Canterbury Platform

We were commissioned by Canterbury City Council to enhance the experience of using a previously neglected riverside walk on the banks of the River Stour. The council’s initial plan was to build simple fishing platforms and commission art to be placed on them. Angus’s idea was that the platforms themselves became art works whilst providing a place to sit and engage with the river.

The meanderings of the river with its ripples, flows and eddies, helped generate the concept of sculptural seating which reflected these ripples, flows and eddies in a series of differently shaped decks. Long, thick planks of solid Scottish oak were steam-bent and shaped to create a series of dynamic places to sit, and possibly fish, alongside the river. A short film showing the bending of the planks can be seen on youtube. The stainless steel fixings can be used to support a large fishing umbrella. Angus was involved in the crucial siting of each platform and the river should be maintained to give the impression of the decks floating over the water (as far as river levels will allow)!

Quotes by Izaak Walton, a local fisherman and taken from his The Compleat Angler (first published in 1653) were inscribed into the step risers.
“As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler”
Izaak Walton 1653
“Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are made for wise men to contemplate and for fools to pass by without consideration”
Izaak Walton 1653