Early next month the mayor of London will announce the winner of the competition to find the designers of the Illuminated River, a £20m project to create a permanent “world-class lighting scheme” over 17 bridges in central London. Thames Water finds it easier to commission heavy engineering, collect payment from its users and make a profit for its investors. And then there is the Illuminated River project, which tries hard to avoid the garden bridge’s missteps by going about the procurement of its designers in an impeccable way. At its worst the Illuminated River could be a vanity project by a metropolitan elite that, like the Bourbon monarchy, would have learned nothing from this year’s expressions of popular discontent. The six shortlisted Illuminated River projects are on display in the Royal Festival Hall, London SE1 until Tuesday.

Source: The Guardian November 27, 2016 07:52 UTC