Westfield Wonderland

摘要

A vision of the future, to which we are so terminally mortgaged, has arrived in London's Shepherd's Bush in the disguise of a sleek, committee-designed hangar. It looks like a vanity-project swimming pool, intended to demonstrate the readiness of some ambitious provincial city to welcome the Commonwealth Games, circa late 1950s, early '60s. A chlorine-green block, or reef, with brand identity in italicised script, rising out of one of those nuisance clumps of urban wilderness that occupy grunge lacunae between busy feeder roads, doing nothing, up for grabs. Complicated panels of glass hang in simplistic arrangements that imitate water, the after-image of a virtual pebble dropped into a non-existent pool. Why? A smooth-cliffed island appearing overnight. Hard-to-register signage seducing unwary motorists into taking the access ramp. (Anything is better than the stop-start crawl on that roundabout decorated with the prize-winning hypodermic syringe.)