Greenwich Square's public space

click photo to enlarge
Over the past year, in our visits to Greenwich, I've watched the Greenwich Square development start to take shape. This mix of housing, retail space, leisure facilities and a public square is being developed on the site of the former Greenwich District Hospital. Some of the apartments, as can be seen by the balcony furniture in today's photograph, appear to be inhabited, but elsewhere there is much work to be done before the scheme is complete.

What has interested me, especially, about Greenwich Square is the public square at its centre. More particularly, I'd like to know if it is really a public space with all the rights and responsibilities that entails, or is it actually a private space to which the public are admitted on terms devised by the owners. An increasing number of these private/public spaces are being built in cities across the country. London's most frequented example is the ridiculously named "More London" near Tower Bridge, the only seemingly public place I have ever been told that I must stop taking photographs. The most recent private space to be described as public ("London's highest public park") is the Sky Garden at the top of the tower at 20 Fenchurch Street (the "Walkie Talkie"), London's ugliest tower by a big margin. It admits the public but it certainly cannot claim to be a public space. So what is the square at Greenwich Square? We'll eventually find out.

Incidentally, the colour of the cladding of these apartments makes me ask this question once more.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Privatising public space

click photo to enlarge

The insidious spread of private space into what was formerly, or should be, public space continues. Whether it be shopping malls, new developer-created streets, gated communities, or public-private partnerships that trade space for council-owned facilities, the result is the same: areas that would, in the past, have been publicly owned and would have offered unfettered access to everyone, are now often places in which we have restricted rights, and what we can or cannot do is limited in order that the owners can sell more effectively to the public or to their tenants. So, watch out if you're taking photographs, collecting for charity, skateboarding, or doing anything that offends the delicate sensibilities of the owners or their private security guards: if they don't like it they have the power to tell you to "clear off".

On a recent visit to London it was pointed out to me that one of the largest redevelopments of the river front is privately owned. The area upstream of Tower Bridge on the South Bank, a location that has a riverside path, green space, benches, multiple office blocks, open-air amphitheatre and is known by the ridiculous name of "More London" is not the public space that it seems to be. If one looks carefully you can see discreet metal plates fixed to walls that proclaim its private status. This is all the more remarkable because the space includes the new City Hall from where the London Assembly governs the metropolis. One of the architectural features of this Norman Foster-designed building is its openness, designed to bring transparency to the democratic process. Yet it is located in a privately owned part of the city. As they say in the United States - "go figure".

All that being so, I did wonder whether I might be stopped as I pointed my new camera at the orange coloured acers in front of the offices with their blue-tinted glass. However, anyone trying to restrict my photography would, in fairness, have to do the same with the thousands of tourists snapping away at Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast, the city skyline and the "Glass Gonad" itself, so I felt fairly safe.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On