Working an angle: art, architecture, heritage and blogging

A Word a Week Challenge: Angle

Precise lines and angles: art or architecture?

Sue’s word this week is angle and I confess that in true journalist fashion, I’m using the theme as an “angle” to write about something I saw recently, that I think is very cool.

In Wellington recently, I walked to the top of Cuba Street to take tea at Martha’s Pantry. This cool little tea shop is on the corner of Cuba Street and Karo Drive and sits next door to Subject to Change, a sculpture by Regan Gentry.

Subject to Change; a sculpture by Regan Gentry.

Subject to Change is the steel skeleton of two walls of a heritage-type Victorian or Edwardian New Zealand building, such as used to occupy the site where the sculpture now sits – before that area was cleared in the construction of a new motorway.

According to Regan Gentry:

It looks like a slice of a building left behind by the developers…tenuously existing on the edge of the new motorway. It mimics components and colour schemes of the buildings that are or were around it, to integrate it within the historical and contemporary context of the area.

Detail of Subject to Change, by Regan Gentry

Detail of Subject to Change, a sculpture by Regan Gentry.

Subject to Change is beautiful. I saw it on a clear, sunny morning when the vibrant red of the structure stood out against the muted colours around it. It is strong and powerful and clever and a poignant reminder of the heritage we destroy in the name of progress.