A13 Artscape Project

Your questions answered

What is the artistic purpose of A13 Artscape?

Tom de Paor's proposal, presented to and subsequently commissioned by the borough, was to create an orchestrated route, like a piece of music - for driver, cyclist and pedestrian that contained constant themes, rhythms and 'crescendos'.

To achieve this, he proposed a 'bass-line' of the Ripple Fence to the south of the borough, highlighted by the trees and acoustic barriers reflected on the north, providing 'rhythm'.

Tom proposed a line of trees from Movers Lane to Castle Green of repetitive green and red variety, broken with the earthwork 'rep-tiles' providing landscape variety for pedestrians and cyclists.

The tree line would provide a constant rhythm to the driver, screening for the cyclist and culminate in a forest at Castle Green and Hedgefields at Goresbrook Interchange.

Along this route of acoustic barriers and trees, Tom designed a shared cycle and footpath and bespoke lighting to enable cyclists and pedestrians to navigate the road, illuminated and linked to the main junctions, subways and residential communities adjacent to the road.

At these junctions, subways and residential communities, other artists were employed to create 'landmarks' such as the roundabout features, amenities such as the parks and refurbish the subways with new paths, lighting and fencing, linking up with Tom's work along the Arterial.

These particular areas are the 'crescendos' of the orchestration of the journey, not always visible to the road user but distinct to the borough, creating landmarks and distinct features that punctuate the journey.

The whole scheme was to be held together by the installation of 3 towers, positioned equally across the borough.

The towers would pay homage to Brancussi's endless column and provide a vertical feature, complementing the horizontal nature of the scheme and highlighting the fall and rise of the road, bends and straights, through their linearity.

Unfortunately, due to a review of the capital programme, Arts Council of England was concerned that the budget for the towers was inadequate and did not approve their construction.

The projects all have their own artistic agenda - developed by the artists that created them.

A13 Artscape project artworks

Detailed information on all of the projects mentioned on this page.

Arterial|

Diversion|

Light detail on the pump house

Pump House|

Contact

Arts Programme and Cultural Development

4th Floor

Maritime House

1 Linton Road

Barking

IG11 8HG

Tel: 020 8227 2482

Fax: 020 8227 3254

Email: artsadmin@lbbd.gov.uk|