Escape to Lost Property Hotel Near St. Paul’s Cathedral

The Alchemist’s Word

“The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.”
― William H. Gass,

Delving into the rich history of forgotten and lost professions, the team discovered Dutch artist Pieter Bruegh’s “The alchemist”, engraved after 1558. Alchemy is seen as the medieval forerunner of chemistry, and was the practice of attempting to transmute base metals into gold. But perhaps it is really the forefather of the stock exchange, where traders create wealth seemingly out of thin air. Bruegh’s piece became the basis for this artwork. Inspired by another Dutch artist Piet Mondrian we have taken abstracted blocks of colour to represent the progression of artistic expression from the dislocation of this world gone by to the fast-paced modernism of the contemporary era.

Franklin’s Philosophy

The words: “Lost time is never found again” were written by Benjamin Franklin, the founding father of the United States, as a call to action.

He wrote them in his yearly published book “Poor Richard’s Almanac” in 1747, so called as he published it under the pseudonym Richard Saunders. The hour glass created using a lost wax engraving method is combined with a multi-layered ink on paper abstraction.

Together We Stand

The British Gazette published by His Majesty’s Stationary Office has a much less grand history than it’s name suggests. Instead of being a stalwart heavy hitting British Newspaper with a long history behind it.

The British Gazette only ran to eight editions. However, it served its purpose. On the 3rd May 1926 a general strike was called by the Trade Union’s Congress and all work in Britain stopped, including the newspapers. Winston Churchill was appointed editor of the Gazette to propagate the government’s view on the strike, and the paper reached a circulation of 2 million copies, and on the 13th May 1926 the strike was called off. This snapshot of history shows the once great power of the unions and the printed press, two parts of British society that no longer carry the weight they once did.