Tower Hill

Yesterday my roommate Sarah and I spent a lovely afternoon exploring the Tower Hill area. Coming out of the tube station we were met by beautiful scenery and amazing views of the Tower Bridge (what most people think is the London Bridge). The bridge is bigger and more magnificent than I ever could have imagined and Sarah and I had quite the photo shoot while crossing over the Thames. We walked through a cute area around the base of the bridge on our way to the Design Museum, our destination for the day.

The Design Museum itself was a very modern and geometrical building amongst the detailed architecture of the area. Its massive blank white walls were hard to miss. Inside we saw an exhibit on the work of Jean Prouvé, a designer, engineer, architect, etc. whose work was rooted in utilitarian furniture. The next floor featured a myriad of different “inventions” chairs made from all different materials, a large race car and another structure I couldn’t quite identify (nor could I find its informational card). I think my favorite chairs in the collection were these rounded plastic pieces that were covered in faux fur. Their caption read: “where the animal kingdom meets Las Vegas” (or something to that affect).

Finally, we spent a long time in an exhibit on the fashion on Matthew Williamson. The curators did an absolutely brilliant job of highlighting the colors and textures of his clothes while humanizing the designer himself. Fortunately for you, photography was allowed. I’ll let the clothes speak for themselves.

After the Design Museum, we were headed to the Fashion and Textile Museum in the same area when we were met by a short monsoon. We decided it wise to stop in a cute cafe under the Tower Bridge for an afternoon coffee. Gorgeous views of the river and bridge accompanied our Irish and French coffees, while the conversation took the afternoon right into early evening. Back on the tube, we encountered the joys (not) of rush hour. Fortunately for us, many young, good-looking business men were on our line.