I finally managed to stop off this morning on my way into work to get some pictures of 20 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8NY.

I know what you’re thinking. “You needn’t have bothered, mate!”

But please bear with me for a moment, for this is no ordinary building.
Well, actually, it is, but the facade at least is not.

For this is the upside down building, or to give it its proper title, Miner on the Moon, by Alex Chinneck.

This is what the artist Alex Chinneck has said about this work:

Built in 1780, the site was originally used as livery stables housing horses and carriages for hire. The access through the site (the underpass to the bottom right of the building) was used to ferry live cattle from the rear yard to the Thames for trade. I was interested by how the architectural silhouette of the building had been created with this function in mind and I wanted to conceive a concept that responded to this shape and the buildings history.

The material and aesthetic decisions within the project celebrate the architectural heritage of Southwark and the timeless charm of its fatigued buildings. By presenting a very familiar architectural scenery and narrative in an inverted way, the audience hopefully re-appreciates the buildings and moments of our daily environments that we allow to slip into our subconscious.

It’s certainly an improvement on what was there before (see below), and I hope we’ll see more of this kind of thing being done around London and elsewhere.