Tag: Georges


100 Days Of Awe: Day Ninety One – Trellick Tower

Day 91: Trellick Tower

IMAG5175Trellick Tower stretches 31 stories into the North Kensington skyline.  It is a fascinating building and long before I realised that this was a famous and listed building it captured my attention in a strange twisted way; it has an ugly beauty, a beautiful ugliness, proud and tall, imposing and belligerent, unapologetic against the horizon at the end of Golborne Road and an example of what is known as brutalist architecture by Erno Goldfinger who was immortalised by Ian Fleming in his James Bond series.

At the end of a muggy mixed day the sun called me down to the closing Saturday markets of Portobello where I followed the salty whisper of Georges to a hot, bag of fresh ripped chips.  In the bright blue evening the Tower didn’t look quite so imposing or brutal. There was a quiet huddle of police and ambulance that had a sense of permanence rather than drama, detached curiousity led me past to Meanwhile Gardens skirting the canal and into Kensal Road.  Here, between the canal and the main line rail into Paddington,  is a nest of roads that I had never wandered before; modern functional low rise architecture benign in contrast to Trellick Tower, mixed with older Victorian cottage style housing and a couple of big old corner pubs now defunct.  This area was first recorded as Kensal New Town in 1876.  It was occupied by Irish immigrants and home of the bulldog dealer Bill George.   The traditional starting point for the Notting Hill Carnival is also found here in the Emslie Horniman’s Pleasance Park with its arts and crafts style Voysey walled garden, a flood lit sports area and a rather space age children’s play ground. A little pocket of London to open up my eyes while I was eating my chips.  On the way back home the quiet huddle of emergency services was still in place under the canopy of the tower, strangely somnulent and inert.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you or your business please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.