Not every new Pentagram project ends up on a screen. Marina Willer and her team designed bronze drain covers for Thames Tideway’s new public spaces in London. They function as drains while marking 13 riverside locations.
Two overlapping discs of linear patterns create moiré: a surface that looks almost liquid. Each bronze piece was hand-cast in sand, polished and finished at Arch Bronze. The lettering has its own river history. Doves Type’s original metal sorts were once dumped into the Thames; some were later recovered. Few typeface backstories fit their installation sites quite so literally.
Urban graphics often ask us to look up and read. Here, the message is built into the city’s surface. It is pleasing to see infrastructure treated as everyday culture, even when most people will simply walk over it.
