metropoli project

At the beginning of 2000 I started an ambitious project to investigate and photograph Britain's major post-industrial cities.

My aim has been to document the multi-layered character of metropolitan areas and to produce a coherent series of images which reflect the positive achievements and realities within our continually changing urban space. I have tried to remain objective in this documentary work but a theme that has became increasingly important is to question as well as celebrate our collective responsibility in shaping the environments in which we live.

urban dreams

During the early 1980’s I documented aspects of the industrial and urban landscape of Britain. These images formed the publication "A Green & Pleasant Land". Until then many British cities were still the nerve centres for industrial activity. During the 80’s and increasingly in the 90’s many of these metropolitan centres saw significant changes in their economic fortunes with the growth of service industries and a decline in industrial production and loss of population. By the beginning of the 21^st C. these post-industrial cities had started to re-invent their role and image as centres for knowledge and learning, culture and entertainment along with the prerequisite of numerous shopping re-developments and the creation of urban icons. Many commercial developers saw substantial opportunities in transforming run-down office and industrial buildings into designer apartments, bars and retail outlets.

Each city has developed strategies to increase it’s competitive advantage to attract inward investment and commerce. Batteries of urban designers have been employed to create improvements in the public realm, transport and infrastructure of the entire city – with the city centre as the focal point for civic aspiration and commercial gain. In these new pictures this is one of the themes I have attempted to document to make sense of development and change in the modern city.

the cities

With each city I have developed different themes concerned with the infrastructure and social architecture of our urban environment. In the city of London I explored the major arterial road links which run through the capital. In Birmingham and Glasgow I documented the open central spaces which attract people - especially the popular visited areas and the structures symbolising civic pride. The Manchester work concentrates on the newly created open pedestrian spaces which are associated with recent building developments in the city centre. In Newcastle and Gateshead it was the historic layering of building development. The Liverpool images focus on the structures and symbols associated with Britain as a warring nation.