Open House London

Open House London: hundreds of great buildings of all types and periods open up their doors to all, completely for FREE.

Seven of us headed up town to explore London's architecture. We started off on the Thames at HQS Wellington, home of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, then Portcullis House - overflow office accommodation for MPs. We gave up on the queue for Horse Guards and instead walked round the corner to 26 Whitehall - former Admiralty Buildings. After a below average lunch it was Apsley House and Wellington Arch.

I enjoyed HQS Wellington, the history of the ship was fascinating as were the museum exhibits, however most of the other venues "magnificent art collections", just didn't do it for me, being mainly dark dull portraits of historical figures striking dark dull poses. The fun for me was just wandering round London, watching people, watching buildings.

The exception to the dark dull exhibitions though was The Election Project by Simon Roberts at Portcullis House. The main works, 25 large colour prints, follow the campaign canvassers around the UK during the final 25 days before the general election, while the amateurs' collection is a frieze of 1,696 postcard-sized digital prints of images sent in response to requests made at each stop.

Simon Roberts was there himself going round his prints talking about them, how they were composed and his interaction with the electoral candidates - fascinating. An article from the arts desk can be found here.

For my photo of the day we have Big Ben & Portcullis House, not quite up to Simon Robert's standards, but it works for me and certainly better than most from those "magnificent art collections", although probably not as valuable.