Heart of The City
These are the best times, they are the first times.
It is the age to win some; the dawn of bullishness.
It’s the era of information and eventuality of automation.
It is the season of riches and social currency,
the spring of chance and the summer opportunity.
We have a utopia before us, we have a dystopia around us,
we are all going direct Mars, we are all going back in time.
In short, this period is so unlike the previous, that many attempts to compare them have left much to be desired. Our city is undergoing a creative revolution.
And what a revolution it is.
Because while Paris played host to progressive thought at the start of the last century, and New York dazzled us with the Jazz Age of ’20s, all signs suggest that London is next up to cut a rug on the world stage.
And you can see it… in the city’s ever-changing skyline; where a restless modernity meets boundless ambition. Cranes hang quietly in anticipation of a future landmark. New visions become new commissions and new places to live out our young years.
You can feel it… in the heightened political and economic climate that’s focused on our nation’s capital like a high beam. It burns away in the minds of our artists, musicians, writers and thinkers, inspiring their work and reframing our opinion on current affairs.
In the cries of an anti-gentrification generation, you can hear it… Modern day Luddites live in fear of the boho-chic industrial complex sweeping through the city from Hackney to Peckham to Deptford and Tooting. They chant, they cry, they wave their banners, only to eventually tire and take lunch in Pret.
You read it… in the news articles reporting on the latest gene-editing capability or quantum breakthrough. International efforts giving humanity greater power over ourselves, our fates and our place in the universe.
All of this innovation and change — the power to create, recreate and inspire — made possible through human collaboration and connectedness.
Even on the city’s streets…
you can taste it… in the multitude of food markets from Goldhawk Road to Lewisham Way. A melting pot of punny-named peddlers of the organic, fair-trade, gluten free and dairy free, reviving culinary craftsmanship and the livelihood of the independent stall owner.
As you pass the doorways of our master baristas, you can smell it… tickling aphorisms chalked out on black A-boards from Hoxton to Clapham. Inside, exposed brickwork and upcycled furniture draw writers, freelancers, mobile workers and more into a den of chance encounters.
Over crackling fires in the lobbies of our trendiest hotels, you overhear it… the myriad types of mindfulness meditation that roll off the tongue of Newly Balanced young people. A new language formed of new lifestyles find millennials going “out, but not OUT out” on a Wednesday night.
And clear as methacrylate, you witness it… in the queues of patent leather shoes stood patiently in line for the latest exhibitions at Jerwood and Jealous, Wellcome and Webb, Somerset and Serpentine. The homeless man and his canine companion who once sketched for pennies are now known as the artist and the muse — complete with sold-out shows and a major book deal.
And although you can find creative chaos all over London, it’s here, in the heart of the city, just left of the centre, where its creative pulse is strongest.
Move through these bricked lanes and commercial streets to a place that was
first, home to an old carpet factory,
and Second, home to 1000 plants and 50 of London’s most ambitious startups. It’s a biophiliac’s dream and a futurist’s fantasy.
Inside, curved corridors bring about creative collisions for a positive impact.
Talks from experts and total access to a Libreria of fiction and non-fiction books, make self-development a much more attractive proposition.
Yoga, meditation, good food and great hospitality complete the package of a cultural venue committed to health and human upkeep.
And as for the people behind the passion — the staff who blend in amongst the members — they work 24/7, 365 to forge lasting relationships for the moments when serendipity needs a helping hand.
And it is because of places like this, that London city,
our home and our husband,
has become the creative capital of the world.
By Tahi Gichigi
See my application here.
(hint: Second Home’s 2nd city of choice)
