The Art of Noticing: On the Importance of Curiosity

I proudly self-describe as being “naturally curious”.

I have a habit of looking up. When walking around London, exploring a new city or travelling somewhere unfamiliar, I am often the person who stops to examine a building, peer at a carving above a doorway or wonder why a particular decorative detail has been included. What is that figure meant to represent? Why was that particular motif chosen? What did it mean to the person who commissioned it, and what does it mean to us today?

These questions can send me down extraordinary rabbit holes. One observation leads to another, and before I know it, I am researching the history of a building, the symbolism of a particular image or the life of someone who lived hundreds of years ago. I have always been curious, and I suspect that this instinct to look a little closer is one of the things I love most about the world.

It is also something I have come to appreciate about myself. While recently travelling in Paris, I was taking photos of weird and wonderful details on buildings around the city, and my partner remarked that one of his favourite things about me is that I notice things other people might simply walk past. I have thought about that comment often since; there is something rather lovely about the idea that paying attention, asking questions and finding wonder in seemingly ordinary things might be qualities worth celebrating.

We are surrounded by extraordinary details, particularly in a city like London. Look up as you walk along a familiar street and you might discover a carved face, an elaborate cornice, a curious symbol or an intricate pattern that you have passed a hundred times without noticing. Buildings are full of these details, many of which were created with considerable care and intention. Yet how often do we stop to consider why they are there?

Architectural decoration can tell us remarkable things about the people who created, commissioned and inhabited a building. Symbols and allegorical figures might communicate religious beliefs, moral values, political ambitions or personal identities. A decorative motif might reveal the influence of a particular artistic movement, while the placement of an inscription might tell us something about the person who wanted to be remembered. What appears at first to be purely ornamental can become a window into another time and another way of seeing the world.

One of the things I find most fascinating about heritage is this opportunity to look beyond the surface. One of the historic buildings I have just had the pleasure of working at is Boston Manor House, located in Brentford. One of the star features of the property is the elaborate plaster ceiling in the State Drawing Room, which dates from 1623 and incorporates an extraordinary array of allegorical and religious iconography, including representations of the Elements, the Senses, Faith, Hope and Charity, as well as Adam and Eve and a pelican, also seen in the Gibbons reredos at St James’s. The initials of Lady Mary Reade, associated with the house’s creation, are also incorporated into the decoration – as well as hidden dates around the house and its architecture.

It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship in its own right. But once you begin to explore its imagery, the ceiling becomes something more than a decorative feature. It invites us to consider the beliefs, values and aspirations of the people who created it. Why were these particular figures chosen? What did they represent to the people who encountered them four centuries ago? What might Lady Mary Reade have wanted to communicate through the decoration of her home?

We cannot necessarily answer all these questions with certainty. Nevertheless, the act of asking them changes how we experience the room. We begin to see the ceiling not simply as an object of historical interest, but as evidence of a person trying to express something about her world. Through the details she left behind, we have an opportunity to think about someone whose life was separated from ours by four hundred years, yet whose choices can still prompt our curiosity today.

I think this is one of the great pleasures of studying the past. It allows us to move beyond the assumption that history is something distant, fixed and finished. Instead, it becomes a conversation between the people who came before us and those of us trying to understand them now.

And, of course, the questions do not end with discovering what something originally meant. I am equally interested in how we interpret these details today. Do we recognise the symbolism? Do we understand the beliefs or traditions that informed it? Or has the meaning been lost, leaving us with something beautiful that we appreciate without fully understanding?

Perhaps a symbol that once communicated something deeply significant has become little more than decoration. Perhaps an image that was familiar to people four hundred years ago now requires explanation. Or perhaps we have developed entirely new ways of interpreting something that its original creator could never have anticipated.

There is something fascinating about this process. Buildings and objects do not exist in isolation from the people who encounter them. Their meanings can shift over time, shaped by changing beliefs, experiences and cultural understandings. The past may leave its marks on the present, but the way we interpret those marks tells us something about ourselves, too.

For me, curiosity is what allows us to begin making these connections. It encourages us to look beyond what is immediately visible, to ask questions rather than settle for assumptions, and to remain open to discovering something unexpected. It is also a reminder that knowledge is never quite finished. The more we learn, the more we realise there is still to discover.

I think this instinct to look closer can extend well beyond buildings and objects. The same curiosity that encourages us to investigate an unfamiliar carving might also encourage us to listen more carefully to another person, to question our assumptions or to consider why someone else sees the world differently. Just as we cannot always understand a historical object without knowing something about the circumstances in which it was created, we cannot always understand another person without being willing to look beyond our first impressions.

Curiosity does not mean we will always find the answers we are looking for, or that understanding something necessarily means agreeing with it. Rather, it gives us the opportunity to approach the world with greater openness and humility, recognising that there may be more to a story than we can see at first glance.

We live busy lives, often moving quickly from one thing to the next. It is easy to walk familiar streets without really seeing them, or to overlook the small details that make the world around us so rich. But I wonder what we might discover if we allowed ourselves to pause a little more often. To look up. To ask a question. To follow an unexpected line of enquiry simply because it interests us.

I hope I never lose the inclination to do these things. There will always be another detail to notice, another story to uncover and another perspective to consider. And perhaps that is what makes curiosity so valuable: it reminds us that even in places we think we know well, there is always the possibility of seeing something differently.

So, the next time you find yourself walking along a familiar street, take a moment to look a little closer. Notice the carving above a doorway, the pattern in a window or the detail on a building that you have never really examined before. Ask yourself what it might be, why it is there and what it might once have meant.

You never know where the question might lead. And you might just find that the world becomes a little more interesting when you take the time to notice it.

Stay curious.