Prominent in the dream's topography were spiral ramps, rusting reinforced concrete, bridge supports, crash barriers and pylons - and beyond, a broad river, and a city with its back turned to it. And across the river the sophisticated Saska.
Above: looking under two off ramps towards the bottom end of ul. Fabryczna where our office is located.
Left: Spiral stairs lead down to the embankment from the bus stop. The bridge is crumbling in places, and supports are held up with steel props where the walkway passes under the road above.
My classic London dreams have long been of brick arches and tunnels under Paddington station; dark steam railway viaducts at night. Here's the Warsaw dream equivalent.
Below: there are bus stops on the bridge by both embankments, and a walkway separated off from the busy main road by crash barriers. Bus lanes in both directions keep public transport moving along this busy thoroughfare.
These empty riverbanks on either side are located in the middle of a capital city. Warsaw has done little with this natural asset; compare the banks of the Thames or the Seine as they flow through London and Paris.
Despite the bridge having been renamed in 1998, plaques bearing its original name (the General Zygmunt Berling Bridge) remain on both sides. Gen. Berling, a communist, is still commemorated with a statue on the other side of the river. It has been daubed with red paint in the past.
Soundtrack to the dream? Bruce Springsteen's Meeting Across The River from the 1975 album Born to Run; that ethereal trumpet and piano catches the ambience so precisely.
[See this post for some nocturnal atmosphere from the other side]
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1 comment:
I watched Inception a few nights ago. It's about creating (there's an architect) dreams, entering dreams, stealing from and placing into dreams.
One of the "rules" was that you shouldn't create dreams from memories, such as real locations, because it can lead to a slippery grasp on what is reality and what isn't...
:)
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