'Scenes of Contemporary Life' by William Mitchell

'Scenes of Contemporary Life' is a sculptural mural designed in 1972 by William Mitchell for Stevenage Development Corporation and installed in 1973. The mural decorates the north and south walls of the Park Place underpass, which runs east to west under St George’s Way and links Park Place with the Town Centre Gardens.

The mural is approximately 20 metres in length. The entrances to the underpass are recessed from the surrounding path by about 1 metre and are flanked by shorter, decorated walls measuring around 3 metres. The decorative scheme consists of a band of cast-concrete bas-relief decoration, approximately 1.8 metres high, set against an abrasive-blasted aggregate background, with a coved skirting tile. The wall above the band is smooth rendered, lit by late-20th century angled lighting. Each end of the mural displays the crest of Stevenage.

The cast-concrete band features repeated depictions of stylised figures in contemporary dress, buildings, vehicles, and machinery. Specific motifs include two musicians with hands raised in applause, a representation of ‘modern building and engineering’ using high-rise buildings and scaffolding, a stack of buses, trucks, and cars, and a figure holding a placard associated with the Women’s Liberation Movement alongside political demonstrators. Other imagery includes a BBC TV camera and a screen showing a cricketer bowling, a footballer in motion, two footballers depicted in a ‘football ballet’ with a stadium audience and a trophy presentation, a ‘bus queue’ represented by a stack of men’s heads including a vicar, a number 88 bus with passengers, two policemen on parade representing ‘law’, a group of figures associated with the ‘Flower Power’ movement, a pop group with dancers, a United States Air Force rocket, and a Soviet space-landing craft showing two cosmonauts looking out a central window. Figures in motion, such as dancers and the cricketer, are shown projected multiple times in relief. Each cast is generally repeated approximately three times on each side, although some motifs, such as the space station, bus, and political demonstrators, appear only once.