At the end of June the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) took part in a jointly organised event with British Waterways to celebrate the
London Festival of Architecture (LFA), which took place from 20 June to 20 July 2008. This year's festival focus for east London was Canary Wharf, Stratford and Greenwich Peninsular.
I was asked to take this forward and find a suitable event which would achieve a lasting association with the festival. The result was an event which involved a winning combination of boats, water, London 2012, a history of canals and rivers and, fortunately, sunshine last month.
Over the course of the weekend, trips on the 'Jenny Wren' canal boat took passengers from Limehouse Lock up the Limehouse Cut to the River Lea Navigation and stopped at Old Ford Lock to allow people to walk onto the Greenway and see the Olympic Stadium construction site. ODA volunteers joined forces with Richard Rutter, Mark Bensted and Jeremy Batch from British Waterways to take passengers on a magical tour of the London 2012 Games, the history of the Limehouse cut and River Lea navigation.
The Jenny Wren (image courtesy of British Waterways):
The star of the event was without doubt Jeremy Batch who, as lock keeper and canal historian delighted passengers with his wealth of knowledge, history and facts about the Limehouse Cut and River Lea.
At Limehouse Basin. From left to right, Selina, a colleague at the ODA, myself and Mark Bensted from British Waterways (image courtesy of British Waterways):
Passengers were treated to a variety of subjects from the ODA volunteers including the plans and stages involved in constructing the Olympic Park, the launch of the Cultural Olympiad, building a sustainable and environmentally friendly Games and Park, overviews of the structures and utilities involved in creating the Park and lots of interesting facts, history and future aspirations of the Park.
Halfway through the tour, the Jenny Wren stopped at Old Ford Lock so passengers could alight and take in the Olympic Stadium site from the Greenway. This proved a very popular part of the tour and passengers enjoyed being able to ask questions of the ODA representatives about the construction of the Olympic Park.
At Old Ford Lock. From Left to right, Sarah from the ODA and Richard Rutter, British Waterways (image courtesy of British Waterways):
The return journeys were an opportunity to spot more wildlife on the river and canal and take in the wonderful atmosphere of the waterways.
At the end of each tour, the feedback was incredibly positive and I was really pleased to have been able to organise this event on behalf of the ODA. It proved a really good relationship building experience with British Waterways and we hope to work with them on new initiatives in the future.
Comments for this post:
25 Jul 2008, 08:58AM, thegoodgerman said:
It would be interesting how Sir Norman Forster or David Chipperfield would have designed the Olympic parc or how they would jugde the architectural quality of the Olympic venues. I´m sure I would have prefered Sir Norman Forsters design because there would be a connection with other important buildings like Wembley, the British Museum and so on with the Olympic area - the style would have been similar then. For sure it would have been a first class design like a modern fine formed sculpture. He knows how to respect the historic area and typical British traditions in architecture are turned around in a new innovative and exciting, unexpected way without appearing bombastic or oversized and therefore typical British. It is modern art in architecture and outstanding. In my opinion the swimming venue is the best piece of architecture.