We went our separate ways this morning as I wanted to hunt round Spitalfields Market for treasures and Colin wanted to head back to Tate Modern. We decided to meet up after lunch outside the Hunterian Museum.
Spitalfields Markets was a bit disappointing – I thought it’d be bigger. It was small and the stalls weren’t that exciting either.
I did manage to find one stall selling buttons and spent a long time rummaging through a suitcase full of bags of buttons, none of them that exciting, but I managed to find a few gems thankfully.
I had a few senior moments getting the tube to meet Colin and managed to take the longest route possible without realising much to his amusement. Saw some lovely graffiti whilst walking down Brick Lane on my way to the tube station. The bird on the left was enormous painted on the side of a really tall building.
We met up in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in Holborn outside the Royal College of Surgeons which houses the Hunterian Collection – one of the most important medical collections in the world.
The Hunterian Museum is a quirky little museum and isn’t for everybody. If you’re interested in science and the history of medicine then this is the place for you. But on the other hand, if the idea of being surrounded by thousands of preserved human, animal and plant specimens in jars makes you queasy, then it’s probably best avoided. You’re not allowed to take photographs within the museum, so here are a few I found online so that you can get a glimpse of what is held within it’s walls.
This museum was amazing – if you go I would recommend getting the audio guide – very in depth and saves you having to read loads of text panels and just enjoy looking at the specimens. Apparently there is a Hunterian Museum in Glasgow – that’s a bit closer to home, so hopefully we’ll be making a trip over to Glasgow soon.
On Thursdays the Barbican Centre is open very late so we booked tickets for a late screening of Francios Ozon’s latest film and for the ‘Surreal House’ exhibition and headed there after we managed to pull ourselves away from the Hunterian.
The Surreal House exhibition is definitely worth a visit and it’s on until the 12th September so go see it if you’re in London.
You are invited to enter The Surreal House , a mysterious dwelling infused with subjectivity and desire. Step inside a labyrinth of chambers, designed by acclaimed young architects Carmody Groarke, and experience The Surreal House – its haunted rooms, delirious forms, blasted architecture and cinematic dreamscapes – featuring a host of artists, architects and film makers including Salvador Dali , Marcel Duchamp , Alberto Giacometti , René Magritte , Man Ray , Joseph Cornell and Maya Deren through to more contemporary figures, among them; Rebecca Horn , Edward Kienholz and Rem Koolhaas . At times enchanting, playful and at others, deeply disquieting, The Surreal House is a dwelling that is essentially everything that the rational, functional Modernist house is not.
