Animated façades of
apartment blocks, nine to ten storeys high, dominated by the interplay of balconies and
recesses face out onto a green sward which is actually a wildflower meadow
punctuated with a few trees, partly concealing the golden cheese grater façade
of the car park and the concealed HS1 line that passes through Stratford
International Station set below street level in a concrete channel. Moving up
the road to Stratford International Railway station, a kind of understated
entrance onto the direct high-speed link to Europe. The station sits on a quiet
street, really part of the landscape, which is busy with
pedestrians and quiet in terms of vehicular traffic. Punctuated with park
benches facing into the meadows and the facades of the Apartment blocks. Behind
very colourful site hoardings, and ‘Energy Saver’ portakabins, a new
development emerges, named East Village boasting ‘Everyday Living’ and a ‘World
Class School’ to compliment the former athletes village.
Large sculptures occupy the meadows depicting ground staff, the
thousands of volunteers that made hosting the games possible. Wandering along
the street and passing through the meadows with dense clusters of trees,
cherry, oak, silver birch, and glimpses of the apartment blocks through the
clearings give a sense of a young Central Park. Fine gravel footpaths, stone
paving augmented with kerb level lighting, cycle stands and park benches,
meandering paths through planted zones with water gardens create a desirable
environment to live. Le Corbusier’s towers in the park done right perhaps?
Signs within the park identify destinations not only in direction but in terms
of walking time in minutes, giving a very real sense that everything is well
connected and within easy reach. Cycle lanes are everywhere and are being used
including a number of the Barclays bikes knows by locals as Boris Bikes after
the current Mayor although there does not seem to be anywhere to procure one nearby.
Crossing a heavy looking concrete bridge carrying the road over HS1, and
joining the road that is alive with the red London Bus and the cyclist and a
few delivery vehicles, the street facing onto John Lewis is beginning to take
on a sense of place as a zone of arrival at the entrance to the Park. Security
fences mark areas where work is still in progress. The black and grey clouds
make for a dramatic backdrop to the bright colours of the fairground that sits
within a gated zone, temporary structures that make up rides, shooting
galleries and candy floss stands evoke memories of summers on the English
Riviera, where the travelling city would arrive and stay for a few days in a
haze of dust and diesel exhaust as the vintage vehicles labour to keep the
rides moving, the lights flashing and the music blaring. This one seems to be
quiet though, gates locked and rides dormant, set to come alive in the
afternoon.
At the Park entrance, Hadid’s Aquatics Centre on Left, Populous’ Stadium
directly ahead and a large fine gravel zone that is completely alive, cycles,
scooters and numerous groups walking around and looking, people actually
enjoying being in an urban space. The distinctive wave form of the aquatics
centre, freed from the stadium seating that was installed for the Olympics,
takes on a serene sculptural quality embedded in the very green landscape, very
different from the pictures broadcast during the games.
Crossing the River Lea on passing the Aquatics Centre, the stadium still
in the process of transition from games mode to post games mode in preparation
for the Rugby World Cup 2015, an army of workers operating on scaffolding appear
to be installing large box like structures onto the huge white steel truss that
supported the tensile fabric canopy, the scaffolding on multiple levels, just emphasise how
incredibly large the stadium is. The raw underside of the concrete terraces
supported on black steel structure give an elegant simplicity that was
previously concealed behind the ‘wrap’ that was so striking on the pictures
from the games.
The plaza in front of the Stadium is animated with dancing water jets
and a few very soggy children, who try to run between the jets and getting
caught in them amongst squeals of excitement. Beyond, in a dense ring of trees
is the ‘Orbit’ a red steel structure, resembling a combination between a 'Helter
Skelter' and roller coaster, engineered by Cecil Balmond, a dramatic landmark
when viewed from a distance, that seems to move and change as its aspect
changes with the direction of approach. Standing almost beneath the observation
platform and looking suddenly the whole whacky sculpture makes sense, the
observation platform seems to be floating in air as its forces are distributed
along the spiral as opposed to straight down which is the conventional fashion.
A chance view of the skyline captured between the spiral and the stadium frames
the towers of Canary Wharf and the length of the journey becomes apparent, who
could imagine this view from standing on the railway sidings surrounded by
industrial decay twenty years ago when Canary Wharf was a solitary tower
seemingly uprooted from New York and divorced from its urban context? The entry
pavilion to The Orbit white planes floating on a black base makes a very cool
intervention into the park calmly contrasting with the drama behind.
A cycle expo and people riding every type of cycle in the shadow of the
orbit, tandems, trikes, penny farthings, bikes with large child seats in a kind
of two wheeled rickshaw and a curious four wheeled cycling contraption that
seats six people as though around an oval table, all pedalling in unison. All around this part of the park, the skyline is dominated by towers, the distant landmarks of Canary Wharf, and the closer multi coloured glass clad apartment towers give a very real sense of a new city centre growing out of the industrial ruins.
