Road Work

With Road Work, Andrew Holmes con­tin­ues his pil­grim­age through the seduc­tive lit­ter of mod­ern urban life. Cities are con­ven­tion­al­ly viewed as sta­t­ic objects, but a third of Los Ange­les is on the move; it is a kalei­do­scope trapped in a grid, where what you see is what you dri­ve past. Road Work presents 500 of Holmes’ Los Ange­les Polaroids, cap­tur­ing the machines that deliv­er peo­ple and goods to dif­fer­ent parts of the city every day. These vehi­cles are seen at the air­port, at a truck stop, always in a park­ing bay, set clas­si­cal­ly against azure skies, frozen like stat­ues in a Renais­sance gar­den. Noth­ing trans­gress­es the grid. The work is even; chrome and rust are its soul. Along with an intro­duc­tion by Holmes, Road Work fea­tures a series of blank-verse inter­ludes inspired by the lyrics of Chuck Berry and others. 

Andrew Holmes (b. 1947) is Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Archi­tec­ture at Oxford Brookes Uni­ver­si­ty. He was for­mer­ly Guest Pro­fes­sor at the Tech­nis­che Uni­ver­sität, Berlin, and a Vis­it­ing Schol­ar at the Get­ty Research Insti­tute. For many years he was an inno­v­a­tive and inspir­ing tutor at the Archi­tec­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion. He lives and works in Lon­don. His book, Gas Tank City, was pub­lished by Cir­ca in 2024.