Fournier Street: East London’s corridor of contradictions

Onto the side of a church’s façade a sign commands, ‘Commit No Nuisance’. Yards away, a bright red poster smacked onto the wall takes a defiant swing in retort: ‘You have the right to offend’, it exclaims. The moral test comes from a sticker on a lamppost with a famous street artist’s insignia: Obey. Walking down this street in Spitalfields, East London, can compel you to acts of anarchy or decency. Okay, that’s extreme. But ‘extremes’ are precisely what makes the place compelling. Whichever command you follow, on Fournier Street anything (and anyone) goes. Almost three centuries of humanity have moved through, a palimpsest of paradoxical identities. And they’ve left visible marks to remind you they were here. Aside from tags marked on to the wall, most obvious are old merchants’ townhouses where French Huguenots (Protestant refugees escaping persecution in Catholic France) lived in the 17th century. They settled here in their thousands, bringing their silk-weaving craft. Traces of this industry are still apparent: look up and you’ll spot low windows on the top floors where they worked, letting in the best light for the looms. <a href="https://medium.com/@dda_wood/fournier-street-east-londons-corridor-of-contradictions-451b2b49448e">Website</a>