Six objects to define the London of 2017
From a crammed tube carriage to a jar of diesel fumes, V&A curator Rory Hyde selects six items to sum up life in the capital for future museum-goers
What would you preserve in a museum to define your city in 2017? Let us know in the comments. We’ll feature the best suggestions
Lord Nelson’s statue wearing a breathing mask in Trafalgar Square, London.
Lord Nelson’s statue in Trafalgar Square wearing a breathing mask after a stunt by Greenpeace. In 2017 London breached its annual air pollution limit in just five days. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
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Rory Hyde
Wed 27 Dec ‘17 18.30 AEDT
The Museum of London recently announced it would collect a piece of the giant stinking “fatberg” clogging the sewers of Whitechapel. The congealed blob of fat, oil, grease, wet wipes and sanitary products is over 250m long and weighs over 130 tonnes, truly a monument to London. Curator Vyki Sparkes said it “will be one of the most fascinating and disgusting objects we have ever had on display”. Children will come to peer at it through the glass as it oozes and sweats, asking: “Daddy, is it alive?”
What better way to tell the story of life today? It reveals our most intimate habits (93% of it is wet wipes – who are all these people eschewing toilet paper for moist plastic?) and demonstrates the limits of our infrastructure. Joseph Bazalgette, who built London’s sewers in the 1860s, prescribed a gentle gradient to carry water and sewerage – nothing like the noxious cocktail of chip grease and sanitary napkins we pour into them today. Future historians will pore over its contents as a snapshot of life in 2017. Which raises the question: what other slices of urban life should we keep as a monument to this particular moment in time? How can you “collect” a city?
‘Daddy, is it alive?’ … the Whitechapel fatberg.
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‘Daddy, is it alive?’ … the Whitechapel fatberg. Photograph: Thames Water/PA
At the V&A, we have recently taken ownership of a piece of Robin Hood Gardens, the council estate designed by Alison and Peter Smithson and completed in 1972, which – like the fatberg – is currently being demolished by the council. Comprised of two complete apartments over three levels, with two facades and a section of its famous “street in the air”, this object will allow us to tell any number of stories about living in London: social, architectural, economic and political. In particular, we hope to capture the moment of optimism in the postwar era, when we as a society built generously and ambitiously for those who had the least – and how these ideas have been forgotten.
Robin Hood Gardens shortly before demolition.
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Robin Hood Gardens shortly before demolition. Photograph: Victoria and Albert Museum, London
But that’s just the beginning of what museums could acquire to tell the story of a city in 2017. Here are six more ideas for my home city, London. Tell us what you’d collect for your city in the comments below. We’ll feature the best suggestions in a forthcoming roundup on Guardian Cities.
1. Garden bridge archive
An artist’s impression of the scrapped Garden bridge.
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An artist’s impression of the scrapped Garden bridge. Photograph: Heatherwick Studio
“Come in close, children,” the tour guide will say. “This is what happens when the dream of a celebrity collides with the ego of a mayor.” The scuppering of Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden bridge was one of the major stories of the year. Lovely in principle, but exceedingly wasteful in detail, the bridge eventually succumbed to common sense, although only after tens of millions of pounds of public money had been spent. Collecting the archive of drawings and correspondence would help to ensure against falling for impractical dreams again.
2. Tube carriage
Commuters on a tube at Oxford Street station.
The tube has never been busier. The number of journeys has increased by 30% since 2007, with the number of passengers on peak trains increasing 50% since 1991. It’s one of the defining experiences of London. But how could a museum “collect” it? I would suggest commissioning the artist Rachel Whiteread to create a cast of the negative space in a tube carriage. It wouldn’t be very substantial – comprised only of the breathing space between armpits, and cheeks pressed against the doors.
3. Bridge barriers
Defensive barriers on London bridge.
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Historians of the future will look on the barriers erected along London’s bridges as evidence of a societal emergency. Designed to keep pedestrians safe after terrorists driving vans killed 12 people and injured nearly 100 on Westminster and London bridge in the summer, they speak more of a militarised zone than a modern cosmopolitan city, and yet seem to have become a reality of our modern urban lives.
4. Food delivery app satchel
Deliveroo cycle couriers wait for orders on a London street.
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Deliveroo cycle couriers wait for orders on a London street.
“Before these aqua blue satchels took over London,” the tour guide will say, “we had to actually speak to the pizza shop. On the telephone.” The children gasp. In just a few short years, food delivery apps such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats have transformed the experience of London – for diners, yes, but most of all for couriers. The rise of the gig economy may have had little physical impact on the city, but could prove to be a critical turning point in how urban labour is digitally managed.
5. The smell of diesel fumes
Pollution has reached combustion point.
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Pollution has reached combustion point. Photograph: Alamy
The new awareness of the dangers of air pollution, and the coming of electric cars, will hopefully spell the end of the diesel combustion engine. Nobody writes songs about nitrous oxide, though, so how will we remember it? I imagine a large glass jar sitting proudly in the gallery of 20th-century technologies, with a label that simply reads: “London air, 2017.”
6. A 2ft pile of building regulations
The burned-out shell of Grenfell Tower in Kensington.
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Dame Judith Hackitt’s interim report into the causes of the Grenfell Tower tragedy takes aim at the regulations that govern the building safety. “The regulations themselves are quite simple,” she told BBC Radio 4, “but what sits below them is a whole series of guidance documents which stacked on top of one another would be about 2ft high.” This is where the lives were lost, a slow-motion catastrophe, endorsed by official stamps of approval, which left the door open “to abuse by those trying to save money”. It would be a shameful exhibit, but one that would hopefully ensure that a tragedy like this does not happen again.
Rory Hyde is curator of contemporary architecture and urbanism at the V&A.
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