Euro - London

London - 2022

WIDMER Eliott

PERRET-GENTIL Gaëtan

A Euro section journey

Day 1 - historical & political London

Imperial War Museum

Westminster area

Day 2 - cultural London

Natural history museum

Imperial college

Royal Albert Hall

Tate Modern

Day 3 AM - economic London

The City

A nice sunset

Day 4 - a mutating metropolis

Bricklane

Canary Wharf

Day 3 PM - London's gentrification and multiculturalism

Stratford olympic park

Granary square & King's Cross area

Queer Britain museum

Day 5 - cultural & touristic London

Department stores

Westfield shopping centre

Soho

CHALLENGE - interviews of Londoners

Cookies!

They were good

Imperial War Museum

WW1 section

WW2 section

some objects that stroke us

3 objects that stroke us :

• a painting called "The Mule Track" depicting a devastated battlefield during WW1, from the painter Paul Nash. Nash was a former infantry officer and saw himself as a "messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting". Precisely, that is our feeling about that painting : it shows all the horror of WW1, and the terrible things soldiers have come through --> this painting makes us remember that we need to commemorate those people and that we need to prevent another war like that from happening.

• a Nazi flag, showing all the symbols of the third Reich --> we chose it since we had never seen one of these before, and we think it is interesting to understand how symbols and ideology can blind an entire nation.

• a poster that reminds us the huge role of women during WW1 (and also WW2) in the Home Front. Indeed, while most men were fighting on battlefields, the women kept the economy alive, by working in arm factories for example. --> we believe that we should remember more what these women did.

Wesminster area

Google Maps

Buckingham Palace

10 Downing Street

The Cenotaph

Big Ben & Houses of Parliament

Natural History museum

Dinosaurs section

Minerals section

Hall

the reasons why we chose that museum

Funny anecdote : one hypothesis to explain the big cavity in Parasaurolophus' head is that this dinosaur used it as a warning signal by blowning in it to make a sound

The mineral section was definitely outstanding. We saw there lots of beautiful various rocks from all around the world : There was even a large Martian meteorite (we had never seen such a thing, so it was really amazing) : Amongst all the rocks, a rhodochrosite crystal stroke us : we found it absolutely magnificent, especially with the light coming through it. We really liked the cubic organisation of the crystal too. Fun fact : this rhodochrosite is called "Sweat Home rhodochrosite" because it was found in the "Sweat Home" mine in the USA. This mine was in fact at first a silver mine, but it quickly changed when they started discovering such specimens. Naturally, we learnt plenty of things about the rocks too (even if we had to speed up at the end), for instance about their hardness :

A statue of Darwin, who discovered the concept of the evolution. We found it nice since it helps us to understand who was this man who revolutionised biology.

There are 3 main reasons why we chose the Natural History Museum. First of all, we liked the building, which is quite impressive and magnificent. Then, we had heard about the dinosaurs and fossiles collection so we wanted to see it with our own eyes. Finally, we have always liked natural history museums so we chose to go to London's one. When we actually got in the museum, we found the dinosaurs collection, as we expected. However, the museum was even better than what we thought before : indeed, we were flabbergasted by the minerals collection. It was really great!

Imperial College London

https://www.imperial.ac.uk

A Franco-British student gave us a guided tour of the campus. We learnt plenty of things which will certainly be useful for us in the future.

Royal Albert Hall

About the Hall...

Some fun facts...

To go further...

• In the big room where all the shows take place, we can see a crown above 2 boxes, showing that these boxes are actually the property of the monarchy. Indeed, during the financing campaign of the Hall, the Queen Victoria bought 2 boxes to encourage other people to buy some seats and participate to the financing campaign (yes, people really bought seats and boxes that did not exist at that time, hoping that the building would genuinely be constructed and that they would not loose their money! )

• When it got constructed and until the 1960s, the Royal Albert Hall had in fact a terrible acoustic: the shape of the roof was making an echo : quite a paradox for a concert hall, isn't it? People made many jokes about that, saying for instance that it was cheap since you could hear two concerts at the same time (because of the echo). This is the reason why strange mushroom-looking fibreglass acoustic diffusers got installed in the late 1960s, and the sound changed completely!

The Royal Albert Hall got completed in 1871, during Victoria's reign. This Hall was the dream of Prince Albert, who loved arts and music. However, Albert never saw it completed, since he died in 1861. Furthermore, the Hall is known worldwide and a lot of emblematic artist did perform in this place, like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and even the "Cirque du Soleil". There is in that place a huge room that is in fact quite modular, where lots of seats can be removed to give the artists more space: for instance, a dance floor has already been installed at some occasions.

• Behind the Hall, there is a huge gold statue which got fulfilled after the death of the Prince Consort Albert, in a place that is nowadays called the "Albert Memorial". Actually, the statue was so expensive that all the money that could have been used to build the Royal Albert Hall got used instead to create this memorial (although Albert would have probably prefered to use that gold to build the Hall). That's why people who were constucting the Hall had to find uncommon ways to finance the monument. Thus, they started selling the seats even before they started constructing the building, which is something quite unusual, at least.

• Hyde park (the place where we can find the Albert memorial) is also the place where other memorials stand, like the Diana Memorial. We can find there a statue of the Queen Victoria too.

the castle where we could find the Diana memorial (closed because of the Covid-19) a statue of Queen Victoria

• Oh, and there are lots of birds in Hyde Park too :

Tate Modern

A surprising orchestra

About the temporary exhibition

the view from the top

Some pieces of art that surprised us

About the temporary exhibition of the Chilean artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña We found this piece of art really astounding: it shows the purity amongst the darkness, the white amongst the black. These long hung pieces of white clothes and fishing nets convey the idea that human race has fallen in decay for centuries now with its society of overconsumption which exploits the nature far too much. Humanity is now living in shame, debauchery and depravity and there seems to be no hope for us. However, a gleam of hope actually exists: the white colour reminds us that art can be a way to get back our lost humanity. It's even the only way... This art piece is thus an appeal for peace against war, for life against death, an appeal for art and beauty. Did Oscar Wilde not say, in The Picture of Dorian Grey, that "The artist is the creator of beautiful things" ? Art is the answer we are all looking for, and artists like Cecilia Vicuña are giving us hints to find the good path, a path to become better than what we are. Finally, the dulcet music that goes with this piece of art is like a see, like waves that enfold us, allowing us to discover some parts of the Truth while we are like in a trance of beauty and flawlessness. In fact and to be honest, we didn't understand a single thing about that peace of art, and what you just read is a pure invention.

• Man with a Newspaper, René Magritte (1928) --> We found that painting really disconcerting. Indeed, this piece of art is quite strange because it represents 4 times the same situation (with slight changes of perspective) but where there is a big difference: there is a man reading the newspaper in the first picture, and not in the others. Is the artist criticising the society? Why is the man gone in the other picures? Is it about the early 3-D devices, like some experts say? We do not know the answers, but what is certain is that this painting make us ask questions to ourselves. Isn't that the goal of every artist?Studying Magritte's personality can still help us to understand the meaning of the painting. Magritte is surrealist: he likes when the things on the painting are beyond reality because they can then give a deep message to the spectator who is able to catch the hidden meaning. --> Like many surrealists, Magritte "preferred quiet subversion to overt public action".

• Flag, Fred Wilson (2009) --> This piece of art stroke us since we are keen about history and geoagraphy of countries around the world, so it was interesting to look more to those curious black and white flags. These flags represent 27 different African and African Diaspora nations. Fred Wilson wanted here to celebrate the independance movements against the French and British colonial rules (rather a good idea, we think). Nonetheless, the fact that those flags are not colored is a deliberate will of the artist to say that a nation cannot be represented by its flag: to try to understand a nation, we must go there and dig up.Wilson's work is a lot about meanings, interpretation, and conveying ideas: he thus like to be called a "conceptual artist" (conceptualism is a movement that roughly says that the message of a piece of art is more important than the aesthetic) --> Wilson is a very committed artist (particularly about the colonial question), and that is what we liked
• The Founding of Australia 1788, Algernon Talmage (1937) --> we chose this oil painting because it was one of the only impressionist canvas in the entire museum (unfortunately ). Moreover, we found it really aesthetically pleasing and we enjoyed the fact it was representing an event that really occurred (by the way, this painting was comissioned for "the 150th anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove under the leadership of Captain Arthur Philip")As we said before, Algernon Talmage is belongs to impressionism: Talmage does not especially want to represent exactly the true world, but more how he feels about it, and that is something we find rather awesome.

An orchestra created by Oswaldo Maciá, who brought together over 2000 birdsongs. We found that quite intriguing because we had never heard about that before. And we like music too, so it is nice seing new ways of doing it. Actually, this man is always experiencing new ways of making art and relaying messages and emotions: he thus belongs to conceptualism, as a sound artist (although he has his own artistic personality)

A nice sunset

The City

Tower of London

the Shard

the Walkie Talkie

the Gherkin

the Cheese grater

Heron tower

some banks

the Sky garden

https://www.vipbreak.com

Day 3 Day 2

The Sky garden

some pictures of the 360° view

some infos about the place

The Sky garden is located at the top of the 20 Fenchurch Street, a skyscraper that got nicknamed "Walkie Talkie" because of its specific shape. Thanks to our presentation of the building (which was absolutely brilliant, obviously ), the class learnt some fun facts about that place. To go further : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Fenchurch_Street#Sky_garden

Bricklane

A place gentrifying

differentstreet art techniques

A playground for the greatest street artists

During our visit of Bricklane, we found many signs of the gentrification happening nowadays:

• We went next to an estate agency, symbol of a dynamic housing market.

• We also saw a shopping street with many shops that came during the gentrification process.

• Finally, we saw big houses, where new inhabitants are probably living in.

Bricklane is for decades the playground for many street artist, including the most well known ones:

• For example, in one of the street, we saw a stand of a collage artist called Adrian Boswell

• We also spotted a piece of art that made us think about the famous street artist Space Invader (it's probably not his personal creation but he definitely inspired the person who did it)

• And we found a stork that is in a Banksy style too (kind of)

• We even saw two artists while they were making their creations!

King's Cross area & Granary square

Granary square & Regent Canal

King's cross railway station

St Pancras train station

Fun fact : some Harry Potter's scenes have been shot here (platform 9¾). That's why Mrs. Kasper Aulagne led a group of students to go there to take Harry Potter pictures 🧙🪄

A symbol of gentrification

Canary Wharf

Crossrail roof garden

Thomson Reuters

the former Docks

more banks

The main source of information for traders and banks

Fun fact : the Greenwich meridian goes exactly through the garden ; this is the reason why there is a specific arrangement of the plants in it, depending on where they come from in the world

These former docks remind us that this place once was a hub of trade, before it became a financial district within the scope of a regeneration project.

JP Morgan JP Morgan & Morgan Stanley Crédit Suisse HSBC tower an old building surrounded by towers

-one of the largest shopping centre in Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org

All the things we did there

" Shopping is boring " - Anonymous, 2022

We ate. We walked.

Stratford Olympic Park

30 things we learnt during the guided tour

A strange tower

a celebration of West Ham United football players

a tree-entrance

the aquatic centre

the Stratford velodrome

We got really surprised by the architecture of that aquatic centre: it only has 3 points of contact with the ground and its shape is quite uncommon (we are more used to rectangular shapes, so a curved one is rather unexpected). This building is called "London Aquatics Centre".

At the beginning, we were quite bewildered about this tower. We guessed that it was the olympic flame and we even convinced Ms. Paris that it was that... but it actually was not (at least, you now know that you should never take what students say at face value ). So, this tower is in fact a tourist attraction where there is only one way up but four ways going back down, like for instance a huge slide. The tower is called the "ArcelorMittal Orbit".

During our visit, we were surprised to find on the ground, in front of the West Ham United London Stadium, some pictures of the most famous West Ham players. It was quite surprising, and that made us think about the "Walk of Fame" in Hollywood.

These trees with a ring around them are actually marking the former entrances to the Park during the London Olympics in 2012 (we did not understand at the first glance, thus we were suprised when the guide explained that to us)

We got quite astonished when we went in the Stratford Velodrome, which is part of the "Lee Valley Velopark". Indeed, we had never seen a real velodrome with our own eyes so it was our first experience with one of them. We got impressed by the speed of some of the cyclists who were pedalling there too.

30 things we learnt during the guided tour

1. Before the construction of the olympic park, the area was very poor, and there were only railways and pollution because of some industries --> the government wanted that to change
2. When the place got chosen for the Olympics, people were seeing beyond: they wanted the park to be sustainable in the future, with a program lasting until 2035 --> nowadays, there are still some sportive installations, but lots of public places too, and lots of constructions (there is nowadays an economic activity)
3. The aquatic centre is open to everyone: athletes, students, and also the other Londoners --> the entrance is quite cheap, because of this idea that the park should be open to the public living there.
4. Some of the seats around the aquatic centre were only temporary (during the Olympics, 17500 spectators could come and see the competition), but the centre has stayed and many people can now access it.
5. Although the river once was very industrialised and polluted, now it is a more cultural area, with studios, practice rooms, schools for music or fashion, museums, etc. => very education oriented (for instance, one building that people are now constructed will be the first hip hop school in the area)
6. In the canal, many plants have been planted to prevent inondations in the Olympic Park.
7. Every year, between 5.5 M and 6 M people are attracted by the place (they often want to go to the "ArcelorMittal Orbit" attraction) => that gives revenues to the park
8. The only building that changed from the original plan is the West Ham Stadium (not enough people were coming, so the size got reduced)
9. During the construction of the Olympic stadium, they used a lot of recycled materials and they now use biomass to produce some of their own energy. Moreover, they used collected rain water (filtered) so there is almost no water coming from the city. By the way, there are solar panels at the top too.
10. The fact that the seats in the Olympic Stadium are descending makes it easier for people in a wheelchair to see a football match.
11. Before the construction of the Park, we could see a huge "fridge mountain" next to the river (they had to be put together because of the gas inside -people could not throw them themselves-) => nowadays, there is a red climbing wall instead.
12. The bombings during WW2 touched a lot the area and the industries which were in it. Fortunately, we almost do not see it anymore nowadays, since governmental organisations washed the soil and made it fertile again
13. During our visit, we saw the Olympic bell that launched the olympics. The guide told us the Whitechapel foundry was too small to make it so it got built in Holland and the Whitechapel foundry only finished it
14. The level of water in the Stratford canal has always been keeping changing. Therefore, people used gates swinging up and down to tackle that problem.
15. During our visit, we saw a bridge with a strange shape. It was in fact made deliberately to make horses able to come through during the early 1800s
16. One of the reasons why there are so much green spaces in the Park is that the authorities wanted to attract insects.
17. During our visit , we saw a Globe which is part of an exhibition across London to remember slavery.
18. After WW2, there were lots of electric pylons in the park. These pylons needed to be removed before doing anything since they were too dangerous.
19. At the beginning, the Paralympics got created to make physically disabled (because of WW2) soldiers feel better
20. In the park, an oak got planted with an acorn of the oak that Pierre de Coubertin planted. This oak is thus like an hommage to the one who created the modern Olympics.
21. During our visit, we observed a strange building called the Copper box, which was used during the London Olympics. Nowadays, it is the place where the Lions (British Basketball team) train.
22. The Park, which is even bigger than Hyde Park is seperated in two parts: a South Park and a North Park, which is more wild.
23. One of the things that was in the plan (that lasts until 2035) is to build more accommodation in the area. That's why many buildings have been build, to allow some local inhabitants to own their own appartment.
24. In a logic of sustainability, green roofs got installed on some of the building and there is often a rain recuperation system (to get water for washmachines, for example)
25. Even though the hockey stadium got dismantled after the olympics, we can still play hockey in Stratford if we go to the Lee Valley Tennis and Hockey Stadium
26. The paralympics logo symbolise movement, and its 3 colours are the 3 most popular and common colours on the flags of the world.
27. London Olympics and Paralympics were a huge success: every ticket got sold out in 2012. This is the reason why London is the only place who had the authorisation to keep the paralympics and olympics logos.
28. During the preparation of the games, electric and water installations for new buildings got built (idea of sustainability). And this work paid off! Two years after the Olympics, these buildings were already populated.
29. In the Park, we also walked next to the London blossom Garden: this garden is the quieter side of the park, and it is there to commemorate the key workers of the Games. In that garden, there are 33 blossoms: one for London and 32 for the boroughs around it.
30. Even the velodrome has solar panels to produce electricity! By the way, this building is the only thing that still would have been built without the games. There, you can do many various sports: bicycle, bmx, mountain bike, etc.

BONUS : Fun fact : the stadium is actually on an island, connected to the rest of the park by 5 bridges! (fun fact of the fun fact : the middle section of one of the bridges we came on had to be removed after the Olympics, because it was too dark beneath!)

https://www.gaytimes.co.uk

https://en.wikipedia.org

Both of us found the museum really interesting. Actually, we never had the chance before to visit a museum about the LGBTQ+ history and culture so it was an amazing oportunity to do so. In our opinion, this museum is a great initiative to make people's minds change about that theme. Moreover, even though it was quite short, we learnt there plenty of things, for instance about the fact Oscar Wilde got put in jail because of his homosexuality or about the fact that the discovery of the AIDS virus reinforced the discrimination on homosexual people.

Liberty & Co

Department stores

Hamley's toy store

Harrod's

The eldest department store in the UK (opened in 1875)

Wikipedia Commons

Some pictures

Soho neighbourhood

CHALLENGE - Interviews of Londoners

To all the Londoners we met, to all the people who participated in the crowdfunding, and particularly to all the teachers, we wanted to say...

THANK YOU!

Interviews :

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3

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