Apsley House

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Walking around London :

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Sir Winston Churchill

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The beautiful Albert Memorial, which I stumbled across by accident as I was riding a bus into Westminster.

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In The City :

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Chinatown's guards

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A tribute to Princess Diana :

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Charge!

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This is probably one of the most famous monuments in London.

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I climbed up Wellington Arch ... not much to see though except a lot of trees in the area.

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Remembrance

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2 monuments and a bobby

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Old statue, new background

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Trafalgar Square when the Tube isn't running :

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Sunny day!

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More photos in my London gallery at :
http://www.globalphotos.org/london.htm

City boss offers funds for London statue of Battle of Britain hero
25 February 2008
The Daily Telegraph

A CITY philanthropist has offered to resolve the long-running controversy over the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square by funding a memorial to an unsung hero of the Battle of Britain.

For the past decade, millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent on various displays selected by lengthy consultation committees on the orders of Ken Livingstone, the London mayor.

But Terry Smith, the chief executive of Tullett Prebon, a City trading house, has agreed to pay more than pounds 100,000 for a permanent statue acceptable to "ordinary Londoners'' of the neglected hero Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park.

It was only after the war ended that the RAF officer's pivotal role in defending Britain against Luftwaffe attacks was recognised by Lord Tedder, the RAF chief.

"If any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did. I do not believe it is realised how much that one man, with his leadership, his calm judgment and his skill, did to save not only this country but the world,'' Lord Tedder said in 1947.

Mr Smith said he was inspired by a newspaper article that lamented the dearth of memorials to Sir Keith, and said it was "a matter of national honour'' to commemorate the airman.

"It is unbelievable that there is no recognition of a man who made such a massive contribution to Britain's defence,'' said Mr Smith.

"Aside from having a street named after him in Biggin Hill, he has been completely ignored. It's appalling really.'' Mr Smith believes it would also be fitting to have an RAF hero standing alongside the other three plinths filled by Army and Navy figures. However he said he recognised that there would be opposition among London's art elite.

"We should do this because Sir Keith Park, more than any other individual, saved London, and Trafalgar Square is at the centre of the city,'' he said.

He added that Britain should "commemorate this remarkable man's contribution to saving our city, rather than pay homage to the bankrupt celebrity culture''.

Mr Smith's proposal has received the backing of mayoral candidate Boris Johnson. Ken Livingstone has yet to comment.

Sir Keith Park played a pivotal role in the Battle of Britain, leading 11 Group RAF during the critical phase of the 1940 battle.

Before this he had an illustrious military career, gaining the MC and bar and the DFC during the First World War.

The New Zealand-born son of a Scottish geologist, Sir Keith fought in the bloody battles of Gallipoli and the Somme before an injury forced him to join the Royal Flying Corps, where he achieved at least 20 kills against the Germans. It was the pilot's astute tactical awareness of modern air warfare that saw him lead the defence of London and the south-east.

But his skill and popularity led to a falling-out with a perhaps envious Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, who commanded 12 Group and had the less glorious task of defending airfields.

Park was removed from command after the battle, but in 1942 once again came to the rescue in the vital air defence of Malta against overwhelming odds.

Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth has provoked debate after featuring controversial displays such as Alison Lapper Pregnant, a statue of the disabled artist. After a lengthy consultation costing pounds 160,000, the plinth is currently filled by a design called Model for a Hotel, created by a German artist.

The fourth plinth was built in 1841 to accommodate a notable figure on horseback, but was never filled due to a lack of funding.

Mr Smith will be launching his campaign, along with the two

mayoral challengers and a replica Spitfire, at Trafalgar Square on March 7.

A spokesman for the Greater London Authority said: "There are many worthy suggestions for statues on the fourth plinth and some people feel passionately about each of them. All proposals will be judged on their merits, including its current use as one of the most high profile sites for contemporary public art in London.

"The cost of erecting the current work on the plinth is pounds 270,000. The cost of a permanent monument is likely to be considerably more.''

A shame more cities don't do this, it adds so much character to them!

I think cities around the world should add realistic classic statues and organized public spaces. Some may call that backward, but I think they are beautiful!
London has a gorgeous collection of fine statues and public spaces.

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great collection, thanks

nice pics

We no longer erect statues to heroes
The Ottawa Citizen
23 June 2008

LONDON -- I have a tradition whenever I visit this city of going statue hunting. That's not as boring as it might sound.

Statues reflect our self-understanding. They are stories in stone and bronze. They tell in symbolic language who we are, where we came from and where we think we want to go. Statues, in short, reveal a lot about a society's purposes and its values.

London, of course, has plenty of statues -- kings and queens, soldiers and politicians, poets and artists, explorers and educators, villains and heroes. Queen Victoria and Alfred, Churchill and Cromwell, Marx and Mozart, Pepys and Peter Pan; you'll find them somewhere in London's streets, parks and pathways.

Over the years, I've become rather attached to some statues -- soldiers, explorers and poets mostly. For example, there's General James Wolfe, the founding father of Canada, staring down on the Thames River from his perch in Greenwich Park.

I admire the swashbuckling pose of Capt. James Cook, the 18th-century explorer who mapped the west coast of North America from California to the Bering Sea. His statue stands on The Mall near Admiralty Arch.

I'm especially fond of the larger-than-life bronze of poet John Betjeman in St. Pancras Station, looking up at the gloriously restored Victorian gothic architecture he worked to save.

I doubt my favourites would find favour with contemporary critics. Trained in Marxist theory, postmodernism and deconstruction, they regard such statues as symbols of imperialist aggression, western cultural dominance, male chauvinism, and so on and so on. Our era's preferred statuary is devoted to victims.

I stumbled across this fashion for victims during a shopping trip to Harrods, the famous department store in Knightsbridge. The owner, Mohamed Al Fayed, installed a ground floor shrine to Diana, Princess of Wales, and his son, Dodi, who were killed in a Paris car crash in 1997. The bronze statues of Diana and Dodi look like eternal children as they dance beneath the outstretched wings of an albatross, a symbol of freedom. The monument bears the inscription Innocent Victims.

But perhaps the most telling victim statue was that placed three years ago on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, where, by tradition, royalty and warriors have been honoured. Sculptor Marc Quinn's 3.5-metre marble statue, Alison Lapper Pregnant, stirred considerable controversy when it was temporarily installed on the same site where the statue of Lord Horatio Nelson, Britain's most famous naval hero, has long resided.

Alison Lapper is an artist born without arms and with underdeveloped legs. Some questioned whether her statue suited a site devoted to those who served their country. Others, however, thought that a woman who hadn't let her disabilities or single-mother status prevent her from becoming an artist was as deserving of recognition as any royal or military figure.

The latter view prevailed. The sculpture was declared a tribute to "femininity, disability and motherhood."

Lapper's art, according to her website, "questions notions of physical normality in a society that considers her deformed because she was born without arms." Yet, ironically, Lapper secured her reputation by exploiting a physical condition she claims shouldn't be regarded as abnormal. She deserves respect for her courage in dealing with her disabilities, but surely intellectual honesty requires acknowledging that her condition was the basis of her success. If being armless or legless were regarded as normal, would she have gained so much recognition?

Lord Nelson, on the other hand, lost an arm and an eye in battle. He died of wounds at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. His last words, apparently, were, "Thank God, I have done my duty." Unlike Lapper, Lord Nelson is honoured not for his victim status but for his achievements. The defeat of Napoleon's navy at Trafalgar ensured Britain's domination of the seas for more than a century.

The idea that coping with disabilities is equal to that of risking death in battle shows how radically our notion of heroism has been transformed. Lapper herself made this point, unintentionally no doubt, when she compared her deeds in an artist's studio to those of Lord Nelson on the deck of a warship: "At least I didn't get here by slaying people."

True enough, but like it or not the fate of nations is often decided on the willingness of people to kill or be killed. Once upon a time we understood such heroism and built statues to honour it. The Lapper statue, along with that of Dodi and Di, demonstrates that the days of heroes are done. In the postmodern age, self-declared victims are heroes. As British commentator Theodore Dalrymple put it in a City Journal article on the Lapper statue debate: "The ideas of heroism, duty, and service to others have given way to those of narcissism, self-pity, and self-obsession."

And you thought visiting statues was boring.

Robert Sibley, a senior writer with the Citizen, has been travelling in Europe. His blog, Ideas & Consequences, can be read at ottawacitizen.com/blogs.

Monument shines again
17 July 2008
London Lite

WORK has begun on regilding the flaming orb at the top of Sir Christopher Wren's Monument to the Great Fire of London with the application of more than 30,000 leaves of gold. The work is part of a £4.5m restoration project funded by the City of London Corporation, the first repairs to the Monument since 1888. It is due to re- open to visitors in December.

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London fire landmark reopens after facelift
16 February 2009
Agence France Presse

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The Monument, a 61-metre (202-feet) tall column designed by Sir Christopher Wren to commemorate the 1666 Great Fire of London, reopened Monday after an 18-month restoration project.

The world's tallest isolated stone column reopened after a 4.5 million pound (5.0 million euro, 6.4 million dollar) facelift which included regilding the flaming golden orb on top, installing a new viewing platform and cleaning it.

The Monument is located in the City of London, exactly 61 metres from Pudding Lane, where the fire that devastated much of the area is thought to have started.

It was built by Wren as part of a wave of projects including Saint Paul's Cathedral which helped to regenerate the city following the fire.

The Monument was completed in 1677 and welcomes over 100,000 visitors a year, according to its operators, the City of London municipal government.

It was last refurbished in 1888 and, with 311 steps to the top, offers stunning views across London.

http://www.globalphotos.org/london/20071014/IMG_4266.jpg


what's the story behind this monument?
P.S. awesome thread HK :cheers:

HK, did you climb the stairs to the top of the monument and then get your certificate for doing it?

HK, did you climb the stairs to the top of the monument and then get your certificate for doing it?

I don't recall the certificate, although I did climb to the top to take lots of photos with a fellow HK forumer a few years back. The photos are on my website. :)

Nice pictures, hkskyline! :)
Nothing else decorates an old city better than historical monuments and statues!

Do you think, it would be okay, if I post a similiar thread of Berlin in this section? In recent years the city did quite a good job in restaurating and reconstructing it's monuments and statues
But that would be pics I searched all around the internet.

Artist seeks stars for 'living monument' in London
26 February 2009
Agence France Presse

British sculptor Antony Gormley invited members of the public Thursday to submit themselves as works of art for a new 'living monument' in London's Trafalgar Square this summer.

Over 100 days, 2,400 people selected at random will spend an hour on top of the plinth in the north-west corner, doing whatever they want and with whatever props they want -- with the sole condition that they are up there alone.

There will be someone on the plinth day and night between July 6 and October 14, and the exhibit will be filmed and broadcast live on the Internet and in the National Portrait Gallery, located on the north side of the square.

"The idea is very simple. Through putting a person onto the plinth, the body becomes a metaphor, a symbol," said Gormley, whose most famous work is the Angel of the North, a steel sculpture five storeys high in northeast England.

"This elevation of everyday life to the position formerly occupied by monumental art allows us to reflect on the diversity, vulnerability and particularity of the individual in contemporary society.

"It’s about people coming together to do something extraordinary and unpredictable. It could be tragic but it could also be funny."

The fourth plinth was built in 1841 and intended for an equestrian statue but was left empty for lack of funds. A public art scheme has seen it occupied by different works since 1999.

One of the most famous sculptures was Marc Quinn's marble depiction of British artist Alison Lapper, who was born without arms and shortened legs and who posed for him while heavily pregnant.

Participants in Gormley's project, "One And Other", will be chosen at random from the list of applicants, with the only criteria being that half are men and half women, and Britain's regions are represented proportionally.

Battle of Britain hero must take a new stand
A traditional statue in Trafalgar Square would be a fitting tribute and raise questions about art's role
6 May 2009
The Times

Built in 1841, the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is unique. It is for an equestrian statue that was never completed, and was left unadorned for decades, in one of the world's most iconic public squares. But such an artistic vacuum had to be filled and generations later in 1998, the RSA commissioned three temporary works on the plinth, to raise awareness of public art.

These were so popular that a specially convened government committee recommended that the plinth be used for a rolling series of temporary works. The proposal was adopted by the Mayor of London in 1999 and the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group was born. The void had been filled.

Comprising the great and good of the art world, the group commissions art that attracts significant public interest, and often generates voluble criticism and praise in equal measure.

In recent years, we have seen Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant and Thomas Schütte's Model for a Hotel, two cases in point: most people loved or hated them. Debate raged in newspapers and the back of cabs.

This level of controversy is exactly what the commissioning group hoped for. After all, the second aim for the fourth plinth project is to "act as a focal point for a wider public debate on public art, urban design and civic space".

After Schütte, two more works loom on the horizon. First up will be Antony Gormley's One and Other, in which the plinth will be occupied for an hour at a time by thousands of ordinary citizens over 100 days. Then Yinka Shonibare's Nelson's Ship in a Bottle, with sails made from patterned textiles associated with Africa.

Then a wild card has been thrown into the mix. An application has been submitted to Westminster City Council (which decides whether a commission goes ahead) for a large statue of the Battle of Britain hero Sir Keith Park to have a six-month residency on the plinth, before the installation of a smaller permanent bronze statue in Waterloo Place next year.

The application, by the Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign, is for a figurative statue by the sculptor Les Johnson. The campaign has the support of Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, other VIPs, veterans, the Park family and most importantly, countless thousands of members of the public.

The council's decision, which is likely to come tomorrow, will in all likelihood prompt more debate about what is appropriate art for the plinth, and this is precisely what the art establishment should welcome. The timing is ideal. This installation will ensure that the art establishment engages in the debate about whether traditional figurative statues can be considered public art.

With the approaching 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, fought above Trafalgar Square, London and the South East, this would be an excellent way of showing that London has not forgotten one of its heroes — with the bonus, in this time of austerity, that the taxpayer will not pay a penny for this installation, unlike previous exhibits.

There is a danger that this could descend into a predictable and scripted bout of name-calling based on entrenched positions about "modern" versus "traditional" art. But a spat between those from different ends of the art spectrum is entirely unnecessary — when one considers the brief that artists on the list drawn up by the commissioning group were expected to follow, the Park statue fits the bill perfectly.

Counterintuitively, by being a traditional figurative sculpture, the statue will push back boundaries and challenge what has become the received wisdom: that traditional art forms do not command as much respect in the contemporary art world, not least on the fourth plinth.

That aside, when one compares the Park statue with the artist's brief, it holds up extremely well. There is no doubt that it will be "of the highest quality": Johnson is a world-renowned sculptor. In speaking to a hugely important chapter in our history — the sacrifices made on our behalf in the

Second World War — it surely promotes Trafalgar Square "as a public space for cultural and social engagement" in a profound and important way. Given that Park was responsible for the fighter squadrons that defended London and the South East, it certainly refers to the "conceptual, historical or formal framework of the square as a central public space for London".

And given that Park's leadership is widely believed to have been crucial to our victory in the Battle of Britain, itself of huge significance in the result of the Second World War, it is obvious that the statue relates well to the "national and international significance" of the square. It is true that the brief states that a commission "need not necessarily be a work of object-based sculpture", but it does not rule this out either.

If placed on the fourth plinth in between Gormley and Shonibare's work, a statue of Park would take its place among the panoply of different styles that make up modern art in its broadest sense. Gormley seeks to democratise the plinth, to allow ordinary individuals to express themselves for an hour, in any way they see fit. Shonibare hopes that he will be "giving expression to and honouring the many cultures and ethnicities that are still breathing precious wind into the sails of the UK".

The Park statue will extend both these themes by reminding all who view it that freedoms, including artistic ones, were hard-won by those such as Park and the countless thousands who served alongside him.

They will be reminded too that a multitude of people of all races, from throughout the Commonwealth and all corners of the globe, fought with Britain against tyranny, in defence of freedom. As an art installation, the statue will push back the boundaries of what contemporary art can achieve and what public art is for.

There could be no better way to stimulate debate on urban design, public art and civic space than by a statue of Sir Keith Park, nicknamed by the Germans in 1940 as "the Defender of London", being erected on the fourth plinth 70 years on.

William Packer is an artist and former art critic of the Financial Times. Frederick Forsyth is a bestselling novelist

A life in uniform

Keith Park was born in New Zealand on June 15, 1892

In the First World War, he served at Gallipoli and the Somme

He moved to the Royal Flying Corps, shooting down 20 aircraft

By 1940 he was Senior Air Staff Officer to Sir Hugh Dowding

In the Dunkirk evacuation, he organised air protection

It is said if Dowding controlled the Battle of Britain day to day, Park controlled it hour by hour

After the war, the Marshal of the RAF, Lord Tedder, said of Park: "If ever any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did."

Supporters of the campaign to put his statue on the fourth plinth include Tony Benn, Lord Tebbit, Nicholas Soames, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Boris Johnson, Ann Winterton, Sir Richard Hadlee and Peter Jackson The statue will be a reminder that artistic freedom was hard won

On my visit to London saw a statue of Wellington near Wellington Arch........but he didn't look quite as formal out of uniform and without his horse ? But very fit!.......or was this his Brave companion ?
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5338/dscn5854medium.jpg (http://img513.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscn5854medium.jpg)
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2261/dukeofwellingtonmedium.jpg (http://img13.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dukeofwellingtonmedium.jpg)

One of my favourites, though its more a grave (and surprisingly hard to find a good picture of):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3103/2327347706_1131359956.jpg?v=0

Death taking the soul of Elizabeth Nightingale.

^^^^

:bow: :bow: :bow:

London !!! London !!! London !!!

Regards.

Ahhh, London, what a city! Been there last year.

The Crimean War Memorial,Waterloo Place

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http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/8793/londonseptember07090911.jpg

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9861/everydayanybodycansprea.jpg Living Statue :lol:

Requesting:

photos of the Temple Church effigies.

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