Whatever happened to the Newmarket Road graffiti?

Remember the graffiti on Newmarket Road?  I blogged about it in 2012:  Graffiti on Newmarket Road.

It looked like this:

All graffiti by the Blight Society.

Well, that's all just a memory now.  Because it's gone.

Instead, we have:

Source:  Cambridge News, Oct. 2013

What is happening on this building site?  There will be another new hotel.

One new hotel already exists, right next to the building site.  It's the new Travelodge.

Source of photo:  © Cambridge2000

The architects are Barber Casanovas Ruffles.  This firm designed a number of other buildings around Cambridge, including:

Portugal Street.  Source:  BCR

and:

Cambridge Water Company, Fulbourn Rd (Cherry Hinton - as you drive towards Tesco) Source:  BCR

This is what the architects Barber Casanovas Ruffles say about the Travelodge project on their website:

'The approved design satisfies the demands of this focal "Eastern gateway" to Cambridge City Centre and creates a vastly improved public realm with a generous new hard landscaped area to Newmarket Road.

The rigid budget hotel requirements and costings were carefully balanced with the Cambridge City's aesthetic demands.'

You know, I had no idea that Newmarket Road near the Elizabeth Way roundabout had morphed into an "Eastern gateway".  As far as I'm concerned it's still the ugliest road in Cambridge, and the worst approach to the town.  I also was unaware that Cambridge City had 'aesthetic demands'.

So I checked the Council website and discovered that yes, indeed, this area is referred to as Eastern Gate Study Area (sic).  The framework planning document does not mention the word 'aesthetic' but it does state its 'vision':

Regenerating and transforming this key approach to the city through high quality development coupled with key projects that will connect people and places.  (Eastern Gate Development Framework)

I'm very happy that somebody is devoting some tender loving care to this unlovely corner of Cambridge (somebody besides the Blight Society).  Although I do worry about the preponderance of commercial hotels.  It would be good to have a few more diverse and public spaces in the mix but given Cambridge City Council's history with disasters like the Cineworld complex or offices on the Hills Road railway bridge, I am not sanguine about any sort of imaginative urban planning.

The Travelodge sits next to where the graffiti used to be.  On the actual spot of the graffiti, there will be another new proposed hotel, a Premier Inn.

Edited to add:  An anonymous commenter (see below) pointed out to me that the new hotel will actually be on the other side of the Travelodge.  Sorry for the misleading error...!

  The Premier Inn will, apparently, look like this: 

Source:  Cambridge News June 2012

I couldn't find out the architects responsible for this hotel.  Does anyone know?


So what did people think of the loss of the graffiti?  Here's some vox pop.

And what do you think?  Are the hotels an improvement?

Related posts:

•  The murals in the tunnel under Elizabeth Way roundabout (just up the road from  the two new hotels)

•  Is there art in Arbury?  (Well, there's certainly graffiti by the Blight Society plus a Travelodge and a Premier Inn -- these two hotel chains seem to come in pairs)

•  The Snowy Farr statue (involvement from Cambridge City Council)

Have a lovely sunny April day!

Is there art in Arbury?

Is there art in Arbury?

Every town has a neighbourhood where art is not expected.  In Cambridge, this is Arbury.

A street in Arbury

Arbury is an area to the north of the centre and the river.  It is still sometimes called 'the Arbury', after the Arbury Estate developed there in 1957.   It's a low-income area, and in Cambridge it has a reputation for having a high crime rate (although statistics show that this is somewhat unfounded).

It's also an area with no reputation for art at all.  It's not listed in the 2012 Cambridge Walks nor in the Cambridge Sculpture Trails.   There are no galleries there, and the BBC Your Paintings database includes no works kept here.  This year, Arbury did have a couple of Open Studios (Derek Batty and Mohammed Djazmi), and last autumn, it did have one of the Street Pianos.

Cambridge Open Studios, July 2013, detail from the brochure

Street Piano (part of Luke Jerram's project), Arbury Court, Oct. 2012

Finding art in Arbury

Two studios and one piano that is no longer there:  that's not a lot of art.

But I was convinced there had to be more.  So I set out with my bike on a warm summer afternoon to discover if the perception of 'no art in Arbury' is based in any fact.  I went in quest of art in Arbury.

This is what I found:

Meadows Community Centre

I started out at the Meadows Community Centre on St Catharine's Road.  A very nice receptionist showed me to the hallway where there is a haunting exhibition of photographs from the University of Cambridge archives. What a surprise!!

The exhibition is called Dark Strangers and was originally curated by the artist Abdul Hakim Onitolo for the Black & Minority Ethnic History season in 2009 -- but it's now on permanent loan to the Community Centre.

A sign on the wall explains (in Onitolo's words):

The photographs in the show are from a mixed variety of sources and influences in how they are taken and their purposes.  They serve an anthropological, historical and referential purpose and are a legacy of times past that we are still reconciling and trying to relate to our present situations.  The photographs are taken by a variety of explorers, historians, social anthropologists and enthusiasts.  T. J. Alldridge being one of the more prominent even had a book published:  The Sherbro and its Hinterland (1901).

Photo from the Dark Strangers exhibition, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury, Cambridge

I like this image of a studious man.

Dark Strangers exhibition

So strange, these relics of an indeterminate past.  Not dated, not captioned.  Where are these men?  And what are they doing with those suit jackets?  Amazing pin-striped trousers.

Dark Strangers exhibition

Eyes from a colonial past.

Dark Strangers exhibition

And where is this lonesome building, photographed as if in the middle of nowhere?

Dark Strangers exhibition

I am intrigued by the German pharmacy:  Deutsche Apotheke, run by "W. Richter & Co."

There is more art outside the Meadows Community Centre:  Graffiti by the committed and enthusiastic Blight Society.

Graffiti by the Blight Society, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury, Cambridge

Graffiti by the Blight Society

Graffiti by the Blight Society, detail

Graffiti by the Blight Society

I couldn't find out who made this mosaic wall, with its little mosaic people.  Parts of it (the ovals showing sports activities) were crumbling which was a bit sad.

Mosaic wall, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury

Mosaic, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury, Cambridge (detail)

I walked through the Community's Centre café, past the childcare rooms, and found some rather good ironwork.  I don't know who made it or when (the Centre was founded in 1997 so perhaps it dates to that year?).

Wrought iron gate, Meadows Community Centre, Arbury

Lovely nature symbolism.  If only I could do botany and identify flowers...!

Wrought iron work, Meadows Community Centre

Wrought iron work, Meadows Community Centre

Wrought iron work, Meadows Community Centre

Arbury Court Library

If you ever want to find art, two good places to start are with a local library and a local school.  Look what there is in the inner courtyard of the Arbury Court Library!

Owls by Tony Hillier, Arbury Court Library

Owls by Tony Hillier (detail)

The sculptor of these owls, Tony Hillier, is a bit of a Cambridge eccentric and maintains a large ramshackle studio in Histon (to the north of Cambridge), full of his iron creatures and quirky beasts.  It's open to the public, too.  

I have no idea who sculpted this jolly buddha:

Buddha, Arbury Court Library

Arbury Schools

I didn't go into any schools so saw only the outsides but even so I was pleased to find quite a bit of art.  Here's a mosaic (possibly showing the school's emblem?):

Mosaic, Mayfield Primary School, Arbury

And this dashing bird of paradise:

Mural, Mayfield Primary School, Arbury

The dragon seems very much in the style of Tony Hillier (sculptor of the Owls in the library) but I don't know if this is one of his.  It's a fun logo for a school.

Dragon, Arbury Primary School (possibly by Tony Hilliers?)

Orchard Park Community Primary School has this fun gate.  It reminds me of Matthew Lane Sanderson's gate for St Faith's School on Trumpington Road.

Orchard Park Community Primary School, gate by Adam Booth

Wrought iron with colourful enamelled "monsters".

Orchard Park Community Primary School, gate (detail)

Orchard Park

I had read about this new development in north Arbury, started around 2007 by Gallagher Estates.  I was excited to be cycling around this new estate and seeing the variety of architectural styles employed (the developers' website doesn't name individual architects).

Orchard Park, Arbury, house

Orchard Park, Arbury, another house

Considering that Cambridgeshire's public art policy requires 1% of a property development budget to be spent on public art, I found very little art in Orchard Park.  I did, however, discover three works that might qualify:

Some coloured glass stuck to the façade of the Premier Inn.

Coloured glass sculpture by glass artist Chris Wood, 2008-2009, Premier Inn, Orchard Park, Arbury

A bronze deer in front of the Travelodge (lots of hotel art here).  Some joker had stuck a lime green sponge onto the sculpture's horns:  clearly there's interaction going on with the art.  No idea what the tyre symbolises or if the deer has local connotations for what used to be Arbury Park.

Urban Deer or Second Glance at a Roe Deer by Kenny Hunter, Travelodge, Orchard Park, Arbury

Finally:  two groups of stones.

Stones by Unknown, Orchard Park, Arbury

Art or nature?  They remind me a lot of the rocks at the Classics Faculty.

Another view of stones, Orchard Park, Arbury

One of the stones by Unknown, Orchard Park, Arbury

I ended the day with a refreshing fruit salad in the shade, just a bit further from the  groups of stones.

Lunch at Orchard Park

Is there an 'art-less' area where you live?  Why not go there on an expedition?  You never know what you might find...  :-)

More about Arbury:

Wikipedia page

Roman Arbury, Sylvia Plath and the 'Arbury Coffin'

Related posts:

Graffiti on Newmarket Road by the Blight Society

Cambridge critters

Permalink:  http://artincambridge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/is-there-art-in-arbury.html

Graffiti on Newmarket Road

Is graffiti art?

On Tuesday, I cycled past the graffiti on Newmarket Road.  What I didn't know was that it was the very day of the anniversary of the Blight Society's Sub-Urban 'Secret Jam' on Newmarket Road in 2010 (18 Sept). 

A black-and-white girl reaches towards a red apple on a branch.  A black-and-white snake hangs from the same branch.  The background is uniform purple.  Two black puddle-shadows are cast by the girl's feet.  

An odd thing happens near the girl's hand: the medium shifts from commercial spray paint to collage.  The 'beware of everything' sticker is part of the work and is the name of the artist's website.  The yellow sticker sits on top of a standard 'Fire escape' sticker, and there is also the torn fragment of a third sticker that says 'racism'.

We don't see the girl's face.  The purple ground reinforces the sense of mystery.  It creates a space without space, a bit like the gold grounds in Byzantine church mosaics.  The  apple and snake have biblical connotations.  'Beware'... of temptation?  of the tree of knowledge?

I like the little girl's feet, socks in sandals, and their tiptoe stance.

Paint, panel, pigment spilling over onto the frame, bricks and weeds: that's the context of this graffiti.

These two graffiti make use of the stencil technique, made popular by the famous graffitist Banksy.

Another work by the same artist.  Note his signature:  d.b.  How is d.b. linked to bewareofeverything.com? Graffiti artists are secretive.  They wear hoodies so that we can't identify their faces.  They have names like d.b., or Pahnl, or Shlomo Faber.

This one's by Martin Squires.  Graffiti art is not anonymous art.  Nearly every panel has a distinctive signature.  The letters draw attention to their status as pictorial icons:  the M twined inside the S.  '20 10':  the date?  More works on Martin Squires's website.

This is not stencilled. More works by Leeks at Leeks' photostream.

This is a big work, not painted on a smooth panel but directly onto the bricks.  The pattern of the brickwork shines through the pigment.  Close-up, runnels of light and shade provide texture.

Graffiti in context:  traffic and street signs.  I had to be careful not to step onto the street when taking photos.

The work below is by Irony.  As I snapped this photo, a man yelled out from a passing car, "Sexy!"  Did he mean me? or the painted woman?  If you stand in front of graffiti, studying it as if it were art, you are likely to get treated as an anomaly.  Nobody would yell at you in a gallery.  And probably not if you were just walking along the pavement past these paintings, talking on your mobile phone.

Keith Haring-like whimsy in the flying cats below, and an interesting transparency effect, as if sheets of cling wrap had been stretched across the panel.

Close-up splotches contrast with the black-and-yellow feline silhouettes.  Other works by Pahnl are on Pahnl's page.

A leonine water spout by Dell.  Contrast of monochrome photo-realistic head and fiery abstract expressionist spout.  Both are incongruous on this street:  drive-by art?

Another artfully iconic signature.

One of Cambridge's ugliest roads is, oddly, a great spot for graffiti art.

If anyone can identify the signatures I couldn't read, do let me know.

What and where:

Graffiti art by the Blight Society, wall of Eastern Gate Property Ltd, Newmarket Road, just off the Newmarket Rd / Elizabeth Way roundabout, Sept. 2010, featuring Kobrapaint.

A video of the 'secret jam' is on vimeo.

Kayleigh Doughty, one of the artists, also contributed to Luke Jerram's piano installation.

Read related posts on Cambridge street art:

Yarn-bombed lamp posts on Jesus Green

Murals under a round-about

Read my follow-up post:
Whatever happened to the Newmarket Road graffiti?