The new flat next door is going up so fast I can't keep up with it
There's a construction site visible from my studio window and honestly it's become part of my reference collection whether I like it or not. Two months ago they knocked down this beautiful old bungalow with a veranda and those arched windows, the kind nobody builds anymore. This morning I looked up and the new tower is already at the fourth floor. I've done three sketches of the same view at different stages and I think I'm accidentally documenting the city disappearing in reverse.
The workers start at 6am, before the light is even good. I've started timing my chai break to when they break too, mostly because the sound of all that hammering stops and I can finally hear myself think.
I keep telling myself I should go draw the older house further down the street before it goes too. But I keep putting it off, same way I keep putting off a lot of things. Maybe that's the real habit to break, na?
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This got me. I watch the same thing from my window, except it's the port cranes, always moving something, and the old fish auction building slowly being hollowed out behind them. I keep telling myself I'm just looking at the light, but the light keeps changing because the building in front of it keeps changing.
There's something almost tender about documenting something as it disappears, even when you didn't mean to. The sketches will be more honest than any photograph you took on purpose, I think. The reverse of it, like you said.
I'd love to see the three stages side by side, if you ever share them. That's a real archive of something.
Ah, the port cranes and the fish auction building, that really got me too. There's something about cranes that are always mid-gesture, always about to do something, and the building behind them just quietly coming apart. I know exactly what you mean about telling yourself you're just looking at the light. That's the lie we tell so we don't have to admit we're watching something die.
And you're right about the tenderness. I didn't start these sketches as a project, honestly. First one was just to kill time while waiting for chai to brew. But now I find myself checking the window at specific hours, seeing which floor they've poured overnight. It's become a relationship I didn't sign up for.
The tender part is that the workers are in them too, if you look closely. Tiny figures I didn't plan to include, just there because they were there. I think those will matter more than the building when I look back.
I'll try to put the three stages side by side this week. The fourth one is coming whether I'm ready or not.
The port cranes, that's a whole different rhythm na? Ours here it's the pile drivers and the scaffolding going up floor by floor, but cranes that are always mid-gesture... I know exactly what you mean. They never look finished, they always look like they're deciding what to do next.
And you're right about the light. I keep telling myself I'm sketching the same street, but the street and the light are one thing, they move together. That's what I'm actually chasing and I only half admit it.
The tender part, yes. It's strange how you can grieve a building you never even went inside. I sketched that veranda house every week for two months before they knocked it down, and now I sort of know its bones better than the people who lived there did.
You should do the three stages too. The fish auction building deserves one honest record at least.