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By Root 532 0

ceilings and finds, instead of angels, workaday, economical spans of steel punctuated by fluorescent strips, which guide the onlooker’s eyes back to rows of symmetrical shelving and the hurried motions of forklift trucks. That the logistics hub has been allowed to assume this stark and monolithic appearance signals our confusion about how much it matters what is in front of our eyes. We accept that museums can devote fortunes to acquiring tender Early Netherlandish devotional paintings no larger than hardback books, but we see nothing foolhardy in casually surrendering large strips of the planet to the impatient interests of men from Jones Lange Lasalle, out of a curious reluctance to concede that we may in the end be as inwardly affected by the sight of five square kilometres of warehouse space incised into the fields of Northamptonshire as by the benevolent gaze of a twenty-centimetre Madonna from the workshop of Rogier van der Weyden.

Yet it would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.

At the top of a slope on the perimeter of the site, overlooking six lanes of motorway, is a diner frequented by lorry drivers who have either just unloaded or are waiting to pick up their cargo. Anyone nursing a disappointment with domestic life would find relief in this tiled, brightly lit cafeteria with its smells of fries and petrol, for it has the reassuring feel of a place where everyone is just passing through – and which therefore has none of the close-knit or convivial atmosphere which could cast a humiliating light on one’s own alienation. It suggests itself as an ideal location for Christmas lunch for those let down by their families. Patrons can tour the aisles of a generous self-service buffet, combine fish pie with deep-pan pizza or hamburger with curry, without needing to apologise for the size or eccentricity of their selections, and silently take a seat at one of the yellow plastic tables which look out onto the stream of ruby-red tail lamps outside.

Roadworks are common on these stretches of motorway and serve to slow the traffic almost to a standstill, allowing one to follow the incremental progress of Skania and Iveco lorries packed with industrial quantities of items which one normally contemplates only on a domestic scale: chocolate bars, cereal, bottled water, mattresses and margarine all inching their way northwards in the darkness. The view has some of the consoling qualities of a river, whose constant play of shadow and current may lift an observer out of a mood of stagnation. It is life itself rolling past, in its most heedless, savage, selfish manifestations, endowed with the same impassive will which impels the spread of bacteria and jungle flora.

3.

The single-mindedness of the goings-on in the logistics park are most transparent at night, when the appearance of the moon questions the significance of efficient courier services from an interplanetary viewpoint, as does – from the perspective of eternity – a slender church spire built in the late fourteenth century, visible as a pitch-black arrow on the far side of the motorway.

Nightfall used to be the time when members of our species would acknowledge their physical limitations and huddle together to mitigate their fear of ghosts and witches. The logistics hub, however, makes few concessions to human frailty, the spirit world or the primacy of natural rhythms. Floodlights come on to compensate for the sun’s retreat, bathing the area in the nocturnal orange glow familiar from airports and military installations. Workers are dropped off by bus at a central reception area and clock in before seven. On a site which was once fields of barley and wheat, warehouses now await shipments of lawn mowers, work-out benches and barbecue sets. Passing motorists, seeing the glare from the forecourts through the fog, might be forgiven for wondering what ungodly preparations could be in train at this hour.

The work that unfolds here