The Thames Estuary Army Forts were constructed in 1942 to provide anti-aircraft fire in defence of the UK. If there is a more visually pleasing fort in existence, I have not seen it yet. The nodal, networked, sci-fi like pattern Each fort forms, falls right into my aesthetic sensibility.They simultaneously look like the tripods from War of The Worlds and like an industrial neuron. In truth this also describes the the way the towers have been used over the decades, serving as structures of military aggression, isolation and subversive communication. 

Each fort consists of four types of specialized towers; a Bofors tower, a control tower, four gun towers and a searchlight tower. The control tower sits in the center, surrounded by the gun towers and the search light tower is placed at a distance. All towers are connected by a walkway resulting in the networked pattern. 

In the 60s, long after the fort’s military functions were obsolete, they were used as broadcasting locations for various British pirate radio stations.

In 2005 artist Stephen Turner spent six weeks living alone in the searchlight towers in what he described as “an artistic exploration of isolation, investigating how one’s experience of time changes in isolation, and what creative contemplation means in a 21-century context.”