Hanging out in London cafés as i am these days, i often position myself next to windows (whenever i’m in buses, i always somehow unconsciously end up next to the emergency exit windows but that’s another story) and find myself staring out and observing how people interact with their surroundings. I’ve started noticing the way that people use architecture for flirtatious reasons or as a way to play out dramatic events of their personal lives… for example:
1. Sitting in the bus, I saw a young 20-something couple crouched at the foot of 2 marble columns, each of them sitting in that little space that somehow became suddenly private having one of those “we need to talk” conversations. The woman was lecturing while the young man was staring at his feet.
2. Sitting in Starbucks at Bishopsgate, where i can usually be found, I was staring out onto the huge office building in front. Every woman that would come out to smoke would ultimately turn to the glass-plated windows and stare at themselves as in a mirror in that “do i look fat in this?” kind-of-way, oblivious to what was going on around them.
3. Waiting for the train last week, I observed as a woman talking on her cell phone on the platform opposite me, in a business suit, leaned head first on the brick wall in front of her, shielding herself from being heard i guess, for about 15 minutes. It was almost like a praying position that the Jewish take on the Wall of Complaints in Jerusalem…
People, architecture, technology, all intertwine.