Anyone who hasn’t been living in a cave for the past couple of years will be aware of this transient craze with staying power: the pop-up. From pop-up galleries to pop-up shops and even pop-up restaurants, this new breed of installation is slowly but surely colonising all of the city’s nooks and crannies.
Bored on Saturday, I took myself to one of the latest to spring up – this one a bar and ‘space’ that had been built under a flyover in Hackney. As to be expected from something that markets itself as a ‘space’, Folly for a Flyover attracted its fair share of people in eye wateringly tight trousers and non prescription lenses. But strip away the pretence and here was something quite amazing. Over a period of months, a group of architecture graduates had crafted painstakingly what looked like a children’s storybook house, entirely from salvaged blocks of wood. By the house was a stage for live music performances, and by the canal (oh yes, this was by a canal) a jetty had been created from which boat rides were being offered at £2 for half an hour.
The scene, to look at, was not breathtaking – in fact, the construction blended very subtly into its surroundings – but there was something unusual about the place. And that is the fact that there were people around. What would otherwise have been an insalubrious, empty piece of waste ground, had become a hub, a community. By virtue of a few kids getting their heads together, dead space had been brought entirely to life. And that is what is so great about the pop-up. In our age of disposability, the pop-up is all about recycling what’s already there – more than that, reinventing what’s already there – and having a bit of fun in the process. Not a bad idea.