Note from DHaus Dave:
Holloway Road is also part of the Universe
I was walking home one evening from the studio in North London, Just beyond Holloway Road, I always take the back streets and alternate each day to mix things up, to think and get some fresh air before I start the day, it’s also because I’m a complete architecture geek and I love to see all the different houses, people, places on my way.
I love how completely different Holloway Road is compared to all the lanes, alleyways, streets, roads are around the main event.
One evening after work, I was on the corner of Hornsey Road and Holloway road and I looked up randomly at a construction site, the roof had been taken off this old Victorian school, and through the gables that formed the roof, the most incredible sky I think I have ever seen was right in front of me, it was so amazing, I stopped in my tracks and stared gormlessly at the sky.
Then a dawning on me descended like a ton of bricks, I realised that beyond the sky was the Universe, For the first time in my life, I realised that Holloway Road is also part of the universe. Sounds stupid I know. But I have never put those two things together in my head.
Holloway Road and the Universe.
Holloway road is full of surprises. I have grown up in and around Holloway and have walked down its road all my life.
Daniel Libeskind built an extension to the London Metropolitan university. And to me this is equally as baffling as realising that Holloway is spinning around the universe with everything else.
Some of you may know who and what Daniel Libeskind represents, he’s a starchitect (excuse the pun) and to have one of his buildings on Holloway Road is also some kind of universal intergalactic parody.
For those who don’t know Holloway road, it’s one of the most down to earth (sorry for the pun again) places in London, no nonsense, unpretentious and has not really changed in the 39 years I’ve been walking up and down it.
I still live on one end of it and walk to the studio at the other end, (3km way)
The earliest record giving the name of the road as The Holloway dates from 1307.
The main stretch of Holloway Road runs through the site of the villages of Tollington and Stroud. The exact time of their founding is not known, but the earliest record of them dates from 1000.
The artwork is formed of Libeskind’s building which already looks like a spaceship with planet earth in the background. I have been exploring Paris a lot recently and thought it would be nice to put up posters of his building along Holloway road there.
To continue the strange intergalactic parody that we are all floating about in space.
But also to get the same feeling of wonder when I walked down the unknown streets of Paris, to see a bit of what I call home makes me smile.
