feels rather typical of that period, and retains the remnants of a fairly
cohesive ‘mood’, despite significant recent changes. There remain numerous Modernist edifices of
the functional rather than spectacular variety, and a general sense of a once-optimistic
vision of the city’s future now stranded in time. I drive this way regularly and, at times when
traffic flow overwhelms the system, often indulge in a near-stationary variety
of what I think of as ‘Pyschogeographical Driving’. This is a departure from the classical idea
of Psychogeography as an activity centred on walking, but to me, another very
significant way of experiencing the city.
[2.]: Ironically, the brighter, sleeker iterations
of cities we increasingly inhabit often reflect a society far less invested in
notions of equality of opportunity, open access, communality or freedom, than
those that prevailed when these hard, concrete environments were envisaged.
[3.]: Ridley Scott (Dir.), ‘Alien’, USA, Brandywine Productions/20th Century Fox,
1979.
Paul Anderson
(Dir.), ‘Event Horizon’, UK/USA,
Golar Productions/Impact Pictures/Paramount Pictures, 1997.
[4.]:
Scott’s original film is of course, widely accepted as one of the all
time great cinematic evocations of our fear of dark tunnels and what might be
lurking there. I’m sure readers can
provide their own list of other creepy, tunnel-based films, just emphasising an
insecurity that never loses its power for most of us. Certain scenes from both Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’ and Danny Boyle’s ‘Twenty Eight Days Later’ are other fairly
obvious examples that would feature high on my own personal list.
