For hundreds of years the River Thames has brought growth and success to the city of London through the many different cultures, products and businesses it attracts. In times when migrations define the fabric of large cities, the river and its movements act as a metaphor for the fluidity of life in the capital. 

As the largest upgrade to the city’s water network for more than 150 years, the Thames Tideway Tunnel will transform the health of the Thames in London, replacing the Victorian sewage systems with a cleaner, modern ‘super sewer’. The hi-tec system has already vastly improved the river’s water quality, reducing overflows by 86% and preventing tonnes of sewage-based litter from entering the water, making the Thames a much safer place for London and its wildlife. 

To mark this ambitious program, Thames Tideway (the company behind the scheme) has created new public spaces and commissioned new public art, creating a legacy for Londoners above ground that matches the scale of the civil works beneath their feet. 

Following on from her previous ‘Overlooked’ project, Pentagram Partner Marina Willer was commissioned by Thames Tideway to design a new set of bronze plaques. Doubling up as drain covers, the plaques also signal the thirteen riverside locations for these new spaces across the Capital. The unique artwork created by the team at Marina and her team at Pentagram expresses both the transformational nature of the new tunnel and its relationship with the river. 

The typeface chosen by Marina and her team for this project also has a special relationship to the River Thames. Doves Type was originally created in 1899 for The Doves Press in Hammersmith. When the press was partly closed in 1917, its founders agreed that shared ownership of the typeface would remain. However an epitaph appeared in the press’s final publication announcing that Cobden-Sanderson had ‘bequeathed’ the type to the murky bed of the River Thames.

Typeface designer Robert Green released a facsimile font of the lost Doves Type in 2014, and subsequently the Port of London Authority’s diving team recovered 151 metal sorts from the river at Hammersmith. These pieces were then used to fully digitise the font once thought  lost forever to the river.

The design of each manhole cover is made from two overlapping discs with linear patterns creating an almost liquid blend, with a moiré effect that celebrates the idea of London as a melting pot of cultures, while expressing the fluidity of the river as it flows through the city. A special one-off design was also created for Abbey Mills Pumping Station in East London, also known as the ‘Cathedral of Steam', to mirror its incredibly ornate Victorian interior.

The handcrafted nature of the plaques was an important part of the project, using traditional manufacturing processes to bring a distinctive character to each piece. Each bronze plaque was individually cast by hand in sand, polished and then finished to bring out the detail in the metal by Chris and his team at Arch Bronze in Putney, South West London. 

The plaques are now installed at the new public open spaces created by Thames Tideway and situated along the river. These range from Putney to Deptford and beyond, with parts of the new spaces at Victoria and Chelsea Embankments and at King Edward Memorial Park which are floodable at high tides.

Running alongside this is an ambitious permanent public art programme Art on the Tideway. Artists from across the country were asked to create something for their chosen site that responded to the local area’s heritage and history. Working in parallel with the design and engineering teams, leading artists and designers were asked to produce an exciting body of work which is now fully embedded into the new spaces. 

Marina and her team‘s new manhole covers for Thames Tideway are both functional and decorative. Placed as a floor-based bronze plaque at each of the riverside public parks, they act as lasting markers of an extraordinary civic achievement – one that’s both hidden beneath the city and deeply embedded in its future.