citylikeyou — The British Library — London by Zoë Taylor

London / Library

I vaguely thought about leaving London recently and the British Library came to mind as somewhere I’d miss. It’s an essential resource because it has almost everything. It also has some interesting exhibitions.

Address
The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, United Kingdom

Illustrator

Current city: London

zoetaylor.co.uk

Zoë Taylor is an illustrator based in London. She graduated from the RCA in 2009 and regularly illustrates for AnOther Magazine’s online edition. Her work has also been published in The Guardian, Syntax Editions, Grey, Le Gun, Bare Bones, Dazed & Confused and others. She is currently working on some visual stories.

More Places in London 471

London / Shop

They mainly sell art and cultural theory books but they also have a good selection of small press and self-published zines. It’s a great place to browse and get ideas.

London / Restaurant

My all-time favourite place. Whitewashed ex-smokehouse where Fergus Henderson pioneered the resurgent interest in offal dishes. The restaurant is brilliantly unfussy, retaining lots of the smokehouse’s original features, and the food very British, making St. JOHN something of a London institution. The restaurant has a winery and bakery.

London / Museum

The Garden Museum and the Garden Museum Cafe are a welcome addition to an area of London that is slow to change. The food at the cafe is modern and seasonal, and the space is beautiful and looks out into a small garden by Dan Pearson. Christopher Woodward, the museum director, is active in improving and campaigning for local green spaces and creating space for the local community. The Museum lives inside an old 18th-century church and has a changing program of exhibits. Worth noting, it is a museum on the subject of gardening, not of gardens, so don’t expect many flower beds. Throughout the summer holidays, the Museum has lots of great events for kids, including cooking and drawing. Luke and I also designed the identity for the museum… the tote bags and visitor badges are particularly nice.

London / Cinema

This is a little general but there’s so many great cinemas in London, I can’t choose just one. I probably go to Screen on the Green most often as it’s nearby and shows great films, has really comfortable armchairs and serve drinks to your seat as well as hosting director Q&As and late night screenings. Other favourites include: Curzon Mayfair, Renoir, NFT, Barbican and Prince Charles cinema where I’ve been to a great Movie Maths triple bill; RoboCop + The Raid = Dredd. I can’t get rid of anything so compile all my tickets in a file chronologically, which also serves as a map of where I was living at any one time; depending on which cinemas I frequented the most.

London / Cemetery

It might sound rather odd to suggest going to a cemetery, but this has to be one of my new favourite places to visit. Getting lost down one of the narrow paths certainly doesn’t make you feel like you’re in London anymore which can be refreshing. Another interesting fact about this place is that the late Amy Winehouse shot her music video for ‘Back to Black’ here.