Author Archives: Tom Turner

London's proposed new Garden Bridge

London’s proposed Garden Bridge (image courtesy Arup)

Let us join the chorus of support for London’s Garden Bridge. The government and the Greater London Authority have promised to pay half the cost – so finding the rest should be a formality. The idea was conceived by the star actress Joanna Lumley in 1998 (she is also a patron of the Druk White Lotus School). But her idea slept for 14 years, until TfL asked for ideas about new ways of crossing the Thames. Thomas Heatherwick, working with Arup (coincidentally the architects for the Druk School), published the above design last summer – and half the funding was promised this month. The Garden Bridge will be 367 metres long and 30 metres wide at its widest point. It will connect a point near Temple station to a point near Gabriel’s Wharf on the South Bank Centre.
As an idea, it is wonderfully superior to Hungerford Bridge and, of course, to the London Eye. But what all three projects teach us is THE DESIGN PROFESSIONS SHOULD NOT WAIT TO BE ASKED. If designers, especially landscape architects (because of their concern with the public realm), have a good idea then they should draw it and publish it.
Useful links re the Garden Bridge:
TfL consultation on the Garden Bridge
Garden Bridge Trust website (with video)

Hermitage Wharf, Joseph Conrad, Norman Foster and the River Thames Landscape

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The above photograph from Tower Bridge was taken yesterday on my way to the cycle petition hand-in. It struck me as a real Joseph Conrad view of the river and Andrew Cowan Architects design for Hermitage Wharf looks much better than Foster’s design for Albion Riverside. Then I remembered having written a critical comment on Hermitage Wharf a few years ago. Checking it, I was pleased to find that I had praised the architecture and that it was the wretchedly dull riverside space I had criticised. Maybe Tower Hamlets’ planners mandated a bad landscape design because of the South Bank type crowds they were anticipating?

Another Stop Killing Cyclists event in London – to give a petition to the Mayor's advisor

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Holding a box containing the signatures of 36,795 Londoners, including mine, Mayor Boris Johnson’s Cycling Advisor, Andrew Gilligan, states on this video that ‘I think we more or less agree about policy. The only disagreement is about timing’. WELL: if he was speaking to me then he agrees that cycling should receive 35% of London’s transport for at least the next decade, or until the percentage of journeys done by bike increases from 2% to 35%. At present cycling receives 2% of the TfL budget. So my comments are:
Whoopee!
Thank you very much Mr Gilligan!

London cycling die-in protest outside TfL offices on 29th November 2013

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I have been hoping for a protest like this for years and was delighted to be there. Here is my next suggestion: Transport for London TfL should set a target for the percentage of journeys to be made by cycling and then (1) raise the percentage of the transport spent on cycling to that level eg 30% (2) ensure that the same percentage of TfL staff commute to the TfL office by bike.
Here is an excellent BBC news report on the demo in which Donnachadh McCarthy an organiser of the Stop Killing Cyclists Campaign, calls for 10% of the TfL budget to go on cycling (compared to 35% in Holland) and makes the excellent point that the Board of TfL is ‘big businessmen’ – with no representatives of pedestrians or cyclists. I see this as a key point. It is likely that TfL staff often cycle to work and support cycling. This is less likely to be the case for big businessmen.
Boris: please remember that you are the only politician I have voted for who has ever been elected: now is the time to come good: organise a London Cycling Summit and cram the board of TfL with die-hard cyclists. Please re-read the history of Lloyd George’s victory over the House of Lords. He asked “Should 500 men, ordinary men, chosen accidentally from among the unemployed, override the judgement – the deliberate judgement – of millions of people who are engaged in the industry which makes the wealth of the country?” The 1911 Parliament Act was passed only when King George V said he was willing to pack the House of Lords with Liberal peers to ensure the vote would swing their way. Bring on the cyclists.
The November 2013 event could be a great precursor for a full-scale event in The Mall in 2014, remembering Martin Luther King and the March on Washington of August 28, 1963. The 2014 event should be on the same weekend as another London cycling event eg the Prudential Ride on Sunday 10 August 2014. It is part of the Mayor of London’s annual festival of cycling.

Free copy of Tom turner's book: British gardens: history, philosophy and design (Routledge 2013)

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I like the Goodreads website, though I am a little sorry that Amazon (which I also like) has bought it. If you register an interest in my book on British garden history between 29th November and 14th January they will put your name on a list from which they will choose the recepient of a free copy. Good luck!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

British Gardens

by Tom Turner

Giveaway ends January 14, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I have also started Goodreads Groups in which to discuss books on Garden design history and Landscape architecture and planning – with the aims of encouraging the preparation of good reading lists and of stimulating discussion about books.

An opportunity to see, and buy, Les Colombieres garden by Ferdinand Bac

Garden Design and Landscape Architecture

Gardenvisit.com