Open House and Hitachi

I took advantage today of the open house event and went up to the mayors office with my sister. Amazing views across London and a brilliant building to be inside, my sister wasn't so interested in the architecture as i was, but there was an activity at the top of the building where you could make a house and put it in an imaginary city of other houses that people had made. We made a haunted house and placed it on the edge of town next to the 'Sunshine Hotel'- the defining features of our building was the tissue paper smoke surrounding it and expanding out of the roof- it also had a drawbridge. The building was a lot like the Reichstag in Berlin- slightly smaller ques to get in, and views that i recognise- but very similar, I'll have to look up to see if it was the same architect that designed the building.


Conveniently it is also right next door to the Hitachi Consulting office where we put up a show earlier this year- I didn't hang any work myself but i project managed and helped curate and choose the work to be placed in the year long exhibition, paid for by Hitachi Consulting. So i took the opportunity on the balcony to take some photos of the Hitachi Building- mainly the parts where you can see the work through the windows. I am trying to get together a catalogue for the private view coming up in October, so the photos may be quite good for that. If not its a good record of location.
We also went to The London Dungeons today- I thought i would mention it because it was really good, and it had a link for me to the crooked house ideas i was having in Great Yarmouth. A lot more extensive than last time i went (about 10 years ago) and a lot more participatory, there are more actors and things like the Sweeney Todd exhibit which gives everybody exactly the same creepy experience. They also have a room which is the old '10 Bells Pub' in Shoredich, linked onto the Jack the Ripper exhibit- I personally enjoyed this because it linked history to location, and I've been to the pub too. We actually went over to Shoreditch after the dungeons so i could show my sis the pub, and a couple of locations of the killings- i went on one of those Ripper Walks a couple of years ago, and remembered a couple of locations. It puts things into perspective a bit, if not bored my sister a little. From there we also went down Brick Lane to get some bagels to eat on the way home- however we got stuck in the middle of a music festival that was going on, and realised when we got to Mile End that i had actually taken us the wrong way down the lane. We had to squeeze all the way back down to the other end. It took us about an hour in total to get the Bagels and get out of there!