Today the Museum of London Docklands opens BRIDGE, an exhibition celebrating the history and importance of London's bridges. Without the River Thames and its bridges, there would be no London and without London the world would have been a much poorer place; literally and metaphorically.
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| This original Fox Talbot 1845 image of Old Hungerford Bridge will be on limited display - its first ever public showing |
I was invited to the press launch on a Thames Clippers river bus, with art historian, Dan Cruickshank, giving a typically scholarly, gripping and totally off-the-cuff commentary on the bridges as we passed them. I was reminded that London's first bridge was built by the Romans over 2000 years ago near the modern London Bridge, that there was an earlier bridge in the Bronze Age, before London was thought of and that the engineering and design of bridges are a source of endless fascination.
Many artists have become involved in the celebration, from young photographer, Lucinda Grange, who has recorded their hidden interiors, to Scanner, who is producing a sonic art installation. The exhibition and its satellite events are as diverse and fascinating as the history of the bridges themselves. And London's fascination with bridges is set to continue, hopefully, with the exciting proposal to build a Garden Bridge across the River near Waterloo to Temple (see here).
To find out more see the Museum of London Docklands website here. The exhibition is free and runs until 2nd November 2014.
I'm a great fan of the Museum of London and recommend visits to each of their centres to relish the richness of London's history, its present and future. See THE MUSEUM OF LONDON.
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| Blackfriars Bridge 1789/90 - ink and watercolour |
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| Inside London Bridge - Lucinda Grange 2014 |
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| A windy evening on London Bridge - Henry Turner 1937 |
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| London Bridge - Barry Lewis (1970s?) |
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