Cultural Icons: The Poetics and Politics of Power/Culture

Welsh

English

What do you associate Caernarfon Castle (in north Wales) with?

Caernarvon is architecturally one of the most impressive of all of the castles in Wales. Its [sic] defensive capabilities were not as overt or as powerful as those of Edward Is other castles such as Harlech and Beaumaris (which indicate the pinnacle of castle building and defenses in Britain), but Caernarvon was instead intended as a seat of power and as a symbol of English dominance over the subdued Welsh (Daniel Mersey). As with all of the castles of Edwards Iron Ring, Caernarvon [Castle] was built on the shoreline (supplies came by sea due to the Welsh prowess in convoy ambush over land). At Caernarvon, Edward also built a town, destroying the original Welsh settlement beforehand (DM). The castle of Edward I at Caernarvon succeeded first a Roman fort, and then a Norman motte and bailey built by Hugh of Avranches around 1090. This motte was incorporated into the Edwardian castle, but was destroyed around 1870. The Welsh retook the original motte in 1115 and retained control until Edwards invasion and colonization in 1283. The sites previous history also demonstrates the strategic importance of the site (DM). Edward wanted to create a nucleus of English influence in this area, which was previously so rich in Welsh tradition and anti-English feeling. He also wished to create Caernarvon as the capital of a new dominion hence the incorporation of a town and market into the strong walls of the site (DM).

Building phases (Daniel Mersey):

1.

128392 (expenditure: 12,000): Architect: Master James of St George (a renowned castle architect). Material for the building of the castle, town, walls, gates and important quay were ferried in by sea. All of the initial building took place as a single operation, started in the summer of 1283. The first recorded entry of work (June 24th) was on the new castles ditch, separating the castle from fortified town. Next, as with most castles built in enemy territory, a wooden barricade was erected to defend the building works from attack; labourers began to cut the moat, which also supplied the rock for the walls (twenty foot thick at their base). The Welsh township was demolished at this time. The only tower of the castle completed was the Eagle Tower; the main priority was to make the site defensible, before later adding the impressive architecture of dominions new capital. The castle and town walls were substantially completed by late 1285, yet the north wall of the castle had no wall and was instead defended by the town walls and a wide rock cut ditch. 12951330 (expenditure: 13,000): Madog ap Llywelyn overran the castle through the ditch in his revolt of 1294, burning part of the castle and damaging the town walls. The English retook the castle next summer, and orders were given to make the castle defendable again by 11th Nov. 1295. The town walls and castle were repaired; the north wall of the castle, with the Kings Gate (never fully completed), was finally added.

2.

Accommodation (Daniel Mersey):

The castle was intended as the capital of a new dominion and a palace for the dynasty of the new Prince of Wales. It was capable of accommodating the household of the kings eldest son (created Prince of Wales under Edward I), with his council, family and guests also in attendance. The Eagle Tower, Queens Tower, Chamberlain Tower and Black Tower all were accommodation towers built on several storeys, mostly with self contained chapels on each storey (indicative of high status accommodation). Two halls existed the Great Hall and a hall in the Kings Tower. In addition, the castle also permanently housed a constable, watchmen and the garrison.

At Caernarfon Edward I commissioned a stronghold to give substance to the tradition linking Caernarfon with imperial Rome. The king must have known that the Roman fort of Segontium, lying just above the modern town, was inseparably associated in legend with Magnus Maximus, the usurper emperor. The walls were given a prominent patterning with bands of different colored stone. Moreover, the towers were constructed in an angular fashion rather than the more usual rounded form of Conwy or Beaumaris (Daniel Mersey).

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Edward I was drawing upon symbolism, and turned for inspiration to the great city of Constantinople. There, in the eastern successor to Rome and one of the wonders of the ancient world, the 5th-century walls bear a striking resemblance to this late 13thcentury castle. Overall, the king was creating a fitting building to be a

new royal residence, a palace, intended to be the seat of government for the newly-formed shire counties of north Wales. Everywhere, strength and majesty are evident in its walls and turrets. (DM)

Do Daniel Merseys final 2 sentences remind you of any other political developments in what is now the UK, which now rank as cultural icons and are popular tourist attractions?

The castle was founded by William the Conqueror (c. 1067), yet work began on the stone keep in 1094 by William (Rufus) II, his son. The castle (completed 1121) was designed to be a royal palace rather than a fortification; however, no Norman kings ever lived in it. It was used as a gaol (12201887) before the city of Norwich bought it to be used as a museum (opened in 1895; now Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery).

th centuries: the Romanesque The cathedral was originally built in the style of the The 11th-12 keep of Norwich Castle also known in Britain as the Norman style; fire destruction and other incidents over the (c. 1094 1110) centuries led to restoration work being carried out in the new style: the Gothic

 1091: Herbert de Losinga (prior of Fcamp in Normandy) appointed bishop of Thetford through simony (1,000 paid to king William (Rufus) II after the death of bishop William Beaufai); 1094: Losinga transferred his see to Norwich (the urban centre of East Anglia) to build a cathedral in penance for his simony, as requested by pope Urban II royal/secular power consolidated by religious power; 1096: cathedral foundation stone laid; 1101: consecration of the East End; 1140 45: completion of theCastle cathedral; The keep of Norwich 1172: between (c.rioting 1094 1110) cathedral and city Norwich Cathedral cloisters

What do you know about Edinburgh? To what other UK or US cities would you compare it and by what criteria? What is the iconic image of Edinburgh?

Capital past and present: the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse (since 2004: the Scottish Parliament too) via St Giles Kirk/Cathedral.
Cultural city (vs. Glasgow; Leeds, Manchester): the Edinburgh Festival; the Edinburgh Festival Fringe = the largest arts festival in the world and the obsession of the media (~ New York off-off Broadway vs. Hollywood); the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo on the Castle Esplanade (August). 1997: Parliament devolution. Artistic devolution? http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/oct/24/scottish-theatreplay-independence

University city.
Tourist attraction (e.g. the Scotch Whisky Experience; Edinburgh Dungeons; the Royal Botanic Garden).
Coat of arms of the City of Edinburgh

Iconic image of Edinburgh Castle / Edinburgh

(with the Ross Fountain in west Princes Street Gardens)
With over 1,25000 visitors per year Edinburgh Castle is second only to the Tower of London as the UKs most visited tourist attraction.
(http://www.royal-mile.com/castle/castle_plan.html)

Fireworks Waterfall, part of the Fireworks Concert Fireworks marking the Concert, end of the seen Edinburgh from Princes Festival Street Gardens

Founded as a monastery in 1128, the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh is The Queens official residence in Scotland. Situated at the end of the Royal Mile, the Palace of Holyroodhouse is closely associated with Scotlands turbulent past, including Mary, Queen of Scots, who lived here between 1561 and 1567. Successive kings and queens have made the Palace of Holyroodhouse the premier royal residence in Scotland.
(http://www.royal.gov.uk/theroyalresidences/thepalaceofholyroodhouse/thepalaceofholyroodhouse.aspx)

Scotlands Edinburgh National Cathedral Parliament House

Parliament House (behind St Giles Kirk, Scottish Parliament centre of Old Town) (building 2004) Parliament House was the home of opened the Scottish Parliament until 1707

Building (19992004) located in the immediate vicinity of the Palace of Holyroodhouse; here viewed from Salisbury Crags and Arthurs Seat (with Calton Hill monument in the background centre) Nelsons Monument The National Monument of Scotland (182629), the (180715) memorial to the Scottish soldiers and sailors who died on Calton Hill fighting in the Napoleonic Wars

Queensberry House (red tiles; 17th century) between the MSP Office block at the back of the Parliament complex (extreme left) and the Tower and Canongate Buildings at the front (in the foreground), which house the debating chamber and committee rooms

Building (19992004; arch. Enric Miralles) located in the immediate vicinity of the Palace of Holyroodhouse

1 Public Entrance 2 Plaza 3 Pond 4 Press Tower 5 Debating Chamber 6 Tower one 7 Tower two 8 Tower three 9 Tower four 10 Tower five, Cannongate Bldg. 11 Main Staircase 12 MSPs Entrance 13 Lobby 14 Garden 15 Queensbery House 16 MSP building 17 Turf roof 18 Carpark and vehicular entrance 19 Landscaped park

Scottish Parliament, MSP office building: the first iconic image of Scottish Parliament Holyrood Garden Lobby Bay windows inspired by Henry Raeburns The Skating Minister (c. 1795)

The Scottish Parliament complex incorporates distinctive Scottish flourishes in each detail from thistle doorknockers to an 1815 copy of the Declaration of Arbroath, the formal document recognising Scotlands independence from England in Europe which was signed in 1324. A celebration of Scotlands literary history can be seen in the 26 quotations carved into the facade of the Canongate Building which includes well-loved pieces of poetry and quotes. During summer recess the building hosts the Festival of Politics which combines the worlds of politics, media and the arts to draw a wide variety of participants.
(http://www.edinburgh.org/see-do/free-attractions/parliament)

View of Edinburgh Castle from the Scott Monument on Princes Street: East Princes Street Gardens (in the foreground), St Marys Cathedral and the Caledonian Hotel (at the farther street end); on The Mound (in the centre): The National Gallery of Scotland & The Royal Scottish Academy (art exhibitions)

Sir Walter Scott (17711832) made a key contribution to Scottish literature and is often regarded in the east of Scotland as Scotlands most famous writer as opposed to Robert Burns, certainly there is a lot of pride in his work notably in Edinburgh and the Borders.
(http://www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk/scott_monument.htm)

architect George Meikle Kemp (d. 1844); sculptor John Steell restoration: LDN Architects location: south side of Princes Street (roughly opposite Jenners (1838))

BELFAST City Hall seen from the Belfast Eye

Belfasts giant Harland & Wolff [yellow] cranes have a new rival for skyline supremacy following the opening last month [Oct. 2007] of a 60metre-high London Eye-style big wheel. The Wheel of Belfast stands in the grounds of the landmark City Hall and looks set to become a major tourist attraction, as well as cashing in on its proximity to the citys main shopping areas as Christmas approaches.
The wheel is currently scheduled to stay until March 2008 but, with visitor numbers in its first week already said to have outstripped demand during the similar Wheel of Manchesters opening period, its likely the city council will seek to extend the necessary planning permission until the end of 2008 at least.

(Oct. 2007)

Visitors pay 6 for a 15-minute ride during which they can survey significant recent changes to the city such as the Titantic Quarter and Laganside developments, as well as longer standing natural attractions like Belfast Lough and the brooding Divis Mountain. The addition of the wheel to the cityscape marks another stage in Belfasts reinvention as a popular city break destination. Having recently been voted the second favourite UK city of Guardian, Observer and Guardian Unlimited readers, such regeneration innovations seem to be bearing fruit.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2007/nov/09/uk.belfast)

On first seeing Parliament Buildings, Stormont, I thought for a few seconds that I had landed in Bucharest, Romania, rather than in Belfast, Ireland. The architectural monstrosity, in the suburbs of Belfast, is reminiscent of the Parliament buildings in Bucharest, commissioned by Romanian Dictator Ceaucescu in the 70s when Romanias 22 million citizens were eking out a subsistence existence; even worse, in order to accommodate the ornate pile, old Nick, a notorious megalomaniac, had acres of historic buildings razed to the ground, and their habitants evicted. Does a tiny statelet like North Ireland (population 1.6 million) with high unemployment and a record percentage of its population on invalidity benefit, really need such a gigantic building to run its affairs? Delusions of grandeur? Stormont Castle (home to the Northern Ireland Executive and the Office of the Ceacescu would surely have approved ... But look what happened to him:-)
Megalomania Rules OK, posted by Proinsias1946 , Brussels, Belgium (who visited it in Feb. 2013), on http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186470-d212495-Reviews-Stormont_Castle-Belfast_Northern_Ireland.html Building normally closed to the general public.

First Minister and deputy First Minister), in the grounds of Stormont Estate

The original Belfast Castle was built by the Normans in Belfast city centre in the late 12th century. A second castle, made of stone and timber, was later constructed by Sir Arthur Chichester, Baron of Belfast, on the same site in 1611; it burned down almost 100 years later.

Belfast Castle (186270, Scottish baronial style),

located in the Cave Hill area of north Belfast

In 1862, the third Marquis of Donegall, a descendant of the Chichesters, decided to build a new castle within his deer park, situated on the side of Cave Hill in what is now north Belfast. On his death (1884), the castle and its estate passed to his son-in-law, Lord Ashley, the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. The castle remained with the Shaftesbury family until 1934, when it was presented to the City of Belfast.

The two wings of the Palm House were completed in 1840, and were built by Richard Turner of Dublin, who later built the Great Palm House at Kew Gardens.

(extension designed in 1968 by Francis Pym, so that the old building is made to fade into the new; Ulster Museum is the 2010 winner of The Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries)

London Eleanor Cross (1863 replica cross) at Charing Until a recent renovation corrected its Cross list, the Albert Memorial Clock was
Belfasts answer to Pisas leaning tower. Erected in 1865 in Gothic style to commemorate Queen Victorias consort, Prince Albert, it was tall enough at 113ft, to offer an excellent vantage point for at least one enterprising sightseer to get a birds-eye view of Titanics launch. Built on land reclaimed from the River Lagan, the Albert Clock features a statue of Prince Albert as well as ornately carved crowned lions and floral decorations. Mid-19th century Gothic revival = romantic reappraisal of the past (history & aesthetics). Clock-Belfast-P3434 Saint Albert in the iconographic tradition of Catholic saints (niched statues on cathedral west fronts) and recalling the (originally 12) Eleanor crosses that marked the resting places of Queen Eleanors (d. 1290, Harby, Nottinghamshire) funeral procession to Westminster Abbey.
http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/Albert-Memorial-

National Gallery official website London Paintings collection overview National Gallery http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/collection-overview/ (founded 1824)

London The National Gallery

Room 36: British portraits 17501800

The first paintings in the National Gallery collection came from the banker and collector John Julius Angerstein. They consisted of Italian works, including a large altarpiece by Sebastiano del Piombo, The Raising of Lazarus, and fine examples of the Dutch, Flemish and English Schools. In 1823 the landscape painter and art collector, Sir George Beaumont (1753 1827), promised his collection of pictures to the nation, on the condition that suitable accommodation could be provided for their display and conservation. The gift of the pictures was made in 1826. They went on display alongside Angersteins pictures in Pall Mall until the whole collection was moved to Trafalgar Square in 1838. Initially, the Gallery had no formal collection policy, and new pictures were acquired according to the personal tastes of the Trustees. By the 1850s the Trustees were being criticised for neglecting to purchase works of the earlier Italian Schools, then known as the Primitives. Following the reform of Gallery administration in 1855, the new Director travelled throughout Europe to purchase works for the Gallery. In the 10 years that he was Director, Sir Charles Eastlake ensured that the Gallerys collection of Italian painting expanded and widened in scope to become one of the best in the world.
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/collection-history/

In April 1824 the House of Commons agreed to pay 57,000 for the picture collection of the banker John Julius Angerstein. His 38 PICTURES WERE INTENDED TO FORM THE CORE OF A NEW NATIONAL COLLECTION, FOR THE ENJOYMENT AND EDUCATION OF ALL. The pictures were displayed at Angersteins house at 100 Pall Mall until a dedicated gallery building was constructed. The size of the building Angersteins house was compared unfavourably with other national art galleries, such as the Louvre in Paris, and ridiculed in the press. In 1831 Parliament agreed to construct a building for the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. There had been lengthy discussion about the best site for the Gallery, and Trafalgar Square was eventually chosen as it was considered to be at the very centre of London. The new building finally opened in 1838. TRAFALGAR SQUARE COULD BE REACHED BY THE RICH DRIVING IN THEIR CARRIAGES FROM THE WEST OF LONDON, AND ON FOOT BY THE POOR FROM THE EAST END. It was felt that in this location the paintings could be enjoyed by all classes in society. With a commitment to free admission, a central and accessible site, and extended opening hours the Gallery has ensured that its collection can be enjoyed by the widest public possible, and not become the exclusive preserve of the privileged. From the outset the National Gallery has been committed to education. Students have always been admitted to the Gallery to study the collection, and to make copies of the pictures. A vibrant education programme continues today for school children, students, and the general public. The programme includes free public lectures, tours and seminars.
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/about-the-building/about-the-building http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/about-the-building/about-the-building/*/viewPage/2

London The National Gallery

A Party of Working Men at the National The paintings displayed in Angersteins house (100 Pall Mall) Gallery in Trafalgar Square

[Art critic John] Ruskins critique of such degraded aesthetic pleasure [viz. the Romantic delight in the obscurity of the Old Masters palette, regarded as a form of the sublime] positions him firmly on the side of the [Victorian] sanitary commissioners, who identified and vilified the low picturesque with every exposure of urban decay, dirt, and disease. Moreover, as early as the 1840s, the improvements wrought by engineers and scientists ensured that the sanitation of sublimity had a more material and public locus than Ruskins erudite volumes of art criticism [Modern Painters]: the walls of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. By 1844, just as Ruskins distaste for the Old Masters habit of generalization was adopting sanitary discourse, the reverenced patina of age warming the surfaces of the ancient paintings was discovered to be common dirt, and public concern began to be expressed about the health of Englands national art collection. In the pages of the Times, for example, a sketch by Punch rechristened the National Gallery the Hospital for Decayed Pictures, lampooning the melancholy interest inspired by so much impending decrepitude.... Whether to answer Punchs petition, or in response to changing cultural views about cleanliness, that same year a series of paintings in the National Gallery were indeed subjected to soap and water during the long vacation under the direction of... Sir Charles Eastlake. The public took little notice of Eastlakes sanitary project until 1846, when four important paintings (among others) were cleaned during the summer months.... (Cleere 2002: 126)

In 1847, a Select Committee on the Fine Arts was formed to investigate the charges that the custodians of the National Gallery were wantonly flaying valuable old pictures in the name of art restoration.... [The former Keeper of the National Gallery, Sir Charles] Eastlake, [his current replacement, Thomas] Unwins, and a legion of experts were called upon over the next few years to testify about the process and effects of picture cleaning, and one after the other they responded, like their denouncers, with narratives of bodily health and disease. Yet rather than bestowing a fanciful corporeality upon the oil paintings in order to argue for picture cleaning as productive of aesthetic health, Eastlake and his supporters defended the process of art restoration with the scientific findings of the sanitation engineers. Citing not only the polluted atmosphere of Trafalgar Square but also the constantly circulating human effluvia of gallery patrons, the National Gallery custodians transformed an aesthetic debate about tone, color, and perspective into a battle over ventilation, contamination, and the healthfulness of public spaces. Almost immediately, the sublime brown tones, rich textures, and hazy images so celebrated by Burke, Beaumont, and Cozens became little more than dirt, and THE MAIN ANXIETY OF COMMISSIONERS AND PARLIAMENTARIANS BECAME NOT THE FLAYING OF THE NATIONAL PICTURES, BUT THE POSSIBILITY OF BUILDING A NEW NATIONAL GALLERY ON A HEALTHIER SPOT IN KENSINGTON-GORE AND LIMITING THE ACCESS OF THE DIRTIEST VISITORS. (Cleere 2002: 127)

As [Thomas] Unwins testified on 17 June 1850, the National Gallery was normally visited by more than three thousand people per day, and many of them did not come to look at the pictures: Mondays, for instance, are days when a large number of the lower class of people assemble there, and men and women bring their families of children, children in arms, and a little train of children around them and following them, and they are subject to all the little accidents that happen with children, and which are constantly visible on the floors of the place. In addition to the unclean deposits left by workingclass children, crowds of adults seeking shelter from bad weather, a pleasant place to picnic, or simply a convenient gathering spot also purportedly contaminated the National Gallery. These unruly crowds of working-class families became sites of real anxiety for commissioners when scientist Michael Faraday, a respected authority on electricity and magnetism, testified that the darkening of oil paintings could certainly be the result of the sulfurous vapours so abundant in London; moreover, that miasmata from human perspiration, saliva, and ammoniacal exhalations were absolutely capable of producing the greasy substance adhering to the surface of the Old Masters.
(Cleere 2002: 1278)

This phobia about the unhealthy and contaminative viscosity of so many working-class bodies was not confined to government blue books. The National Collection will remain exposed as long as the indiscriminate admission of the public is continued, declares C.R. Leslies 1855 Handbook for Young Painters: Why might not an office, not far from the Gallery, be established, at which tickets should only be given to those who can write their names? It may be safely affirmed that fine pictures can afford no instruction to those who cannot. In an article that appeared in the Art-Journal, German art authority Dr. Gustave Frederick Waagen agreed that the freedom of admission to London galleries was indeed too permissive. In Berlin, Waagen explained, children under ten were not admitted to the national galleries, and museum officials had the right to refuse entry to anyone whose dress or body was dirty enough to create a smell obnoxious to the other visitors. One of the most offensive practices in England, according to Waagen, was the transformation of the National Gallery into a large nursery, with wet nurses having regularly encamped with their babies for hours altogether, suckling their charges in uncomfortable proximity to the pictures. Falling like vapour upon the pictures, Waagen writes, the multiple exhalations of this class of people poses a serious impediment to art preservation.
(Cleere 2002: 128)

While the scapegoating of the working classes is the most obvious byproduct of sanitary reform in the National Gallery, the anathemization of nonwhite races is a subtler, but nonetheless significant, effect. The vocabulary in the Select Committee report casually invokes the specter of race when it repeatedly dubs the atmospheric incursion of soot within the National Gallery the admission of blacks from the smoke. But outside government blue books, this metaphor explodes into more pointed racial anxiety.... Although it is hardly unusual to find racial anxiety embedded within a variety of writings about cleanliness and health, the impetus behind picture cleaning at mid-century may have been particularly charged by general alarm over the fact that dirty pictures necessarily meant darkened human figures within pictures: white European subjects transformed by decomposition and degradation into brown-skinned entities. For Ruskin, such degradation even threatened to corrupt contemporary artists who tried to reproduce the foul browns of Titian, Caravaggio, and Spagnoletto, and he dubbed such artists the black slaves of painting. Paradoxically, cleaning the working-class dirt from the national pictures implied the restoration of racial integrity to the visual history of European culture, as well as white emancipation for the artists who traditionally learned their sense of color from dirty canvases.
(Cleere 2002: 1289)

These various threats to the purity of European art made the dirtiness of working-class visitors to the gallery a profound source of anxiety for the Fine Arts commissioners; ironically, however, the potential cleanliness of these same gallery patrons was also deeply troubling. According to the testimony of Unwins, the deposit of soot, matter, and dust upon the paintings had been exacerbated by the relatively recent construction of a set of tall chimneys located at the rear of the National Gallery: these chimneys were connected with the waterworks that powered not only the fountain in Trafalgar Square but also the public baths and washhouses that workingclass families were encouraged to use. The act of cleansing one source of contamination seemed only to create a more pernicious site of pollution, as working-class effluvia reentered the atmosphere in the guise of steamengine waste.... After the Great Exhibition of 1851, moreover, the danger of working-class effluvia and industrial exhaust was virtually lost in the greater threat of unclean foreign respiration: We had the combined ammoniacal exhalations of Russia, Austria, France, Italy, Belgium, and America condensed upon the pictures, supervening upon our own National Exhalations, trustee William Russell reported, and I think at the close of that year, the pictures became in as bad a state as it was possible for pictures to be in. (Cleere 2002: 12930)

In the context of such comprehensive xenophobia, most of the trustees concluded that the obvious solution was to move the National Gallery away from the especially polluted Trafalgar Square to a less industrialized area of London and, by implication, an area less frequented by the dirtiest classes of visitors. In his own testimony to the Select Committee in 1857, Ruskin described the destructive effects of dirt and suggested that two galleries be established: an easily accessible gallery for second-rate art and a gallery off the beaten path for fine art, making it more difficult for crowds to descend upon the pictures by accident. Yet commissioners were ultimately unwilling to abandon the goal of social perfectibility through art education that had been articulated by reformers from Prince Albert to Henry Cole and decided to retain the Trafalgar Square location for its accessibility to the fullest tide of human existence. Better ventilation for the National Gallery was recommended by the commissioners instead, as well as the use of glass to cover as many pictures as possible. (Cleere 2002: 130)

Cultural Icons: The Poetics and Politics of Power/Culture

What is/are the connection/s between CULTURAL ICONS and the ARCHITECTURE OF POWER or the POETICS & POLITICS OF POWER/CULTURE?

Arthurs Seat seen from Edinburgh centre

View of Edinburgh from Arthurs Seat (Univ. of Edinburgh Pollock Halls of Residence in the foreground at hill foot)

Edinburgh panorama from Arthurs Seat (2008)

Are the Kensal House Flats (1937), North Kensington, likely to ever become a cultural icon of London? Why (not)? Do urban sites of destitution ever become tourist attractions or cultural icons? House was commissioned by the Gas Light and Coke Company, Kensal Are tourists encouraged to visit Londons East End? initial interest was improve the design of gas-fired domestic whose Is it because or in spite ofto the BBC1 soap opera EastEnders (1985)? appliances, until [Elizabeth] Denby persuaded them to develop a Is the dialect of Londons East End a form of cultural capital? derelict industrial site in North Kensington, her main area of activity, G.B. Shaws Pygmalion (1913/1914), adapted into a successful Broadway musical, as a full-scale demonstration of modern living (Powers 2007: 67). My Fair Lady (1956, Lerner and Loewe, based on the 1938 Pygmalion film), and then film (1964, dir. George Cukor), shows precisely the clash between the upper class accent and ordinary Londoners cockney.

Are you familiar with Michel de Certeaus phrase and the very practice of walking in the city in recent times? An interest in walking in the city to explore its hidden past or (fictional) potential has been shown by a spate of artists and writers, concerning Britain alone by British film-maker Patrick Keillor (London, 1993), British writers Peter Ackroyd (e.g. The Great Fire of London, 1982; Hawksmoor, 1985; The Clerkenwell Tales, 2003; The Lambs of London, 2004) and Iain Sinclair (e.g. poem Lud Heat, 1975; Lights Out for the Territory, 1997; non-fiction London Orbital, 2002; non-fiction Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project, 2011), and Canadian installation artist Janet Cardiff (e.g. audio walk / Artangel CD The Missing Voice (Case Study B), 1999). David Pinder has studied how artists and cultural practitioners [of expeditionary practices] have recently been using forms of urban exploration as a means of engaging with, and intervening in, cities ... within the wider context of critical approaches to urban space which take it seriously as a sensuous realm that is imagined, lived, performed and contested (Pinder 2005: 385), some of which take place under the banner of psychogeography (386), although no longer in its original situationist sense. Recently, various artists performances (largo sensu) have been critiquing the privatization of public space and the associated passivization of city dwellers and attempt to, through example, create a participatory model for citizens to take part in the physical and social structure of the environment we live in (Swoon Union [Brooklyn-based artist collective, now Toyshop], qtd. in Pinder 2005: 385).

Canadian artist Janet Cardiffs The Missing Voice (Case Study B) is a 40-minute audio walk (Artangel CD, 1999) which actively engages the audience in an aurallyguided experience of Londons East End. From its starting-point at Whitechapel Library it [Janet Cardiffs voice on the CD] remains your guide for the next 40 minutes as you trace paths through east London. The steps that make up this solitary walking tour are simultaneously real and imagined. The voice locates you within a fictionalized realm with characters and routes that are articulated through the spaces of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, with stories that intersect with other stories, and that take form through your own experiences, thoughts and memories as you wander the streets. The artwork literally takes place in the streets, finding its meaning through its embodied enaction. In effect it is performed or co-created by participants. It is the very condition of the city to be plural with a multiplicity of stories, an inexhaustability [sic] of narratives, peopled with strangers and difference. Here the stories are elusive and fragmentary; thoughts and perceptions shift, threads and clues are hinted at, dropped, circled round and pursued. Your senses are heightened. The atmosphere remains taut and compelling as the walk unfolds with much that is reminiscent of detective fiction and film noir. There is indeed a sense of participating in a book or a film as you are caught up in the narrative, both aware of its fabrication (with its directions, intercutting voices and bursts of music) and at the same time immersed within the space-between it creates (between fiction and reality as the sounds merge with those around you, and you are on this pavement with these buildings, these people and these passers-by). (Pinder 2001: 23)

What do you associate Londons East End (Whitechapel and Spitalfields) with? Jack the Ripper: murders (1880s) still not elucidated Dickens novels on London squalor and destitution Peter Ackroyds novel Hawksmoor (1985) As an international city, London is celebrated for its diversity in population. The East End has always been recognised for the wealth of cultures represented. Spitalfields served as a microcosm of this polyglot society, the melting pot fusion of east and west. Historically, it has played host to a transient community primarily for new immigrants.... At the end of 2005, after 18 years of sensitive preparation, the Spitalfields regeneration programme was completed. This regeneration has resulted in the creation of two new public spaces, Bishops Square and Crispin Place, a public art programme, an events programme, the restoration of several historic streets in E1 and a selection of carefully selected independent retailers and restaurants. A visitor to the market today will find designers / makers and artists selling fashions, homewares and accessories or a treasure trove of vintage and antique clothing, furniture and other wondrous oddments!
(http://www.spitalfields.co.uk/about_history.php)

Spitalfields public art Eleonora Aguiari, Red Church

Eleonora Aguiaris work addresses the concepts of church and temple. On first visiting Spitalfields, she was struck by the dramatic facade of Hawksmoors church: its strong presence, its distance, silence and purity. Her own church plays with the Hawksmoor original and, in using the colour red, she has created a contrast with its white facade, and a dialogue between the ideas of purity and passion. (http://www.spitalfields.co.uk/about_art.php)

Kenny Hunter, I Goat (2011)

Ali Grant, A Pear and a Fig

COLLECTIONS GALLERY

Project cross section

Cleere, Eileen. 2002. Dirty Pictures: John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Victorian Sanitation of Fine Art. Representations 78 (Spring): 11639.
De Certeau, Michel. 1984. Walking in the City. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 91110. Newland, Paul. 2008. The Cultural Construction of Londons East End: Urban Iconography, Modernity and the Spatialisation of Englishness. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Pinder, David. 2001. Ghostly Footsteps: Voices, Memories and Walks in the City. Ecumene 8.1: 119. Pinder, David. 2005. Arts of Urban Exploration. Cultural Geographies 12: 383411. Powers, Alan. 2007. Britain. Modern Architectures in History series. London: Reaktion.