So, it turns out that quite a few people felt as I did:  that it was unsatisfactory to have a Prime Minister who had been a supporter of remaining a member of the European Union turning into an advocate for a hard Brexit without ever being able to explain why this was a good idea, then calling an election to secure a clear mandate for her position when she knew that nearly half the country opposed it, then publishing a manifesto which proposed ill judged policies on social care which were quickly retracted and refusing to appear much in public or on television as an advocate for her position.   This looked like arrogance and has been judged accordingly.

It’s quite a while since I’ve been round our building project and was pleased to find that it’s making good progress.

This will be the Ronald and Rita McAulay Gallery:-

It has fine cast iron columns:-

The space which will contain the reconstituted British Academy Room has now been constructed out of smoothly polished concrete:-

Best of all was seeing the work being done to the ceiling of the new Lecture Theatre and the restoration of the plasterwork round what will be a day-lit oculus:-

Off to the polls.   Again.   Is it the third time in three years ?  And am I alone in feeling a sense of irritation that the Prime Minister, having promised several times that there would not be another election and standing on a platform of stability, has called a redundant election as the result of a walk in the woods in Dolgellau and without consulting anyone, including her Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the sole purpose of boosting her already solid majority ?  I have no sense of what the result will be (in Tower Hamlets we live in a one party state), but regard it as at least possible that this sense of taking the electorate for granted will be disabused.

I didn’t write anything about the event on Monday about London as a global city.   What sticks in my mind is a double tirade from Ben Judah about, first, how middle class liberals (he excluded himself from description as a liberal) have absolutely no experience whatsoever of the impact of immigration in the working class suburbs of East London, which he described with relevant statistics, and the second is the way in which so much property in London is sold to shell companies registered in tax havens.   If the latter is true, then it surely ought to be possible to legislate against this, so that property is occupied by people, rather than left unoccupied in the ownership of foreign investment companies.   

The other thing that struck me is how simple it ought to be for the Mayor to insist on a higher level of architectural quality when big schemes like the Walkie-Talkie are called in, as the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Lottery Fund did in their early days.

I have not said anything so far about this year’s Summer Exhibition, partly because I find it hard to navigate until the little red book of artists and prices appears, which makes it possible to find out who the work is by, and partly because I remember commenting on the rituals of previous years and don’t want just to repeat myself.   Suffice it to say that I always like the moment that it is unveiled, as will happen this evening at the Summer Exhibition Preview Party, with the galleries suffused with bright sunlight.   It feels particularly bright this year, with Joshua Reynolds wearing Yinka Shonibare’s sash and the big Gallery 3 painted the palest of pale blue:-

Our suitcases arrived in the drizzle last night after an earlier failure to deliver them because the computer listed our house as being above a chicken shop.   Mr. Willie Walsh, the CEO of International Airlines Group, which owns both British Airways and Aer Lingus, offered his fulsome congratulations to all the staff of British Airways for the splendid job they had done in getting the airline back into action a mere three days after a temporary power surge (which the power companies deny) had caused the meltdown of the ageing computer systems in Boadicea House and the stranding of 175,000 passengers over the holiday weekend (he has an Irish sense of humour).   He can now add his congratulations and my gratitude to the staff of CityBags for returning our luggage.

The last of the programmes on Resonance FM about East London is about the Isle of Dogs (https//m.mixcloud.com/resonance/east-london):  beginning with the story of containerisation and poor labour relations which led to the collapse of the old West India Dock;  the anxiety on the part of government ministers, from Peter Walker on, as to what to do about the jobless dockland communities;  Michael Heseltine’s creation of an Enterprise Zone;  the opposition of the local communities to what was happening and their desire for houses rather than tower blocks;  and the arrival of Olympia & York, whose staff had apparently been community activists in Toronto and brought new techniques of faster managed construction.   There is a surprisingly lyrical appreciation of One Canada Square, César Pelli’s tower, which he designed in the shape of Cleopatra’s Needle and insisted on being clad in aluminium to reflect the London sun.

I have just been listening – rather belatedly – to the third of the programmes I recorded with Resonance FM about areas of East London, this one on Limehouse, which has the advantage of being a relatively coherent neighbourhood both historically as a centre of riverside industries and, more recently, as an area of Chinese restaurants, Hough’s paper mill down on Narrow Street, and early gentrification after Andrew Sinclair and Jacob Rothschild bought six Queen Anne Houses on the river to save them from redevelopment.   I liked the programme (https://m.mixcloud/resonance/east-london) because all the contributors have known or lived in the area for so long:  David Owen since 1965;  Peter Fink, the light artist, since 1973;  Nick Wates, the advocate of Community Architecture, who bought the old Sea Training Hostel in 1975;  Mike Hebbert, Professor of Town Planning at the Bartlett, who bought a house in Newell Street in 1979;  and Cynthia Grant, who worked for the once-hated LDDC and moved to Limehouse in 1985.   They give a good sense of the survival/revival of the area from the early 1970s onwards, partly owing to the strength of local opposition to the Docklands Northern Relief Road, which would have destroyed its historic character.

I have been digesting the experience of visiting Berlin, particularly in the light of a discussion due to be held tomorrow evening at the RA about Urban Identities.   I was struck by how quiet Berlin was.   Of course, it was partly because I was walking around on a Saturday morning, but it was the same walking round the Unter den Linden on Friday.   There is less traffic, because there is better public transport, not just the subway, but trams, and an excess of bicycles everywhere – not least, to hire.   There are a mass of small, independent shops and cafés – at least there are in Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg – which give character and individuality to the street.   We know that, but the current rise in business rates is making it harder for small, independent operators to survive.   The model of the Holzmarkt (covered in an article in the Observer on 30 April 2017) is interesting.   It was bought by a Swiss pension fund Abenrot and then leased back to a holding company, SpreeUrban, who are developing the riverside site for mixed community use.   Not much sign of that in Vauxhall.   Sadiq Khan might apparently have attended the discussion on Friday.   It’s a pity he didn’t:-

In the morning, I was due to meet friends for breakfast in Prenzlauer Berg, the area of east Berlin where Manufactum used to be (sadly, no longer).

I started by the Zionskirche, designed by August Orth and opened in 1873:-

Wolliner Strasse:-

The gates to the Jewish Cemetery on Schönhauser Allee :-

The gentleman’s lavatories on Metzer Strasse:-

The Wasserturm built by the English Waterworks Company:-

Sredzkistrasse:-

I ended up at Fein und Ripp, the German equivalent of Old Town, where I was able to buy a fine pair of German braces:-