Old Door with Adjacent Graffiti on the Herengracht Painting

It is not always the grand or the glamorous buildings that provide a city with its sense of place. Indeed, it is often not the buildings themselves but the scars they carry that provide the narrative. For this reason I am often caught in two minds when I see the restoration of old buildings taking place as it is very much a mixed blessing. On the one hand restoration preserves the building for future generations and can breathe new life into a forgotten shell; but on the other hand it obliterates the rich patina created by the lives of the past. In this doorway at dusk on the Herengracht, we find just such rich stories, collected together in a wonderful abstract tableau. The clean geometry of the architecture is afforded a blast of energy and a splash of colour by the layers of over- painted graffiti, whilst the carved wooden door ornamentation provides a connection between the hard lines and the organic forms. The years are evident here too, the bold streaks of green and bleached blooms that cover the stonework give it a molten quality and the wear patterns on the door itself offer clues as to its length of service. But it is the love story between the two creatures that I find so captivating. The tale is of the graffito cat, for want of a better description, imprisoned in blue spray paint, gazing adoringly aloft at the winged cow-head gargoyle who stares out across the water, only catching the merest glimpse of his lover when the door is opened.