the trellick tower lobby

the door opened on first press


a resident followed us through and with a smile let us in the inner door still using his fob on the broken lock 


we stood in a small lobby while he punched the lift buttons and explained to us in another language that a lift wasn’t working


primary coloured bauhaus windows in concrete were at one end of the lobby and an exposed ceiling above a long vacant concierge was at the other


the resident offered us to take the lift first and we declined too politely to be taken seriously 


two other residents came out the lift and turned back before leaving


are you visiting?


we didn’t feel invisible anymore


because people here get funny about people coming in


We understand, we’re just going to take a picture of that wall and go


you can contact the residents association I think or there’s days you can visit


we’re just going to take a picture of that wall and go


ok cool


we considered taking the lift to explore more but I was uneasy


there was architecture built on utopian ideas that capture the future of that time and being in that future moment now makes for an interesting environment to capture in a photo


but it’s also a lot of people’s day to day reality from the generational social housing residents to the subcontracted and undocumented 


and these are the times that the camera feels like a toy




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