Looking at some of the patterns and features on my triangular urban walk this week, the second side of the triangle provided me with a number of everyday aspects of the city with, to me, points of visual interest. The angles and perspectives of architectural features, when looked at on their own and viewed without the context of the wider urban environment, become simply lines, shapes and patterns and can be seen as works of abstract art.
Those lines and shapes are reflected in the design of murals on the walls of the Elysium artists’ studios but opposite this is an apparent anomaly – the architectural turret attached to the corner of a more classical building is like a folly, an embellishment without purpose but one that brings you up short. I stopped and wondered about it and thought that it is a bit of essential fun that perhaps does have a purpose after all, one that works well, one that, in stopping me in my photographing tracks, has indeed fulfilled its purpose.
In fact I am very familiar with this feature as I pass it almost every time I go into Swansea – every time it draws my eye and so I guess it is a feature fully (or should that be folly) intended by the architect.
I often wonder whether features like this turret, as well as evoking a fairytale fantasy aesthetic, are also to elicit some kind of envy from neighbours and passers-by: “Look what we can afford, betcha haven’t got anything like that on your suburban semi!” Certainly inspires envy in me!
I don’t know about inspiring envy but it is certainly fairytale-like.
I love the angle of the steps, the picture really caught my eye today.
Thank you. The steps are a part of the glass extension stuck on the side of the original college of art building and subsequently called the Alex building. I assume this is after the name of the street it is on – Alexandra Road – but I can’t find why the road was named that.