The Good, the Bad and the Unbuilt: Handling the Heritage of the Recent Past 9781407309491, 9781407339306

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UNBUILT: HANDLING THE HERITAGE OF THE RECENT PAST
CHAPTER 1: NULL AND VOID: THE PALACE OF THE REPUBLIC, BERLIN
CHAPTER 2: THE HERITAGE OF A METAPHOR: ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF THE IRON CURTAIN
CHAPTER 3: TITANIC QUARTER: CREATING A NEW HERITAGE PLACE
CHAPTER 4: THE AQUATIC APE AND THE RECTANGULAR PIT: PERCEIVING THE ARCHAEOLOGY AND VALUE OF A RECREATIONAL LANDSCAPE
CHAPTER 5: ATTITUDES TO LONDON’S HERITAGE: INTERPRETING THE SIGNS
CHAPTER 6: WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME: A GUIDED TOUR OF POP HERITAGE SITES IN LONDON’S WEST END
CHAPTER 7: CONTEMPORARY PLACES AND CHANGE: LINCOLN TOWNSCAPE ASSESSMENT
CHAPTER 8: REVOLUTIONARY ARCHAEOLOGY OR THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF REVOLUTION? LANDLORD VILLAGES OF THE TEHRAN PLAIN
CHAPTER 9: JUSTIFYING MIDCENTURY TRASH: CONSUMER CULTURE OF THE RECENT PAST AND THE HERITAGE DILEMMA
CHAPTER 10: MOTORWAYS, MODERN HERITAGE AND THE BRITISH LANDSCAPE
CHAPTER 11: LIBERATING MATERIAL HERITAGE
CHAPTER 12: UNBUILT HERITAGE: CONCEPTUALISING ABSENCES IN THE HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT

Citation preview

BAR S2362 2012

Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology 7

MAY, ORANGE & PENROSE (Eds)

The Good, the Bad and the Unbuilt: Handling the Heritage of the Recent Past Edited by

Sarah May Hilary Orange Sefryn Penrose

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UNBUILT

B A R

BAR International Series 2362 2012

Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology 7

The Good, the Bad and the Unbuilt: Handling the Heritage of the Recent Past Edited by

Sarah May Hilary Orange Sefryn Penrose

BAR International Series 2362 2012

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 2362 Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology 7 The Good, the Bad and the Unbuilt: Handling the Heritage of the Recent Past © The editors and contributors severally and the Publisher 2012 COVER IMAGE Sandford Parks Lido, Cheltenham. © Jeremy Lake The authors' moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 9781407309491 paperback ISBN 9781407339306 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407309491 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2012. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

BAR PUBLISHING BAR titles are available from:

E MAIL P HONE F AX

BAR Publishing 122 Banbury Rd, Oxford, OX2 7BP, UK [email protected] +44 (0)1865 310431 +44 (0)1865 316916 www.barpublishing.com

Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology is a new series of edited and single-authored volumes intended to make available current work on the archaeology of the recent and contemporary past. The series brings together contributions from academic historical archaeologists, professional archaeologists and practitioners from cognate disciplines who are engaged with archaeological material and practices. The series will include work from traditions of historical and contemporary archaeology, and material culture studies, from Europe, North America, Australia and elsewhere around the world. It will promote innovative and creative approaches to later historical archaeology, showcasing this increasingly vibrant and global field through extended and theoretically engaged case studies. Proposals are invited from emerging and established scholars interested in publishing in or editing for the series. Further details are available from the series editors: Email [email protected] or [email protected] This, the seventh volume in the series, brings together papers from the sixth CHAT conference, held at UCL on the theme of ‘Heritage’. This volume brings together a terrific collection of papers, which capture the energy of the London meeting: from the Kirsty McColl bench in Soho Square to the Sandford Parks Lido in Cheltenham Spa; from the Palast der Republik in Berlin to the Luton to Rugby section of the M1 motorway; from landlord villages on the Tehran Plain, Iran to what Gavbe Moshenska calls ‘unbuilt heritage’ in Finsbury. The fresh ideas, the new voices, and the good humour that have always characterized CHAT conferences are brought to bear here on archaeological approaches to heritage: with some terrific results. Taken together, the papers are a timely reminder that archaeological heritage is never purely immaterial, only sociological, or (to borrow a phrase) merely cultural, in character. Instead, archaeologists thinking through the idea of the modern as heritage leads not to an extension of preservationism – more to save, more to protect, yet more to put into stasis – but in quite the opposite direction: towards a recognition of the material remains of the modern period, and their potential as resources for living in our contemporary world. In this spirit, Sarah May, Hilary Orange and Sefryn Penrose, and their contributors, remind us with this volume of the liveliness of contemporary debates over the idea of ‘modern heritage’. Dan Hicks (University of Oxford) and Joshua Pollard (University of Southampton) Series Editors

Table of Contents Introduction The Good, the Bad and the Unbuilt: Handling the Heritage of the Recent Past Sarah May, Hilary Orange and Sefryn Penrose Chapter 1 Null and Void: the Palace of the Republic, Berlin Caroline A. Sandes Chapter 2 The Heritage of a Metaphor: Archaeological Investigations of the Iron Curtain Anna McWilliams Chapter 3 Titanic Quarter: Creating a New Heritage Place Mary-Cate Garden Chapter 4 The Aquatic Ape and the Rectangular Pit: Perceiving the Archaeology and Value of a Recreational Landscape Jeremy Lake Chapter 5 Attitudes to London’s Heritage: Interpreting the Signs David Gordon Chapter 6 Where the Streets Have no Name: a Guided Tour of Pop Heritage Sites in London’s West End Paul Graves-Brown Chapter 7 Contemporary Places and Change: Lincoln Townscape Assessment David Walsh and Adam Partington Chapter 8 Revolutionary Archaeology or the Archaeology of Revolution? Landlord Villages of the Tehran Plain Hassan Fazeli and Ruth Young Chapter 9 Justifying Midcentury Trash: Consumer Culture of the Recent Past and The Heritage Dilemma Jessica Merizan Chapter 10 Motorways, Modern Heritage and the British Landscape Peter Merriman Chapter 11 Liberating Material Heritage Elizabeth Pye Chapter 12 Unbuilt Heritage: Conceptualising Absences in the Historic Environment Gabriel Moshenska

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Introduction The Good, the Bad and the Unbuilt: Handling the Heritage of the Recent Past Sarah May, Hilary Orange and Sefryn Penrose

Background to the 2008 Heritage CHAT conference

in developing theories and methodologies. Compromise because sometimes philosophies and approaches were at odds; or because as a relatively young field contemporary archaeology was still trying to find its feet and was having to defend its space; or because the methodologies honed for established field practices were not always easily transferred to the ephemeral, enormous, or energetic sites and histories of the recent past. Confusing because heritage practitioners and academic archaeologists, and likewise, heritage academics and practicing archaeologists, were not always working to the same ends.

The 2008 Heritage CHAT conference was the sixth annual meeting of the CHAT group and the first to be dedicated to the complex theme of ‘heritage’. Co-organised by representatives of a large university (UCL), a commercial consultancy (Atkins Heritage) and a national heritage body (English Heritage) the aim of the conference was to explore connections and differences: connections between the theoretical perspectives propounded by the CHAT group and those who found themselves working in the field of the recent past; differences between the ideals of CHAT and the more traditional concerns of conventional heritage management practice.

In considering heritage within global and local contexts Heritage CHAT enabled critical reflection on practice and theory; on purpose and relevance; on the innovative and the traditional; and on the notion of heritage itself. Since CHAT stands for ‘Contemporary and Historical Archaeological Theory’, it is worth considering the relationship between archaeology and heritage. Archaeology uses material culture to understand the societies that created it while heritage uses material culture for the benefit of contemporary society. Heritage, therefore, has responsibility for the management of material culture and needs to make decisions about use, preservation, representation and destruction. But, of course, heritage draws on many other disciplines apart from archaeology and some of those, such as architectural history, have long engaged with the contemporary world (see, for example, Croft and Harwood 1999). Architectural history concerns itself with the iconic, the best example of a body of work, and is focussed often on examples of technical dexterity, and is steeped in a tradition of connoisseurship whereas archaeology traditionally has concerned itself with the ordinary and the everyday.

Heritage CHAT took place over the weekend of 12 to 14 November 2008 and drew together an unusually diverse group from a number of countries including Spain, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, the USA, Germany, Ireland and Iran. Two months earlier, the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers had thrown the global financial sector into a panic (Duncan 2008), however, the fall-out of what would become a global crisis was threatening, but still indistinct. At the time of writing, the murky threats of 2008 are now tangible in the shape of considerable cuts to organisations and institutions – public and private – leading to redundancies and cuts to services and facilities (Guardian 2011). The coalition government is attempting to rebuild the economy through a marketled approach alongside a policy to build the ‘Big Society’ with an emphasis on voluntary and community groups leading projects (Cabinet Office 2010). In consequence organisations and individuals working within the heritage sector are experiencing difficult presents and uncertain futures.

What has archaeology and indeed archaeological theory to add to this work? The papers at the conference pointed to a difference in focus. In looking at the heritage of the contemporary world the line between archaeology and heritage blurred. In presenting extraordinary engagements with the ordinary, and quirky and adventurous approaches, Heritage CHAT celebrated the impermanence and mess that so often surrounds the study of the recent past. The papers also recognised the importance and value of sites

Looking back, the conference was held at the end of a period of some confidence and optimism, with UK public spending contributing to innovative projects and public interest in the recent past. Despite such optimism and celebration CHAT 2008 was also a time of confusion and compromise as contemporary archaeology and heritage, as emergent sub-disciplines within their broader fields, were involved

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Papers from the 2008 CHAT Conference

and things that may otherwise be left unstudied. It was, perhaps, the antithesis, even antidote, to the top-100 school of heritage, or investigations of proud pasts which are so often the domain of heritage practice. This tension between the ‘monumental and the trace’ pervades heritage practice (Joyce 2006) and drew us toward questions of power, questions which permeated many of the presentations and discussions at CHAT. Furthermore, many of the contributors at the 2008 conference offered a self-reflexive perspective that encouraged consideration of the decisions we make about using material culture as evidence to better understand different societies and what emerged from the papers at Heritage CHAT amounted to an archaeology of the way heritage practice is enacted. In so doing it questioned the received wisdom of protection-based approaches to heritage, which continue to grow in strength in Britain today.

(LBEs). As well as traditional presentations, delegates were invited to take part in tours across the capital guided by fellow delegates, to provide an experiential level which, we hoped, would enrich the conference. We distinguished these from traditional conference excursions – they were intended to be contributions to the conference in parallel with the internal papers. There were, of course, a few logistical problems in organising the LBEs. The light, temperature and opening hours of sites in London in mid-November did not provide perfect conditions for outdoor excursions. Indeed, the city seemed to act against us in other ways, with delegates – many of whom were in town for a weekend only – distracted by its other delights or troubled by travel times. However, a number of LBEs went ahead, providing glimpses into changing London. In the West End, Paul Graves-Brown led a street-tour themed around the pop history of Soho (Where the streets have no name: Pop music and heritage) which illustrated the ways in which musical heritage, as ‘low’ culture, is commemorated. Over in the East End, Nigel Jeffries (Visiting and revisiting, what is ‘the East End’? A walking tour of Spitalfields) mixed understandings derived from excavations with those from history and, indeed, urban mythology. Further east still, Emma Dwyer (Art and archaeology on an Olympian scale) took conference delegates on a journey along the perimeter of the Olympic park, at that time a vast swathe of partially contaminated and occasionally contested land, and asked questions about heritage and place-making. In the streets surrounding the conference venue Gabriel Moshenska provided a tour of the bomb sites of Bloomsbury (Bombsite Bloomsbury: Traces of war and peace in an urban landscape) from 19th century Irish Republican bombings, through the Blitz, to recent terrorist attacks - which recontextualised the environment of the conference itself. Ultimately, the LBEs provided a level of engagement in context that is usually absent from conferences and one that deepened the conference experience when delegates returned indoors. They were certainly activities that would enhance any CHAT conference, but perhaps a broader shift in perspective is necessary for site-based events to have an equal partnership with papers within the conference structure.

CHAT also has a history of allowing new voices and positions to be heard, sometimes discordant, often challenging, but almost always engaging. Exploring these tensions within the conference enabled, and sometimes forced, the consideration of differing positions. It also offered imaginative and alternative approaches: an escape from doctrinal orthodoxies as exercised in heritage, archaeology and architectural historical practices. Directions which were noted by UCL Institute of Archaeology Director, Stephen Shennan in his welcome to the conference: I am pleased to welcome you all to the 2008 CHAT conference on ‘Heritage’. It is our hope that this conference will present an illuminating weekend of papers and site-based events throughout London. It is refreshing to see CHAT establishing itself as a key player in its niche: a smaller plenary conference combining theory and practice aimed at seasoned practitioners as well as students and early-career professionals. Having been involved in TAG’s earliest days, CHAT seems a little like that: fresh and new, vibrant, interesting and socially aware (Shennan 2008). Conference structure

CHAT publication

Previous CHAT conferences championed the use of unusual presentation styles and media advocating a broader and more innovative approach to methods and presentation (Holtorf and Piccini 2009; McAtackney et al. 2007). Much of the Heritage CHAT conference followed a traditional approach to the presentation of papers – inside, in a lecture theatre, with standard audio-visual equipment. However, since heritage is something that ‘happens’ in the world, and not in a lecture theatre, we decided to take part of the conference outside. Extending the conference boundaries to the city seemed apt and timely. London is one of the world’s great mercantile and cultural cities and was at the time undergoing a boom period of development. Included in our call for papers was a call for ‘location-based engagements’

The presencing of the conference in the city raised other questions. How do you transfer the LBEs, experiential by nature, onto the page? How is it possible to convey some of the more adventurous trips into the recent past that CHAT invariably offers? Most of our LBE presenters chose not to, but in his hybrid ‘photo-story-tour’ included in this volume Paul Graves-Brown’s foray into Soho’s musical heritage has successfully made the transition. The other adventurous trips into the recent past remain there, to be recovered by memory. This volume is therefore only a partial reflection of the diversity and activity of CHAT 2008. Perhaps that is illustrative of a more general problem in the emergence of contemporary heritage and archaeology in academic study.

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Sarah May, Hilary Orange and Sefryn Penrose: The Good, the Bad and the Unbuilt

The CHAT group advocates contemporary archaeology as being important and valuable, even necessary, however, only a few of us have - perhaps due to those same longevolved traditions of the academy, or the constraints of the commercial environment - embedded ourselves in longterm field study that is publishable in traditional formats.

a proclaimed objectivity, or multivocality to reflect what it finds, rather than use it (Bowdler 2010; Smith 2004; 2006). The question ‘what is good?’ (and its implied flipside ‘what is bad?’) is addressed by Sandes in the first paper within the volume. Sandes critically discusses the planning decisions which led to the demolition of the Palast der Republik (the seat of Parliament of the former German Democratic Republic) in Berlin and she questions ideology as an explicit factor in the planning decisions before concluding that the decision to demolish was wrong. The paper illustrates the dilemmas and frustrations that heritage professionals can face when the binary opposition of preservation/demolition collapses the multi-vocal discourse of post-processual theory. Sandes also demonstrates that there is an ignorance of the relevance and significance of the place of material of the recent past, especially when contested. Whilst archaeology does not operate under a moral framework in advising on planning it can align itself with ideological positions (Trigger 1984).

If CHAT is primarily about discussion and diversity why then have we chosen to publish these papers at all? Firstly, from an academic perspective, the field-based nature of these papers adds to the growing body of work concerning the recent past (Buchli and Lucas 2001; Graves-Brown 2000; Harrison and Schofield 2010; Penrose 2007) and like the conference itself, the publication ameliorates the isolation that those of us who work on recent past heritage can sometimes feel. Publication, therefore, bolsters the subdiscipline and is essential to its maturity and its acceptance. Secondly, and from a professional perspective, many of the papers herein have emerged from heritage practice. The world of commercial heritage needs to be broadly engaging and engaged within the setting and driving of the heritage agenda. This is perhaps even more imperative given the current economic situation in which commercial heritage practice is in danger of being severely curtailed or, following Planning Policy Statement 5 (PPS5), limited to the protection of heritage assets that are considered of particular, in the language of the government’s guidance on protecting and enhancing the significance of the historic environment, ‘archaeological’, ‘architectural’, ‘historic’ or ‘aesthetic’ interest (DCLG 2010). There needs to be broad discussions and experimental programmes of heritage engagement with all kinds of forms – whether of particular interest, or merely mundane – that aim to draw out innovating practice and allow us to understand the past and our surroundings in new ways.

McWilliams also focuses on the embodiment of ideology in a thing and in a place, in this case a barrier: the Iron Curtain. Whilst readers may be familiar with its manifestation in Berlin, and in other areas where it has somehow become more noticeable, here McWilliams presents another face of the boundary. Its more fragmentary material remains on the Italian-Slovenian border. In this paper a prevailing concern with the physical and the ephemeral is reflected in the idea of place, where preconceived and received conceptions of impermeable borders may be shown by archaeological remains to have been more liminal. The absurdity of the border is highlighted – split lanes, yards and towns – and a sense of the comical emerges. But equally, she presents an archaeology of fear, based on perceptions of threat, and where threat has lingered on, even, as she shows in the case of Austria, into this millennium. She demonstrates how hard it is to make sense of the politics of the recent past and how quickly changes in ideology can alter fabric and vice versa. Her work also suggests possibilities for research on liminal borderlands and has clear resonance for studies of other borders that still divide communities.

The papers within this volume Most of the papers in this volume are case studies of particular heritage sites or circumstances and are not more general theoretical explorations, although the latter did emerge in the conference itself. Broadly speaking, these case studies present a devalourised view of the past drawing on a broad range of sites, in which the whiggish notion of history is broken down in creative examinations and reimaginings, but also in comprehensive and critical analyses of how the ‘heritage’ of sites has been used, reused and imagined. What these case studies collectively do is to give attention and respect to the concrete, and often overlooked, aspects of the contemporary material world, thereby enacting the concerns that have recently been brought forward by theorists (Harrison and Schofield 2010, Hicks and Beaudry 2006, Hicks 2003). The case studies hint at an ongoing tension between archaeology and heritage where heritage uses the material of the past to make arguments that are durable, that ‘make places’, often by privileging a particular narrative, contributing to a particular ‘future’ of a place; while archaeology aims in

Garden’s investigation of the redevelopment of the docks on Queen’s Island, Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the Titanic liner was built, picks up the desire to create a singular narrative of an ‘event’ and in turn a singular narrative of place. By considering the site holistically she shows how ‘heritage’ is in the process of being created on Queen’s Island through a selective manipulation of the site’s past resulting in, she warns, a lack of cohesion when ‘big’ equals ‘good’. Importantly, she argues that as the site’s interpretation becomes more polished the archaeology becomes less readable. The paper is an important reflection on development during the boom-time ‘Noughties’ and adds to the ongoing debates concerning heritage and the creation of re-imagined pasts. It also provides an apt reminder, as noted above, that archaeology of the recent past is messy

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move on and trends change. In recording this movement and fixity he shows that we are also recording the aura of place and fixing ephemerality. Echoing Gordon, GravesBrown touches on the plaque debate and thereby highlights the arbitrary standards by which heritage status is achieved. As physical traces of Soho’s swinging musical movements decay, its musical past remains fixed in the ad-hoc plaques and other official and unofficial memorials.

and that mess can provide difficult territory for heritage practitioners, councils and developers alike. Where Sandes, McWilliams and Garden address the divisions and losses that investigations into the recent past so often recall for us, Lake turns a playful and enthusiastic archaeological gaze on a common embodied practice (swimming) and those places built especially for its practice. Whilst the practice of swimming might today be taken for granted, Lake reminds us that its popularity, and state provision for it, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Through an integrated landscape approach he successfully demonstrates the importance of looking at people’s engagement with and experience of contemporary material, in this case a town lido. A regular complaint levelled at heritage management practitioners is that the research underlying decision making is not always shared, and here, Lake demonstrates the real theoretical dividends that can come from dissemination of integrated research. This work shows how research and a community complement one another and breaks down implied boundaries between researchers and communities, with an outcome that inverts Sandes’ theme of loss.

Whilst Graves-Brown focuses on the character of a rapidly changing urban district Walsh and Partington consider the character of the residential suburbs of Lincoln. Focusing on Lincoln City Council’s Lincoln Townscape Assessment (LTA) (a version of which is being widely applied in townscape planning and enhancement) Walsh and Partington illustrate the intersection of heritage and planning. It highlights the nuances that exist in areas that are generally perceived to be homogeneous but also details the correlation between planning and everyday domestic desires. They bring to the fore the idiosyncrasies of daily life, the ways in which suburban places evolve as people inhabit them, and how planning has responded. Residents enter their houses from where they park their cars; the identical houses that once reflected the pursuit of equality and then lack of developer imaginations have given way to estates of many vernacular influences. Walsh and Partington’s important study highlights how we ignore the mundane at our peril, and argue that as much care and thought should be put into the assessment and planning of residential suburbs as historic buildings and town centres.

Gordon, meanwhile, turns an indirect archaeological gaze towards heritage sites in London by looking at their ‘heritage’ signs. He treats the signage (the product of heritage practice) as an archaeological assemblage in its own right, and examines the changing official attitudes towards signage and, therefore, the heritage sites showing how the material culture of heritage is a significant component of 20th century assemblages. Gordon does not allow himself to become entangled in the presentation of sites themselves or in the institutional processes involved although his nostalgia for the post-war ‘Ministry of Works’ signs points to the pleasure (and again the experience) of ‘discovery’ and suggests how experience can be flattened by an excess of information. He also hints at digital methods of marking and displaying and he asks subtle and not so subtle questions about accessibility, poignant in a city like London where so much remains inaccessible, either through restrictions of ownership or ability. The paper also illustrates the challenges of working in a commercial world where a business case must be made for creating new signs.

Fazeli and Young ask, at a site that perfectly demonstrates the delicacy of ordinary places, is this heritage? Working in Iran, and researching the landlord villages of the Tehran Plain, their study carves a space for domestic heritage in a country which can boast some of the most spectacular and monumental archaeological sites in the world. Utilising a range of archaeological methods to study villages which were the dominant domestic form of pre-revolutionary Iran their work provides an example of how common archaeological practices applied to the recent past can provide subaltern representation, and the ideological charge associated with such studies raises questions for archaeology of all periods. Their data is combined with oral testimony, and in documenting the intricacies of life in the villages they reveal the surprising levels of affection and nostalgia that former inhabitants feel towards village life. Fazeli and Young demonstrate how archaeology can puncture polarised representations derived from written sources.

Graves-Brown focuses on the modern heritage of an ‘underground’ movement - the ever-evolving trends of pop music – in a swiftly changing city. The paper discusses a Bohemian Soho which is not so recognisable today – the streets where Marianne Faithful once slept rough are now gentrified, controlled by strict planning and council environmental orders. The paper shows a different Soho, one which is about people and place – not just the celebrities but also musicians, groupies, producers and promoters. Graves-Brown explores the sometimes uneasy juxtaposition between legends and heritage(s), the transient and the fixed. As one of the conference’s LBEs, the paper is structured through movement but not just how we might walk through that Soho landscape but also how bands regroup, clubs

In another paper which subverts the concept of heritage as being concerned primarily with monumental architectural remains, Merizan examines the materiality of cowboy culture in California. Merizan looks at the ways in which different strands of evidence privilege different heritages. The heritage of mid-20th century America celebrated an earlier ‘cowboy’ heritage, and in her study of this period’s material, she shows how heritage legislation continues

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Sarah May, Hilary Orange and Sefryn Penrose: The Good, the Bad and the Unbuilt

and competing stand-points combined to deny their construction. In practice, the archaeology of the modern is confronted by these gaping absences – real, imagined, built or unbuilt. Their scale and profusion is often hard to fathom and their closeness in time is as eerily alien as it is resonant. Moshenksa asks how heritage practitioners should address these absences and in doing so suggests a challenge to the preservationist stance. He suggests that sites such as these provide platforms with which to build on experimental and interdisciplinary work, in engagements with artists, other disciplines, with the public, and also within archaeology, with the practice of prehistoric archaeology. Ultimately he points towards an archaeology of intuition and absences.

to favour the powerful. Merizan eloquently presents the case for examining assemblages representing the traces of less visible groups. In unpicking the inter-generational complexities of life in the ranch house she also considers gender and power in this pseudo-heroic frame. In reference to the use of the material within teaching collections, she also demonstrates the useful traces that often sit within collections that are deemed insignificant, and the value of a second look. With Merriman, we return to the monumental – the architecture and infrastructure of Britain’s motorway network. Of all the sites considered in this volume, it is perhaps the recognition of the M1 as a heritage site that has encouraged a reconsideration of heritage values in respect to the recent civilian past. Some of the top engineers and designers of the 1950s worked on motorway architecture, like many other monumental engineering projects, and Merriman discusses the critical reception of the motorway’s physical form at its inception, as well as how public perceptions of motorways have changed, and the ways in which such sites were and are held in public esteem. Like the demolished Palast der Republik, Merriman’s case study illustrates that heritage management is not necessarily best represented by preservation. Merriman draws our attention to the fact that motorways will be altered and suggests that other ways of managing these sites need to be developed.

Conclusion The papers in this volume bring out a number of tensions alive within heritage practice today. We have become accustomed to a monumental heritage – embodied power within the structures of government perhaps – and monumental heritage is present throughout the volume, but often in a tense juxtaposition with the trace. The papers also make clear how power moves and changes and is never as static as its form may suggest: something as dogmatically strong as the Palast der Republik becomes as abject as a mid-20th century Californian shoe (Sandes, Merizan; this volume). As Merriman discusses, the M1 has lost its monumentality in our imaginations, and is effectively ‘just’ a road from A to B, but alterations to it have if anything, increased its size and span. Conversely, the Iron Curtain, immovably ingrained, and intrinsically associated, even memorialised, in some areas, has proved itself ephemeral in others, and in a few more years may have disappeared from memory and the ground (McWilliams). Graves-Brown’s Soho tour approaches this theme from another angle: here, we are left with the work of art and its medium, but even the traces have vanished, yet Soho is still a place of mystical, musical awe for every new generation of Londoners. For Moshenska, monumentality and the vanishingly trace are finally married, for it is the memory of the absence of enormous deep shelters that inspires a counterfactual archaeology which, Moshenska argues, holds potential for development of the discipline of archaeology, but also potential to lift the discipline into an important sociopolitical role.

Questions of managing change are not just applicable to the monumental scale of the M1. Pye’s exploration of touch and handling in museum collections brings the scale down to that of the artefact, in this case the hand-held basket. She does not restrict herself to material of any given period. Like Gordon she invites us to consider our own use and engagement with heritage as part of the story. Traditional views of conservation and stewardship have attempted to stop time at the point of entry to the museum whereas Pye encourages us to see the museum as part of life, responsive to the needs of all visitors and enabling rich understandings derived from collections. This democratising theme is strong in all the papers in this volume. While some of our contributors have argued for the inclusion of nonelite material in the definition of heritage, Pye argues for full access to the whole range of collections, not just those considered uninteresting enough to be designated ‘handling’. The relationship between value, accessibility and change bears further investigation. The fear of loss and damage should not override the benefits of an engaged management of heritage.

The heritage discussed in these papers has often become so heavily imbued in particular narratives that its fabric is seen to be representative of them. We might consider some of these representations as cautionary tales: Garden’s exploration of the Titanic Quarter shows how using heritage to ‘make place’ can as easily end up making place illegible, while Fazeli and Young’s archaeology highlighted discrepancies in many narrative accounts. Pye’s argument for universal handling causes us to question apparently forward-thinking museum policies. Many of these papers have a self-reflective gaze. Our training as archaeologists or heritage professionals has given us the tools to reflect on the way we have worked. Gordon’s analysis of London’s

For Moshenska, the issue is handling heritage that is not there, and never has been. Moshenska, like McWilliams, addresses issues of ephemerality and division. Archival evidence of plans for deep air raid shelters in London is the only materialisation of a scheme that could have saved thousands of civilian lives in wartime London. As with Merriman’s motorway designs, leading architects were involved in the production of air raid shelter design and production, however, in this case political manoeuvring

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heritage signs reflects on, more-or-less, a century of interpretation and Gordon’s own nostalgia for the era of exploration gives us pause to reflect on our own subjectivity and susceptibility to our heritage environments. Similarly, Garden’s critique of masterplanning at work is little short of an expose of how heritage was used in the first decade of the 21st century, not necessarily for its own good. Lake’s weaving of the history of swimming and it pleasure into his account of the pool’s protection and management, and Walsh and Partington’s work on Lincoln’s housing stock perhaps go furthest to provide waymarks for good heritage practice, its accountability and its fundamental usefulness.

Century Buildings; new rules for the Modern Movement and after, pp. 157- 172 in G. Chitty and D. Baker (eds) Managing Historic Sites and Buildings: reconciling presentation and preservation Routledge, London. Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). 2010 Planning Policy Statement 5: Planning for the Historic Environment http://www.communities.gov. uk/publications/planningandbuilding/pps5 [accessed 23 April 2011]. Duncan, G. 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse sends shockwave round world. The Times Online .16 September 2008 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/ tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/ article4761892.ece [accessed 23 April 2011]. Graves-Brown, P. (ed.). 2000 Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture. Routledge, London. Guardian 2011 Public sector cuts. http://www.guardian. co.uk/society/public-sector-cuts [accessed 23 April 2011]. Harrison, R. and Schofield, J. 2010 After Modernity: Archaeological Approaches to the Recent Past. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hicks, D. and Beaudry, M. (eds). 2006 The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Hicks, D. 2003 Archaeology Unfolding: Diversity and the Loss of Isolation Oxford Journal of Archaeology 22, pp. 315–329. Holtorf, C. and Piccini, A. 2009 Contemporary Archaeologies: Excavating Now Peter Lang: Frankfurt/ Main. McAtackney, L. Palus, M. and Piccini, A. (eds) 2007 Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory: Papers from the 2003 and 2004 CHAT conferences. BAR Publishing, Oxford. Joyce, R. 2006 The monumental and the trace: Archaeological conservation and the materiality of the past. . pp. 13-18 in N. Agnew and J. Bridgeland (eds.) Of the Past, For the Future: Integrating Archaeology and Conservation Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles. Penrose, S. 2007 Images of Change English Heritage, Swindon. Shennan, S. 2008 Introduction to conference booklet. CHAT 2008. UCL: London. Smith, L. 2004 Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage Routledge, London. Smith, L. 2006 Uses of Heritage Routledge, Abingdon. Trigger, B. 1984 Alternative Archaeologies: Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist Man 19 pp. 355-370.

The papers of the CHAT 2008 conference reflect the dynamic experience of working in heritage, and the way we respond to sites and objects professionally, personally, objectively, subjectively. They demonstrate the real value that archaeological theory brings to the study of contemporary heritage. We need to consider the heritage of the recent past as more than a record of architectural achievement, and here the tools associated with the archaeologist’s work, and the perceptive and multidisciplinary approach of the heritage professional offer a different standpoint(s). Archaeology does not always make itself relevant to the social study of the modern world but the papers in this volume indicate the wealth of insights to be garnered when archaeology steps out of its disciplinary straight-jacket. This volume allows the papers of CHAT 2008 to be read at a point where reflection on the way we have worked is perhaps key to planning for the way we will work. Heritage work so often requires us to find a story, and perhaps the story here is that there are often too many fragments and traces to pursue a monumental truth, and there is often too much complexity to reach holistic conclusions, but through careful and considered analysis and thought, we are able to make the heritage of the recent past relevant to the future. References Bowdler, R. 2010 The heritage values of inherited infrastructure Conservation Bulletin 65 pp. 13-16. Buchli, V. and Lucas, G. (eds) 2001 Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past Routledge, London. Cabinet Office 2010 Government puts Big Society at heart of public sector reform. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ news/big-society-heart-public-sector-reform [accessed 23 April 2011]. Croft, C. and Harwood, E. 1999 Conservation of Twentieth

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Chapter 1 Null and Void: the Palace of the Republic, Berlin Caroline A. Sandes

Introduction

This paper is going to examine the question of whether or not such a building as the modernist and politically controversial Palast should have been conserved (Figure 1.1). Not only was the Palast comparatively young but, in its representation of the disgraced and vanquished GDR, it was to many what Meskell calls ‘negative heritage’ (2002, 558).

Voids and ghosts in Berlin’s landscape are nothing new (Huyssen 2003; Ladd 1998), but in the process of filling one void and bringing a building back from the dead, another void, and certainly another ghost have been created. By January 2009, the dismantling of the Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic), the former seat of the socialist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) also known as East Germany was completed. Aside from archaeological remains of the former Berlin Stadtschloss (Royal Palace), there is now an empty space in the very heart of Berlin. Until it is filled with the proposed new Humboldt-Forum that is to replicate some of the Stadtschloss, the space is to be landscaped as a public park.

Two palaces The Palast was officially opened in April 1976 by Erich Honecker, leader of the GDR. He announced that it was to be more than just the seat of government; it was to be a House of the People (Figure 1.2). It was designed by architects Heinz Graffunder and Karl Ernst Swora in the

Figure 1.1. The Palast der Republik with the Television Tower behind. (Junge, P. H; reproduced under a share-a-like licence CC-BYSA)

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Figure 1.2. The Palast der Republik in the 1980s. (Schramm, L; reproduced under a share-a-like licence CC-BY-SA)

style of International Modernism, and was very much a showpiece of East German architectural and engineering skills. The Palast quickly became immensely popular with East Berliners, and in true Berliner fashion, soon had a number of irreverent nicknames, one being the ‘Ballast of the Republic’ and another, ‘Erich’s Lamp Shop’ reference to the 1001 lamps that hung in the foyer. The building contained the People’s Assembly at one end and the Grand Hall with space for up to 5000 visitors at the other. They were connected by a five-storey centre section that contained a reception area, gallery arcades and a theatre under the roof. There was also a foyer, 13 restaurants and a bowling alley. For many, somewhat ironically, it was a sort of wonderland in comparison to the drabness and restrictions of East German life in general. The vast majority of events held in the Palast were in fact concerts, shows and cultural events, including even the occasional performance of a Western rock band. Graduations and weddings were also held there, and it became the place to go and to be seen at (Ladd 1998, 59; Tangen 2007).

when it was enlarged into a Baroque palace to the designs of Andreas Schlüter for Elector Friedrich III. From 1825, one of Berlin’s most historically important architects, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, added the Crown Prince’s residence for King Friedrich Wilhelm III. It was due to Schinkel’s work that the Lustgarten, which he laid out in the early 1830s, became the focal point of the state: he redesigned the Protestant cathedral (the Berliner Dom), and built the Old Museum, and Palace Bridge that linked the Stadtschloss to the Unter den Linden. As Ladd (1998, 54) explains, what is ‘remembered and honoured’ about central Berlin is mostly Schinkel’s work. The Stadtschloss was used for a variety of things after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, including a museum. It was badly damaged during the Second World War but not beyond repair. Several exhibitions, including one concerned with the rebuilding of Berlin, were held in it in the first few years after the war. But in 1949, despite protests not just internationally but also from some East Germans themselves, Walter Ulbricht, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and Chairman of the Council of State, unhappy with the building’s representation of the Prussian monarchy and wanting to free Berlin from its ‘dishonourable’ past ordered its demolition (Koshar 2000, 159). Some pieces have survived: Portal IV from the Lustgarten façade, from where a socialist republic was

The Palast had been built on the Spree Island in the historic heart of central Berlin on part of the site of the Stadtschloss (Figure 1.3). The Stadtschloss’s origins dated back to the 15th century but it was expanded and redesigned over the centuries, most notably from 1699

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Caroline A. Sandes: Null and Void: the Palace of the Republic, Berlin

Figure 1.3. The Stadtschloss, c.1900. (Source; Wikimedia Commons, PD due to age)

Figure 1.4 Surviving Stadtschloss masonry in the Klosterkirche gardens, Berlin, 2007. © Caroline Sandes

Democratic demolition

declared in 1918, was integrated into another government building; some sculptures and statues have ended up in various museums; and a couple of capitals sit in the nearby park of the Klosterkirche (Figure 1.4).

In 1993 it was announced that because of asbestos contamination the Palast would be demolished. This caused

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In light of the government’s decision to have the Palast demolished, the building was opened up to the public from 2004 to 2005 to be used by an arts organisation, Volkspalast. They organised a number of major exhibitions of contemporary art and attracted some 300,000 visitors to the Palast during that period. Despite only having a budget of 600,000 euro, the Volkspalast was hugely successful, even wining the European Prize for Urban Space in 2005. Once again, the Palast became the place to go and the place to be seen at and it gave the building new meaning to a new generation of Berliners.

huge outcry from a number of quarters, notably former East Berliners but also from architects and those who appreciated the historic importance of the building. This decision was in keeping with the Federal Government’s (then still resident in Bonn) announcement in December 1992 that all Third Reich and GDR government buildings in Berlin would be demolished, and new buildings would be built to house the returning government ministries. Chancellor Kohl referred to this decision as ‘the extinguishing of the unloved witnesses of history’ (quoted in Neill 2004, 47). This decision was also greeted with loud protests on the basis that this was not the way to come to terms with Berlin’s or Germany’s past. The issue was resolved in 1994 when the Federal Finance Minister announced that for financial reasons existing buildings in Berlin would be used to accommodate over 80 percent of the estimated ministerial office requirements (Neill 2004, 47). The Palast was not, however, included in this reprieve.

Despite the Palast’s new-found popularity, the dismantling procedure began in February 2006 having been estimated to take 15 months and to cost 12 million euro (Zeidler 2006) (Figure 1.5). In an attempt to negate the criticism that the heritage of former East Germany was being destroyed, the procedure was presented as promoting heritage by banners surrounding the site (Figure 1.6). The aim was to recycle as much of the material as possible but the dismantling procedure was a complicated and costly process. The discovery of more asbestos and the complications of avoiding disruption to the surrounding historically – and touristically – important areas delayed completion until January 2009 and reportedly cost at least 30 million euro (Senate Department for Urban Development 2009a; Moore 2008).

After the initial outcry in 1993, the Palast was not demolished but the asbestos was removed and the building, with its interiors stripped away to remove the asbestos, stood empty. In 1999, the Federal Government and the Berlin Senate, after a number of aborted competitions for the Spree Island, set up a commission of experts to decide what to do about the Palast and replanning the surrounding area. At the end of October 2000, the Berlin Historical Centre International Expert Commission was set up comprising 17 experts from relevant disciplines and six moderators from the political and administrative communities. In addition, in April 2001, experts, institutions and interest groups were invited to present their ideas at a public hearing. This succeeded in providing the government with the answer that they wanted for on the 17 April 2002, the Commission presented their final report, the core findings of which were that considerable recourse should be taken to the historical city layout in the sense of a ‘critical reconstruction’ and that the Palast should be dismantled. The report also recommended that in place of the Palast should be constructed a building to be used for cultural and scientific purposes as part of a ‘Humboldt-Forum’ that would orient itself to the shape of the former Palace [Stadtschloss] and that this should include the reconstruction of the northern, western and southern Baroque façades as well as the Schlüter Courtyard of the Stadtschloss (Senate Department for Urban Development 2009a).

A new old palace The protests to save the Palast were matched by those who wanted to be rid of such a reminder of the GDR and by those who considered the building an ugly imposter in the centre of historic Berlin. Furthermore, not content just to see the Palast demolished, many wanted to see it replaced by a neo-historic building that resembled the former Stadtschloss. Talk of rebuilding the demolished Stadtschloss was not new but with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fact that it could become a reality was. The movement to have the Stadtschloss rebuilt, or at least to construct a building resembling it and more in keeping with the historic surroundings, was begun in earnest by a Hamburg business man, Wilhelm von Boddien, in 1992, who set up the support organisation, ‘Friends of the Berlin City Palace’. One of the more dramatic actions taken was the erecting in 1993 of a huge life-size canvas replicating the facades of the Stadtschloss stretching from the front of the Palast. The aim was to show people what it would look like should the Stadtschloss be reconstructed. It took what had already become a very heated intellectual argument to the public, gaining many new supporters and even some converts from those who had hitherto been against a reconstruction (Ladd 1998, 60).

A vote in the Bundestag, on the 4 July 2002, gave a resounding, cross-factional ‘yes’ to the first three points with 87 percent parliament members present voting in favour. On the fourth point, of reconstructing the Stadtschloss facades, 65 percent also voted in favour. This was reconfirmed by a second vote on the November 13 2003, when a large majority of the German Bundestag, transcending party lines, approved the recommendations of the International Expert Commission to reconstruct the Stadtschloss as the Humboldt-Forum (Senate Department for Urban Development 2009a).

The end result of von Boddien’s campaign was the decision to build the Humboldt-Forum that will resemble, on the exterior at least, the lost Stadtschloss. The Senate Department for Urban Development declares that ‘the Humboldt-Forum is envisaged as an international forum

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Figure 1.5. Dismantling the Palast, 2007. © Caroline Sandes

Figure 1.6. ‘A project of prestige: East Germany asserts its legitimacy’; dismantling the Palast, 2007. © Caroline Sandes

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of art, culture and science to be built on the grounds of the former Berlin City Palace’. It is worth noting that it is not described as being built on the grounds of the former Palast but on the grounds of the Stadtschloss – perhaps in reference to the much larger area that the Stadtschloss took up or perhaps because the Palast is no longer to be remembered? In November 2008, the winner of an international competition for the design of the Humboldt-Forum was announced by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs as Francesco Stella Consulting Architects from Vicenza with a design that has been described as combining ‘the restoration of the historical centre of Berlin with the innovative concept of a “Humboldt-Forum”, which combines science, culture and social exchange under one roof’, added to which ‘the historical appearance, which was decided by the Bundestag by a large majority will now be filled with life by a convincing space concept’ (Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs 2008a). The costs have been set at a maximum of 552 million euro, of which 440 million will be provided by the Federal Government, 32 million by Berlin, and a further 80 million euro is expected to come from private donations for the reconstruction of the historic facades (Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs 2008b).

city was reputedly 40 billion euro in debt in 2002, and by 2007 this was approximately 60 billion euro (Berlin.de 2009; DW-World.de 2002). Consequently the plans for the meantime are to turn the area into a park and to carry out further archaeological excavations over the next two years (Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs 2008b). Some archaeological excavations in the square to the immediate west of the Palast were carried out in the 1990s to discover if anything of the Stadtschloss foundations survived. Evidence of the uncompleted 18th century Coin Tower and further to the west towards the Lustgarten, of settlement dating to the 12th to 14th centuries was uncovered. The remains of the Stadtschloss have been left open for display, complete with signage (though the site itself is poorly maintained) and are eventually to be integrated and displayed in the new building (Senate Department for Urban Development 2009b) (Figure 1.7). Nostalgic memento, negative heritage or historic building? The question of whether the Palast should have been conserved may seem immaterial, given that there is now nothing left of it except its below ground and out of view foundations. In every war or post-war situation, there are important historic buildings and monuments that

Even before the current global financial crisis and economic downturn, such finance was in reality not available, and Berlin since reunification has been in perpetual debt. The

Figure 1.7. Display of archaeological remains of the Stadtschloss, 2007. © Caroline Sandes

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are demolished, regardless of their long-term historic or architectural importance, because they are perceived in the negative. Similarly, there is a general reluctance to recognise later modernist or post-Second World War buildings as worthy of protection, regardless of their architectural and/or historical importance. Consequently, the argument to save the Palast was always going to be weighted in favour of its detractors. Nonetheless, it is important that we attempt to answer this question of whether or not the Palast should have been conserved.

662). This was compounded by the hasty dismantling of monuments, the renaming of streets and the insensitive political assumption that everyone wanted to forget the GDR ever existed. Although many former East Germans were ambivalent towards most East German architecture and monuments, the FRG’s disregard for their past soon caused former East Germans to protest that their history and memories of the last forty years were being wiped out. Furthermore, identity is tied to memory (Hayden 1995, 9) and as De Jong and Rowland (2008, 131) suggest, ‘it is through heritage that we decide to define ourselves and recognize others’. Former East Germans were rapidly losing their past while at the same time being expected to integrate into an unrecognisable West Germany. That many former East Germans should lament a loss of what many perceived as their ‘better past’, of which protesting to save the Palast was very much a part, and resort to nostalgia for the GDR, or ‘ostalgie’, despite its horrors, was then hardly surprising.

The Palast had many and various supporters: ex-East Germans who had fond memories of the place; supporters of modernist architecture; and those who were concerned at the wilful destruction of parts of Berlin’s heritage and the connected issues of purposeful or enforced forgetting of a difficult history. On the other hand, there were also many who wanted to be rid of the burden of this past as represented by such architecture and monuments. Both sets of opinions are recorded in the short documentary film, Brokedown Palast (Tangen 2007). An examination of blogs relating to the Palast’s demolition reflect similar opposing and often very strong feelings (see for example the comments on skyscrapercity.com 2009).

The Palast, however, was caught between two sets of nostalgia. On one hand there was the desire of some former East Germans to see their heritage protected. On the other hand there was the desire by other Germans to see the historic Stadtschloss rebuilt, to remove the evidence of the humiliating anomaly of having one’s country divided for 40 years as a consequence of the particularly horrific episode of Hitler, the Third Reich and the subsequent war, and to fill in the space with something that makes no reference to that particular past. In other words there was a political desire to protect a different and earlier ‘better past’. Berlin’s replanning and rebuilding in the wake of unification has been all about ‘critical reconstruction’ and the sense that Berlin’s true architectural identity was to be found in the 19th century or earlier (Ladd 1998, 231). The notion of critical reconstruction, of which rebuilding the Stadtschloss is a part, is a way of overlooking the deeply troubling history of Berlin in the 20th century and driven by a need to create a cityscape that will reflect a unified and stable national identity and a supposed sense of shared and enduring past (Ekici 2007, 29). There was, therefore, no place for a building such as the Palast that many considered ‘negative heritage’. Meskell (2002, 558) defines negative heritage as,

There are then two aspects that need to be further considered in order to begin answering the question. The first is the opposing perceptions of the Palast as to its value and its place in Berlin. The second is the interconnected ideas of nostalgia, memory and identity and what the Palast may have meant to both present and to future generations. In other words, did the Palast contain enough cultural significance for it to be protected as an historic building both in its own right and as an important component of Berlin’s historic urban landscape in the long term, or was it a nostalgic memento of a mere forty years and of little consequence in comparison to Berlin’s eight to nine hundred years of existence; or was it genuinely negative heritage that would only lend support to social division? Nostalgic memento or negative heritage? After traumatic events, such as war, there tends to be a desire of ‘wanting things back the way they were’ (Rowlands 2008, 139). Huyssen (2003, 24) argues that we lament the loss of a ‘better past’, the memory of security and of stable boundaries, and that in an attempt to face the increasingly fast-paced and insecure future, we seek refuge in memories. Dramatic and historic changes occurred in November 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall; a city so radically divided for 40 years suddenly found itself undivided. Germany was formally reunited on the 3 October 1990. In reality, however, it was not so much a re-unification as an annexation of the GDR by the Federal Republic (FRG) also known as West Germany. Almost overnight, East Germany’s laws and institutions had disappeared. As unification proceeded, former East Germans lost their way of life and many their jobs, and a sense of hopelessness set in when faced with the considerably wealthier and developed FRG (Taylor 2007,

a conflictual site that becomes the repository of negative memory in the collective imaginary. As a site of memory, negative heritage occupies a dual role: it can be mobilized for positive didactic purposes (e.g. Auschwitz, Hiroshima, District Six) or alternatively be erased if such places cannot be culturally rehabilitated and thus resist incorporation into the national imaginary (e.g. Nazi and Soviet statues and architecture). While sites such as Auschwitz are almost universally accepted as negative heritage conserved to ensure remembrance, other sites perceived by some as negative heritage may, simultaneously, be considered by others as

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positive heritage and as important repositories of memory and identity, particularly in situations of civil war or major internal socio-political division. While the ‘winning’ or dominant power may feel it expedient to remove buildings and monuments that represent the war and the ‘losing’ or defeated power, this is a short-term political reaction that antagonises the defeated community by threatening their identity and history of existence and, in the long-term, may leave a gap in the historic fabric which, rather than facilitating recovery and understanding, may prolong division and hinder social recovery (Sandes 2010; StanleyPrice 2007). A prolonged sense of antagonism is suggested as late as 2008, when, for example, an architect, Philipp Oswalt in his criticism of the German government for destroying the building, remarked that the destruction of the Palast was ‘a symbolic killing of the representation of the communist regime of former East Germany’ (Moore 2008).

This use also gave the building new emotional and cultural value for a new generation of Berliners. So in terms of an historic building, its principal value was the fact that it was the seat of government of the former GDR and, therefore, a unique and very specific representation of that period of Germany’s history. This is a cultural historic value that would not have changed over time. Furthermore, it had a use value that was adaptable and which could, therefore, have remained in the long-term. It was also an important representation of former East German identity and memory but this importance, on the other hand, is likely to have waned as the generations of former East Germans died out. Conversely, the Palast was a mere 14 years old in 1990 so not traditionally considered to have any age value. Furthermore, the political values of the site were definitely considered in the negative and argued as good reason alone to have the site demolished, as evinced by Kohl’s announcement in 1993 mentioned previously. Furthermore, the Palast may have been considered to fail in terms of both its emotional and cultural values because many considered what it represented as negative in terms of history and for it to be of no aesthetic, architectural or townscape value. The Palast was at odds with its surroundings, sticking out like the proverbial ‘sore thumb’ from amongst Schinkel’s carefully ordered 19th century buildings, and detracting from what many would consider the far greater cultural and emotional values of its historic surroundings and the all important World Heritage Site of the Museuminsel on the north side of the Lustgarten. On the other hand, highly skilled, imaginative and sensitive redevelopment of the large square in front of the Palast could have improved the Palast’s situation. Furthermore, it has long been recognised that people prefer complex visual environments (Morris 1981, 261).

The Palast, therefore, was not only caught between two opposing sets of nostalgia but also between being a place of positive memory and identity on the one hand, and of being negative heritage on the other. But should nostalgia or subjective ideas of negative heritage be defining arguments in deciding whether or not to conserve a building for the long-term? Historic building? The question is then, could the Palast, despite its comparatively young age, be considered as an historic building with long-term values worth conserving? The first thing to examine is the values of the Palast. Starting with a basic approach, the Palast can be examined using Feilden’s (2003, 6) three groups of values that he identified for historic buildings:

Arguably then, based on Feilden’s cultural and use values, there was a strong argument to retain the Palast as an historic building. However, the negative attributes of the building in what it represented and the argument that it was incompatible with its ‘more’ historic environment overrode any argument in its favour. This leads to another question: what or whose values are considered the more valuable when it comes to conservation decisions? In a paper entitled ‘Built cultural heritage and sustainable urban development’, the distinction between heritage by designation and heritage by appropriation is discussed (Tweed and Sutherland 2007, 63): heritage by designation is that which is officially recognised and protected. In this case, the historic buildings surrounding the Palast, and of course the World Heritage Site of the Museuminsel, are examples of designated heritage. Heritage by appropriation or de facto heritage is, on the other hand, that which comes to be recognised through public behaviour and use rather than because of deliberate consideration (Tweed and Sutherland 2007, 63). Arguably, the Palast was an example of heritage by appropriation, taking into consideration its public use and recognition during the period of the GDR, the memories and identity connected to it and later as its

1. emotional (wonder; identity; continuity; spiritual and symbolic); 2. cultural (documentary; historic; archaeological, age and scarcity; aesthetic and symbolic; architectural; townscape, landscape and ecological; technological and scientific); and 3. use (functional; economic; social; educational; political and ethnic). Certainly, the Palast contained a significant number of these values, for example the emotional values (identity and symbol) for many former East Germans. It also contained significant cultural values (documentary and historic) as the seat of government of the GDR. In addition its construction and engineering contained further cultural values (technological and scientific); for example, the reinforced cement base tub had to be carefully constructed to ensure stable foundations on an island surrounded by river channels and this has been left in place for the building that will follow it. Lastly, it maintained use values (functional, social and educational) even after the demise of the GDR, as demonstrated when it was successfully used as the Volkspalast exhibition space between 2004 and 2005.

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use as highly popular Volkspalast exhibition space. As Tweed and Sutherland (2007) suggest, and demonstrate with their case study of Victoria Square, Belfast, heritage by appropriation tends to be under far greater threat of destruction than heritage by designation because it is often not officially recognised or protected. In the case of the Palast it is clear that the heritage by designation won out over the heritage by appropriation.

importance is sustainable and whether they can become rehabilitated and incorporated into their urban context. While those in favour of a reconstructed Stadtschloss consider that central Berlin might look better for the removal of Palast, it should have been conserved. In an age of rampant globalisation and loss of the unique and the individual, and of the musealisation of historic cities to attract tourists and investors, it is a shame to have removed from central Berlin such a unique historic building. Cities are always in a state of process and change. The Palast was a valuable physical manifestation of such change and of Berlin’s history. As Huyssen (2003, 63) argues, post-Cold War Berlin has been considered ‘as image and design in the service of displaying power and profit’, not as ‘multiply coded text to be filled with life by its dwellers and its readers’. The Senate Department for Urban Development declares that the proposed Humboldt-Forum ‘will reestablish the historical dimensions of this central part of old Berlin. It will also re-frame the Palace Square and close the urban gap resulting from the demolition of the [Stadtschloss] in 1950’ (Senate Department website 2009a). The appropriated heritage of the controversial past has been voided; the established, politically (and economically) favoured designated heritage representing the preferred past has won (Figure 1.8).

Conclusion The protests to save the Palast were mostly about protecting East German memory and identity, and about the need to accept Germany’s past. The reasons for demolishing the Palast were mostly about protecting the historic idea of German unification and of Berlin’s image as the capital of a unified state, and of forgetting a difficult period of Germany’s past. It has been suggested that it will take a new generation growing up since the fall of the Berlin Wall before proper reintegration of Berlin’s two populations will take place (Taylor 2007, 662). Once this generation has grown up, perhaps the Palast would have become an irrelevancy: a glass and concrete box jarring with its historic surroundings, representing only a short and increasingly forgotten memory of 40 years that may be adequately represented by the Television Tower, the huge avenue of the Stalinallee (now Frankfurterallee) and the carefully restored House of the Teachers, all built during the period of the GDR in central East Berlin. But the Palast qualified as an historic building with cultural and use values that would have remained in the long-term. The Palast was not culturally incompatible negative heritage as defined by Meskell as it was already on its way to be being rehabilitated and incorporated when it was so successfully used for the Volkspalast exhibitions. If even a fraction of the money spent on dismantling the Palast had been spent on keeping the building usable and presentable (its exterior had decayed badly by 2006), then it would seem likely that it could have continued to be put to good use and valued by Berliners and visitors alike, while at the same time respecting the memory of former East Germans. Arguably it was dismantled before its values had been allowed to mature; without any consideration given to how it might be used and assimilated into its environment, and with no objective thought given to the building as a part of Berlin’s historic urban landscape.

Acknowledgements I wish to thank Anne Schwenkenbecher, Humboldt University Berlin, for her comments on the original paper presented at CHAT 2008. Illustrations not of the author’s have come from Wikimedia Commons, http://commons. wikimedia.org under licence: http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-sa/2.0/. References Beek 100, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Berliner_Dom,_Altes_Museum_ohne_Palast_der_ Republik.jpg [accessed 27/04/09]. Benton-Short, L. 2008 Monuments and memories pp. 87105 in T. Hall, P. Hubbard and J. Rennie Short (eds.) The Sage Companion to the City Sage Publications Ltd., London. Berlin.de, 2009 Budget and Finance, http://www.berlin. de/berlin-im-ueberblick/wirtschaft/haushalt_finanzen. en.html [accessed 27/04/09]. De Jong, F. and Rowland, M. 2008 Introduction: postconflict heritage Journal of Material Culture 13(2) pp. 131-134. DW-World.de 2002 A palace for a poor city, http://www. dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,500187,00.html [accessed 7/03/09]. Ekici, D. 2007 The surfaces of memory in Berlin: rebuilding the Schloss Journal of Architectural Education 61 pp. 25-34. English Heritage 2009 Blue Plaques: how the scheme works, http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/ nav.1497 [accessed 7/03/09].

The procedure for the dedication of Blue Plaques by English Heritage requires that the person in question be either dead for twenty years or that it be a centenary since the person’s birth (English Heritage 2009). Likewise in some American states, the law is that no public memorial may be erected until 25 years after the person’s death (Benton-Short 2008, 101). In other words the person’s claim to recognition must withstand the passing of time. A similar procedure should be considered for such controversial but important buildings or monuments, such as the Palast; that they be maintained and allowed to remain for 20 or 25 years before any decision is made, to ascertain whether or not their long-term historical

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Figure 1.8. The site of the Palast with Schinkel’s Alte Museum and the Berliner Dom, January 2009. (Beek100; reproduced under a share-a-like licence CC-BY-SA)

Morris, C. 1981 Townscape Images: a study in meaning, pp. 259-287 in R. Kain (ed.) Planning for conservation Mansell, London. Neill, W. J. 2004 Urban Planning and Cultural Identity Routledge, London and New York. Rowlands, M. 2008 Civilization, violence and heritage healing in Liberia Journal of Material Culture 13 pp. 135-152. Sandes, C.A. 2010 Archaeology, Conservation and the City: post-con lict redevelopment in London, Berlin and Beirut. Oxford: BAR Publishing: British Archaeological Reports. Schramm, L, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Palast_der_Republik_Berlin_DDR.jpg [accessed 25/04/09]. Senate Department for Urban Development 2009a On the way to the Humboldt-Forum, http://www. stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/bauen/palast_rueckbau/ index_en.shtml [accessed 25/04/09]. Senate Department for Urban Development 2009b Monuments in Berlin: Berliner Schloss, http://www. stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/denkmal/denkmale_in_ berlin/en/bodendenkmale/berliner_schloss.shtml [accessed 27/04/09]. Skyscrapercity.com 2006-2009 Berlin – goodbye Palace of the Republic, http://www.skyscrapercity.com/ showthread.php?t=307542 [accessed 27/04/09]. Stanley-Price, N. (ed.) 2007 Cultural Heritage in Postwar Recovery: papers from the ICCROM Forum held on October 4-6, 2005 ICCROM, Rome. Tangen Jr, O. 2007 Brokedown Palast http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=NEMHVJwS4ZY&feature=related [accessed 25/04/09]. Taylor, F. 2007 The Berlin Wall Bloosmbury, London.

Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS) 2008a Winner of the architectural competition for the Humboldt-Forum on the grounds of the former Berlin Palace has been announced, http://www.bmvbs. de/en/pressemitteilung-,1872.1060251/Winner-of-thearchitectural-co.htm [accessed 25/04/09]. Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS) 2008b Reconstruction of the Berlin Royal Palace - Construction of the Humboldt-Forum in the grounds of the Palace, http://www.bmvbs.de/en/,1872.1007758/Reconstruction-of-the-Berlin-R.htm [accessed 25/04/09]. Feilden, B. 2003 Conservation of Historic Buildings (first edition 1992) Architectural Press, Oxford. Hayden, D. 1995 The Power of Place: urban landscapes as public history MIT Press, Cambridge MA. Huyssen, A. 2003 Present Pasts: urban palimpsests and the politics of memory Stanford University Press, Stanford. Junge, P. H. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R0423-0026, http:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Bundesarchiv _Bild_183-R0423-0026,_Berlin,_Palast_der_Republik,_ Fernsehturm.jpg [accessed 27/04/09]. Koshar, R. 2000 From Monuments to Traces: artifacts of German memory 1870-1990 University of California Press, Los Angeles & London. Ladd, B. 1998 The Ghosts of Berlin: confronting German history in the urban landscape (first edition 1997) University of Chicago, Chicago and London. Meskell, L. 2002 Negative heritage and past mastering in archaeology Anthropological Quarterly 75 (3) pp. 557574. Moore, T. 2008 Berlin split over palace design, http://news. bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/7755245.stm [accessed 27/04/09].

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Tweed, C. and Sutherland, M. 2007 Built cultural heritage and sustainable urban development Landscape and Urban Planning 83 pp. 62-69. Wikimedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Berlin, _Mitte,_Schloss_%26_ Schlossbr%C3%BCcke ,_1901.jpg, public domain due to age. [accessed 25/04/09]

Zeidler, C. 2006 Building of the Month: Palast der Republik, Schlossplatz (formerly Marx-Engels-Platz), Berlin 1974-6, http://www.c20society.org.uk/docs/ building/palast.html [accessed 16/05/09].

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Chapter 2 The Heritage of a Metaphor: Archaeological Investigations of the Iron Curtain Anna McWilliams Introduction: A physical metaphor

an impregnable barrier with a physical form of concrete and barbed wire soon became cemented in people’s minds.

Concrete and barbed wire. For many people in the West this is the typical picture of the Iron Curtain. The Iron Curtain has become synonymous with the Berlin Wall. When discussing the location of the former Iron Curtain, people often refer to the inner German border, continuing along the borders of former Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy: a long barrier between Eastern and Western Europe, a divider of ideologies that kept the communist in and the capitalist out, or was it the other way around? These ideas of what the Iron Curtain was are a fusion of the physical and the abstract, a metaphor with a physical face.

Although this image may not be wrong, it only shows a limited part of the Iron Curtain. Using Churchill’s definition of an Iron Curtain descending across the continent from the Baltic to the Adriatic as a starting point, this paper investigates the physicality of this political barrier and contrasts the physical fabric with the metaphor. By looking at material culture we can gain a better understanding not only of the physical landscape but also of the social. We can learn about the past through physical sources to broaden our understanding of this iconic monument and the variability of its form. The popular view of concrete walls and barbed wire is an important part of the history of the Iron Curtain but there are also other facets that need understanding and explaining in order to build a picture of the Iron Curtain as a fully constituted whole. Similarly, the varying physical landscapes along the route are intertwined with the varying social landscapes and only after we fully understand the relationship between these aspects can we tell the story of the Iron Curtain and the people affected by its proximity.

But what was the Iron Curtain? Where does this picture of concrete and barbed wire come from? Iron curtains first appeared as a very physical feature in the theatres of London during the 19th century to stop the fires that had become all too common. During the First World War, the term was used as an abstract visualisation of the barriers between the fighting sides, and during the inter-war period, to make clear the growing differences between Europe and the Soviet Union. It was, however, Churchill’s use of the expression in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946, where he referred to an Iron Curtain, stretching across the continent from the Baltic to the Adriatic (Wright 2007, 43), that cemented the image of the Iron Curtain in the popular imagination.

The tumult of the later 20th century has changed the nature and character of these borders and the Iron Curtain is becoming a memory, sometimes forgotten. But can an archaeology of these borderlands find traces of the militarised Iron Curtain within today’s material remains? The Iron Curtain: The southern section

This image of an Iron Curtain as a barrier between two superpowers of different ideological conviction increased as the Cold War advanced and was frequently used in speeches, papers and the media. In the West, Europe was portrayed as two polarised halves – East and West – with the Iron Curtain standing as a barrier between them keeping the captive population of the communist regimes from escaping to the West. In the German Democratic Republic (GDR) the border was referred to as the Antifaschistische Schutzwall (Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart) protecting the population from the West (Schmidt 2005, 11). The period and its paranoia became popular themes in films and books and this has also helped to formulate the image of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain that we are left with today. Many film posters and book covers –especially for the then increasingly popular spy novels – depict the Iron Curtain and often the Berlin Wall. The idea of the Iron Curtain as

The border between East and West varied greatly along its route with vast differences in interaction across it. One of the most heavily defended sections was the inner German border which had double steel mesh fences in rural areas and concrete barriers in urban areas (Rottman 2008,14-41). In Czechoslovakia, a wide strip with increasing security and restrictions closer to its centre represented the border. The border between Hungary and Austria had a lighter defence system with a chain-link fence and was the first part of the Iron Curtain to be removed in 1989. Further south, at the border between Italy, Austria and the former Yugoslavia, we get yet another picture, which is explored below. How do material remains in these different areas today reflect the varying physical and social landscape of the route? I began my research in what might appear to be an

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Figure 2.1. Map of Slovenia. © Anna McWilliams

unexpected area – the border of Slovenia and Italy and Slovenia and Austria (Figure 2.1). Little attention has been paid to the materiality of these borders despite their eventful past. I started my journey south of the city of Trieste, on the border between Italy and Slovenia, and followed its route to the meeting point of Slovenia, Austria and Hungary. The landscape changes dramatically along this route and varies between coastal areas in the southwest and mountainous areas in the north. This area has a turbulent history and the borders of the changing regimes have shifted dramatically over the last centuries.

The location of the Italian-Yugoslavian border was established at a high political level by the allies. A commission was then given the task to physically mark the new borderline on the ground (Sluga 2001, 138). This was done through painting a line or through staking out poles. Although some consideration was shown to keep villages and cities undivided this did not always work in practice and villages and sometimes even single farms were cut through by the new border. Many local stories tell of how landowners would go out during the first few nights after the border was marked and move the border markers in one direction or other in order that their property would fall within one country (Jacob Marušič pers. comm. 2 September 2008). Soon, however, the military arrived to patrol the borders making further changes impossible. Further border structures and fencing were soon erected to make crossing more difficult.

After the First World War and the fall of the AustroHungarian Empire the southern part of the empire declared itself independent and became the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later named the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The border towards Austria was settled through a referendum in 1920 when Austria gained the northern sections of Carinthia. The border with Italy was settled in the Rapallo Treaty in 1920 (Medved 1993). After World War II the border between Italy and Yugoslavia was drawn along the ‘Morgan Line’, proposed by General William Duthie Morgan. At the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 it was decided that Trieste would remain a free port, to be divided into two zones: Zone A under Anglo/US military administration and Zone B under Yugoslavian administration. However, after several years of tension culminating in riots in 1954, a permanent solution was reached and Zone A was assigned to Italy and Zone B to Yugoslavia.

The character of these borders has changed dramatically since the Second World War, in part reflecting the political and ideological situation in Europe in general and the former Yugoslavia in particular. From 1946 to 1948 security was at its highest with Yugoslavian authorities establishing a five km security zone along the border. The border was patrolled and soldiers had orders to shoot at anyone trying to cross. After the break with the Soviet Union in 1948 there was some relaxing of the border security, however, during the 1950s the border was still intensely patrolled and those people within the area who were considered

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suspect were often brought in for questioning. This could include people working in the area who had to be able to identify themselves when asked. During the 1960s and onwards the security at the border was slowly toned down. This coincided with the economic upswing seen in Yugoslavia during the 1960s which led to more open borders and increased trade and exchange with Western Europe. The security along these borders has changed gradually throughout the latter part of the 20th century, but the largest changes were seen in 2004 and 2007 when Slovenia joined the European Union and the Schengen Convention respectively (McWilliams 2008).

indicated by the remains of a road, since abandoned, on the other side of the border. This demonstrates the interruptions and discontinuities that the Iron Curtain cut through landscapes and how interaction across it was controlled. The interrupted roads show how traffic between countries was channelled through certain routes to aid surveillance and maintain control. I conducted both group and single interviews, with people who had either lived or worked in the area. Most of the interviews were recorded. Many people were eager to share their experiences and often accompanied me to an area they thought I should see or informed me of particular features that I could investigate on my own. I did not use standard questions that I asked in all interviews but rather let people speak about the things they felt were important and added a few more direct questions towards the end. This led to wide ranging discussions with many different aspects of the former border brought up.

The route of the southern section of the former Iron Curtain is the same as present-day national borders. The geography and topography of the border changes considerably along its route with the different landscape types; subpanonic in the north-eastern section of route, alpine between Maribor and the Holmec pass, high alpine from the Holmec pass to the Soča valley and Dinarian mountain areas stretching down to the southern part of the route (Medved 1993). In parts the border is located along natural features such as rivers and mountain ridges. My focus is on the manmade features of the border found throughout its route, which vary greatly in number and character. In accordance with the Schengen Convention the borders between Italy, Slovenia and Austria are currently open, and border controls are now very limited and often nonexistent. The lines of the borders are still marked, however, their appearance is changing and they are becoming less clear. Some previous border markers have been removed and in some areas new types of border markers have replaced older ones.

The fieldwork was carried out in May 2008 and mostly consisted of walkover surveys in targeted areas. These areas were chosen after the desk based assessment to show remains of the border, its infrastructure or, in some places, the complete absence of remains. Some of the results were expected but several were discovered by chance. Old maps and photographs were brought and used in the field for comparison to better understand the material remains encountered. Recording was mostly carried out through photography and mapping material traces and other features on maps. On a few occasions non-scale drawings were made to clarify particular features. In some cases, particularly for military remains such as bunkers, military historians and experts were consulted to give advice on date and style of military structures, such as the various bunkers on top of Mount Sabotin.

Methodology This study combined desk based study and fieldwork, comprising surveys and interviews. The aim was to investigate what types of sources and material were available in order to shape future research. The area chosen for this initial study was chosen due to its ambiguous association with the Iron Curtain. Choosing a section that many people claim was never part of the Iron Curtain at all helped me understand what people consider the Iron Curtain to be. Had I, for example, started my research in Berlin it is likely to have given me less complex view of this divider between East and West.

Material remains Travelling along the borders today the most common type of border markers found are white-painted concrete blocks located throughout the Italian-Slovenian and the AustrianSlovenian borders. Many of these stones show signs of modification as the name of the country has been changed to adjust to new political conditions (Figure 2.2). Evidence that the stones existed in the same location in the past has been found on maps dating back to the 1950s on which the stones individual number and location have been marked. In some places the stones are more frequent, for example on Mount Sabotin near Nova Gorica, where they are located about ten metres from each other (Figure 2.3). This can be compared to the border near Trieste where the border stones are much less regular. It is possible that there were more border stones around Trieste which have subsequently been removed. If this is the case, why were stones removed in some areas and not in others? If, however, there were fewer markers in this area, why were more border stones

Maps, both current and historical, as well as aerial images and Google Earth were used to gain an understanding how the area has changed since the Second World War onwards and to show features that are not visible whilst on the ground. Photos provided insight on the appearance and function of the border in the past. Written sources gave me a historical background to the area as well as personal accounts of living in the area. The cut-off point between two states can sometimes be seen through landscape alterations, for example, through different agricultural use. In other places the border is

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required in some places while others were deemed less needful of demarcation? In an area such as that around Trieste which was highly contested, one would imagine there to be a higher requirement for clear markers in the landscape than, for example, at Mount Sabotin where the border ran along the ridge of the mountain and where most of the area was a restricted military zone. The material we find in the landscape today, however, suggests the opposite. Did these stones serve another purpose apart from marking the line between two states? Disused watch towers can be found along the border today although they are not a common feature. This can be a result of removal of these structures as they were no longer required or it could mean that only a few existed along these borders. The structures that do survive give evidence of the military presence. Graffiti found in one of these watchtowers shows how soldiers were scratching the number of remaining days of their service on the inside walls as they counted down the days until they could leave, an indication of how such postings were viewed (Figure 2.4). On the border between Italy and Slovenia the evidence of military and border police surveillance structures is noticeable today by its absence. For decades after the new border was established no buildings were allowed to be built near the border and buildings that were already there were often torn down. This is apparent on the Slovenian side of the border in the town of Nova Gorica where a strip of land, directly east of the border with Italy, has been

Figure 2.2. Border stone on the border between Italy and Slovenia. © Anna McWilliams

Figure 2.3. Border stones along the ridge of Mount Sabotin, border between Italy and Slovenia. © Anna McWilliams

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Figure 2.4. Graffiti in former Yugoslavian watchtower near Nova Gorica. © Anna McWilliams

kept open within this urban area. This was to make illegal crossings more obvious as well as facilitating the patrolling of the border. These long, former patrolling tracks have now been made into cycle paths stretching almost the entire length of the town. Thus the voids that previously separated people are now used to connect them. A further reminder of the surveillance of the border was discovered at the top of Mount Sabotin where two parallel paths followed the border, one on each side. These dual tracks, sometimes no further than a foot away from each other, were created by patrolling Italian and Yugoslavian military as soldiers wandered up and down along the border, not allowed to cross even by a step. The parallel duality of the paths is still visible but is fast disappearing as the tracks now have a different purpose, allowing ramblers to climb the mountain with no restrictions of which side of the border to walk on (Figure 2.5). Former roadblocks, guard huts and other structures located at the border crossings along the Italian-Yugoslavian and Austrian-Yugoslavian borders demonstrate a highly controlled landscape during the Cold War. The layout of the border-crossing infrastructure allowed the guards and border police to investigate documentation and search cars before letting people pass or making them turn back. Many of these buildings and structures remain but their usage has mostly changed. Most appear abandoned while a small number have been converted for domestic use. On the border of Italy and Slovenia a former guard hut will soon be made into a museum showing how smuggling across the border was carried out during the Iron Curtain’s years

Figure 2.5. Dual tracks on either side of the Italian and Slovenian border on Mount Sabotin. © Anna McWilliams

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Figure 2.6. Sign approaching the Slovenian border near Trieste, Italy. © Anna McWilliams

of operation. Such structures at the larger crossings still function as premises for border police today, but they have a very limited role. Attempts to keep people out of the border area in the past are still noticeable in the landscape through the presence of signage. These signs informed anyone approaching of the distance to the border line. They appear to have been more common in some areas than in others. Although these were much more frequent in the past several of them still remain. The signs were often written in both Italian and Slovenian and sometimes also in English. On some of the signs observed during a walkover survey in the border area near Trieste, the English signs, seen on old photos from the area situated between the Slovenian and Italian notices had been removed leaving a gap (Figure 2.6). Military structures can still be observed throughout the border areas and these vary in age, size and usage. Among the ones recorded during this study was an Italian military station approximately 30m inside the Italian border near the Italian, Slovenian and Austrian tripoint (Figure 2.7). The substantial size of this three-storey structure suggests it was more than an observation point and could house a considerable number of people. The officially designated approach to this structure was from the southwest, along a path, and subsequently, the northeast-facing facade was well camouflaged through landscaping and design with brown, green and grey colours in order to blend into its environment. The date of this structure is unclear. It may date from the First World War although it shows signs of use in more recent periods. Further doubt is put on a Second

Figure 2.7. Bunker complex near the Austrian, Italian, Slovenian tripoint. © Anna McWilliams

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Figure 2.8. Bunker on Italian side of border on Mount Sabotin. © Anna McWilliams

located at the entrance to the complex and although a new gate has been installed, I found the old barrier painted in the Yugoslavian colours and a red star lying on the ground by the roadside.

World War provenance as this would not have been a likely position for an Italian military structure during the Second World War when this area was located within Austrian territory. This building is, therefore, likely to be a Cold War installation which demonstrates high surveillance towards Yugoslavia from the Italian side.

Further evidence of military activity during the Cold War period is found in Austria. Approximately two km from the Wurzenpass on the Slovenian border, a large military complex was built in the early 1960s. The complex covers an area of 11,000m2 and consists of a network of bunkers and trenches with large storage areas for supplies and antiaircraft facilities. It was built to protect Austria against attacks from the south and although it was mostly used for training purposes, it was under high alert after the Prague Spring uprising and subsequent student demonstrations in Belgrade in 1968 and in 1991 during the Yugoslav Wars. The complex was last used for military purposes in 2002 and is now a museum (Figure 2.9).

On top of Mount Sabotin, north of the town of Nova Gorica, several military remains from the Cold War period have been located. Here the border between Italy and the former Yugoslavia (now the Italian-Slovenian border) runs partially along the top of the mountain. Most of this area was closed to the public during much of the Cold War era. A series of bunkers of varying age can be seen with one possibly dating from the First World War but the majority appear to post-date the Second World War. The latest, located only approximately 20m from the border on the Italian side is stylistically a 1970s structure, an identification in accordance with the inscription of the year 1977 within its concrete (Figure 2.8). What appears to be a former military station with several small white stone buildings is found on the Slovenian side approximately 200m from the Italian border on Mount Sabotin. This is a slightly secluded area on a small platform in the mountain slope reached by a road leading up on the Slovenian side of the mountain. Several trenches from the First World War are located nearby. The buildings at the former military station have now been converted to a café and small museum. A guard hut is still

It is not just small landscape traces, fragmentary remains that indicate the ideological divisions of this part of Europe. The path of the Iron Curtain between the two towns of Gorizia in Italy and Nova Gorica in Slovenia is explicit in the divisions that it caused. The name Gorica comes from the Slavic word for hill and is Gorizia in Italian. The town was first mentioned in AD 1001 and has traditionally been the municipal centre of the Goriški region (Jazbar and Vogrič 2008). After the Second World War the new

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railway station facing Gorizia soon after the Second World War as a symbol of socialism. The hammer and sickle was subsequently removed but the red star remained until the late 1980s. The red star is now located in a local museum having found new life as a showpiece of the communist era (Figure 2.10). A part of the Iron Curtain? As previously mentioned, whether these borders were part of the Iron Curtain is a matter of opinion and viewpoints can be strong about their status. The construction of military structures and border infrastructures as discussed above points towards the perception of a heightened threat necessitating fortification. These structures as well as other physical remains of military activity and surveillance demonstrate that although these borders did not have a distinct material divide they were heavily militarised. This in turn suggests that these states did consider the threat to be serious enough to invest in large-scale military defence. The construction, in the early to mid 1960s, of a large military complex in Austria near the Slovenian border supports this suggestion. Although these military defences changed over time their presence along these borders into the 1980s and 1990s, and in Austria, into the new millennium, suggests that this threat was still considered serious. It is clear when looking at the remains of the former militarised border between Austria, Italy and Yugoslavia that although crossing legally was not always possible this border was fairly permeable. The border construction was often not in itself a substantial enough obstruction to stop illegal crossing. However, illegal crossing was made harder through surveillance along the border by military and border guards. Looking at the remains of the administrative border infrastructure as well as the mark that surveillance activities have left on the landscape suggests that the intensity of surveillance varied from area to area. Compared to other sections of the Iron Curtain the Italian, Austrian and Yugoslavian borders were less militarised and more permeable than other sections such as the inner German border. This meant these southern borders, particularly between Italy and Yugoslavia, became a point for people across Eastern Europe to make the crossing to Western Europe, mostly illegally. Whether we believe that the Italian-Slovenian and Austrian-Slovenian borders were part of the Iron Curtain depends on how we choose to interpret the term ‘Iron Curtain’. The material we have seen here speaks of a landscape of control, where surveillance, military structures and controlled crossings were considered necessary.

Figure 2.9. Austrian military complex near Slovenian border. © Anna McWilliams

border with Italy placed a large section of the region within Yugoslavian territory but the town itself in Italy, leaving a large populated rural area without a regional centre. A new town had to be built on the Yugoslavian side in order to provide the missing facilities. This town became known as Nova Gorica (New Gorica). Nova Gorica was planned as one of the young Yugoslavia’s model towns with wide streets and an abundance of housing for its inhabitants (Velušček and Medved 2002). Along the border between Nova Gorica and Gorizia signs of the varying ideologies were often shown as people used the borders to express their different views. The border became a kind of an advertisement board for ‘the other side’ through the erection of signs and placards and through the painting of graffiti on buildings, a practice documented along other borders in former Yugoslavia (Frykman 2007, 91). Some of the graffiti survives today, although, as houses have been torn down or refurbished, much has been destroyed. Recent political graffiti found on buildings by the border during site visits showed that this tradition of writing political statements on the ‘advertisement board’ of the border still prevails. Further signs of ideological division are demonstrated through a red star depicting the hammer and sickle which was placed on top of Nova Gorica

Why study the Iron Curtain as an artefact? This paper presents the findings of initial research into the remains of the former Italian-Yugoslav and AustrianYugoslav border, and indicates the value of future study, and is by no means exhaustive. However this preliminary fieldwork indicates how surviving remains of this part of

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Figure 2.10. Red star in Nova Gorica railway station museum. © Anna McWilliams

the Iron Curtain can be used to build a picture of what these borders looked like during the Cold War, and can be used to further our broader understanding of the area during the period.

effect was from place to place. The grand narratives of border politics often do not take into consideration these variations, nuances that often become apparent when studying the material.

Literature dealing with this area and period has to a large extent tended to concentrate on ‘the bigger picture’ with political negotiations of where the border were to be located, how conflicts over the new borders were handled or how the displacement of people that the new border in some parts created were organised. As the materiality of these borders has received little attention in literature or by researchers the local history that is being written is highly dependent on people’s memories of the time and the circumstances. The material left by the borders here during the Cold War is therefore an important source to help understand how the changes affect people on the local level and to connect the big global history with the smaller local one.

In this study I have tried to combine different types of sources such as historical and current photos, maps, and Google Earth to look at the wider landscape to understand how the area and the landscape has changed during the Cold War period. I have carried out initial fieldwork in which walkover surveys in targeted areas as well as interviewing people that have either lived or worked in the area at some point during this period. Fences and white-painted concrete blocks used to indicate the border demonstrate that demarcation of the border was, and still is to some extent, important. This may not be a distinct feature of this border – these things exist at most other borders in Europe. What can be seen as a distinguishing feature, however, are the traces demonstrating previous surveillance along these borders such as watch towers, former patrolling tracks, road blocks and military structures or complexes.

The term ‘Iron Curtain’ is a metaphor which stands for a stark physical reality. It is important to understand the actuality of this metaphor, and to recognise its vast diversity as well as the similarities across its route. By studying the material we can understand how it was constructed, how it looked and how it functioned. We can use the material to create an understanding of the landscapes that we see today, both the physical and the social. By studying the material remains we can demonstrate how diverse the Iron Curtain’s

Like many remains or structures from the Cold War, the Iron Curtain has a tourist value. In some areas the Iron Curtain has been reconstructed to give visitors a ‘real’ glimpse of what this iconic metaphor actually looked like and how it

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functioned (Hutchins 2004). The bunker museum by the Wurzenpass gives us an insight into Austrian armament programmes during the Cold War. Other museums relating to the border or the military situation during the Cold War demonstrate a wish to tell the local stories as well as the grand narratives, such as the Goriški muzej at Nova Gorica (Goriški muzej website). With increasing interest in the Cold War emanating from the general public as well as scholars, the material remains of the period provide important context. This increasing interest provides a balance to the focus of regional interest.

be presented or how its remains should be managed we need to understand what the Iron Curtain actually was, in the past, what it is today and what we want it to be in the future. The physical barrier of the Iron Curtain is heavily influenced by the abstract metaphor and it is likely that the prevailing myth will be the strongest survivor. It is therefore important to understand the reality of the Iron Curtain in all its many forms, and that there is more to this complex regional behemoth than we might at first realise.

Studies of the Iron Curtain vary greatly throughout its route ranging from detailed research to more basic studies (Klausmeier 2009, Klausmeier and Schmidt 2004, Medved 1993, Rottman 2008, Sheffer 2008, Tedaldi 2006, Vaněk 2008). The attitudes of different countries and regions vary. For some the former Iron Curtain is something that is best forgotten whilst others see it as an important part of their history. Both these views must be respected but how is this possible? Who decides how the remains located along the route of the former Iron Curtain should be managed? Most research is carried out on a national level, and so far most of this work has been undertaken in Germany. Little comparative analysis has taken place and there is no overall strategy or idea of how the remains of the Iron Curtain should, and indeed, could, be managed. It is likely that no such overall management strategy is possible or even desirable. The management of the Iron Curtain is, as we can see, highly problematic and makes the understanding of this monument as a whole, as well as its variability, all the more important.

Frykman, J. 2007 Monument som väcker obehag, pp.89-111 in J. Frykman and B. Ehn Minnesmärken, Att tolka det förflutna och besvärja framtiden Carlsson Bokförlag, Stockholm. Hutchins, F. 2004 Cold Europe Discovering, Researching and Preserving European Cold War Heritage Department of Architectural Conservation at the Brandenburg University, Cottbus. Jazbar, E. and Vogrič, Z. 2008 Gorica Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Gorizia, Gorizia. Klausmeier, A. 2009 Interpretation as a means of preservation policy or: whose heritage is the Berlin Wall? pp. 97 -105 in N. Forbes, R. Page and G. Peréz (eds.) Europe’s Deadly Century English heritage, Swindon. Klausmeier, A. and Schmidt, L. 2004 Wall Remnants – Wall Traces Westkreuz-Verlag, Berlin/Bonn. McWilliams, A. 2008 Group interview [Personal Communication], Škofije, 6 September 2008. Medved, F. 1993 Slovenien en lägesbeskriving, pp. 134-150 in Lars-Erik Åse (ed.) Östeuropas omvandling Svenska sällskapet för antropologi och geografi, Stockholm. Rottman, G. 2008 The Berlin Wall and the Intra-German border 1961-89 Osprey Publishing, Oxford. Schmidt, L. 2005 The Berlin Wall, a Landscape of Memory, pp 11-17 in L. Schmidt and H. von Preuschen (eds.) On Both Sides of the Wall Preserving Monuments and Sites of the Cold War Era Westkreuz-Verlag, Berlin and Bonn. Sheffer, E. 2008 Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain Doctoral Thesis from University of California, Berkeley. Sluga, G. 2001 The Problem of Trieste and the ItaloYugoslav Border State University of New York Press, Albany. Tedaldi, C. 2006 The ‘Last Cold War Remnant of the Iron Curtain’? An Exploration of the Dismantling of the Italo-Slovene Border Fence in 2004, pp. 21-26 in A. Ni Éigeartaigh and D. Getty (eds.) Borders and Borderlands in Contemporary Culture Cambridge Scholars Press, Newcastle. Vaněk, P. 2008 Pohraniční stráž a pokusy o přechod státní hranice v letech 1951–1955 ÚSTR, Prague. Velušček, N. and Medved, A. 2002 il mio confine moja mej Kinoatelje, Gorizia. Wright, P. 2007 Iron Curtain: From Stage to Cold War Oxford University Press, Oxford.

References

Further research The information gained from the material remains and local studies can then be compared with the more widespread picture that many people have of the Iron Curtain. How do the remains relate to the picture of the Iron Curtain created, for example, through the media? By studying the material we can find alternative perspectives of what the Iron Curtain was. By studying local perspectives we may also encounter similarities and parallels between different areas that were previously not apparent. By questioning how the border functioned we can understand how it affected movement across and around it. Was the possibility of crossing the border legally made difficult by requests for visas or other papers? Was it possible to cross the border illegally or was this hindered by obstacles such as fencing or mines? Were people’s movements in border areas under surveillance from patrolling guards? Was it possible to have contact with people on the other side of the border? Looking at the physical border and the wider landscape is a starting point for understanding how people related to the border itself and to the people on the other side of it. In order to know how the history of the Iron Curtain should

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Chapter 3 Titanic Quarter: Creating a New Heritage Place Mary-Cate Garden Introduction

‘new heritage’ spaces are created. It highlights some of the issues that accompany the process of transformation that occurs as the buildings, objects and spaces that once made up very familiar landscapes of industry are redrawn and reworked.

At the beginning of the 21st century one of the places in which the collective heritage of our urban spaces can be readily found is in the regenerated areas that have emerged out of sites of industry and technology. Whether the reuse of single factory for residential, commercial or leisure purposes or the wholesale reworking of a vast industrial complex these ‘new’ urban spaces are key components of our cities and are signifiers of a rapidly disappearing industrial heritage. Therefore, it is not particularly surprising that themes of regeneration and urban renewal – long-standing topics for urban planners and geographers (Marshall 2001; Neill 2006, 2004) – are increasingly coming to the attention of archaeologists and heritage specialists (English Heritage 2008; Penrose 2007).

Titanic Quarter: Background A multi-million pound project located in Belfast, Northern Ireland, will see the Harland and Wolff shipyards transformed from a former site of heavy industry to a branded heritage space and ‘standout’ (Civic Arts 2007) commercial and residential waterfront development known as ‘Titanic Quarter’ (Figure 3.1 and Figure 3.2). The site is a 75 hectare artificial island created in the late 1850s from the material dredged from the River Lagan, situated near the city centre, on Queen’s Island. It will use the extant heritage assets, including a number of Scheduled Monuments and Listed structures, to tell the story of Titanic and the ‘wider’ maritime heritage of shipbuilding and industry (Judith Webb and Martin Graham pers. comm. 30, July 2008).

More than just a means of preserving the material elements of a site, a neighbourhood or a city, these ‘new’ places often drive socio-economic change including a strengthened sense of community and a robust local identity (Crooke 2007; Stewart et al. 2004). Through exploiting their heritage these regenerated sites can contribute in important ways to the creation of ‘the past’ and to a sense of place and in doing so often highlight important discourses of value and authenticity. However this transformation results in significant alterations to the mental and material landscape of the past. This raises a number of questions: how do we, as archaeologists and heritage specialists, deal with the transformation of a familiar and established (heritage) landscape into a ‘new’ heritage place? As the industrial spaces of the past are altered into marked heritage sites (usually with very different functions and altered geography) how will we be able to maintain a sense of the past, what Leary and Sholes call an ‘authenticity of place and voice’ (2001, 50)? Perhaps more importantly how will these changes affect the individuals and groups who interact with and interpret the new space? In short, what happens when old landscapes are transformed and their meanings appropriated, claimed and promoted in the face of change?

From the 1850s until the 1980s Queen’s Island was the centre of Belfast’s shipbuilding industry. The best known of the Queen’s Island shipyards was the firm Harland and Wolff which grew quickly to become one of the largest shipbuilders in the world. By 1852 Belfast was the largest port in Ireland (Royle 2006, 19-20). For some Harland and Wolff has another more significant association, as the builder of a set of three vast vessels that lay at the cutting edge of early 20th century engineering and innovation (Moss 1986). The most famous of these was ‘Ship Number 401’ better known as the RMS Titanic. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries these yards played a significant role in place identity for many of Belfast’s inhabitants and were emblematic of Belfast’s rich maritime and industrial position (Hart 2006, 86). The loss of shipbuilding in the 1980s meant a severing of individual ties with the past, with social identities and with place. The site fell into disuse and disrepair. In subsequent years the Queen’s Island site has become both a lost landscape and a landscape of loss as the industry disappeared from the urban landscape of Belfast.

Using as a case study an ongoing project, Titanic Quarter, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, this paper will focus on these questions, exploring some of the means by which we can begin to identify and understand the process of change as

First identified in the late 1990s as part of the Belfast Harbour Plan 1990-2005 (now incorporated in the larger Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan (Northern Ireland Planning Service 2004)) as a major brownfield opportunity, Titanic

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Figure 3.1. Titanic Quarter from the Lagan River showing the new ‘Signature’ Building under construction. The Harland and Wolff Headquarters and Drawing Offices are to the rear of the new structure; the Samson and Goliath cranes are in the background. © Mary-Cate Garden

Figure 3.2. Entrance to Queen’s Island/Titanic Quarter showing the Harland and Wolff gates and the new residential development in the background. © Mary-Cate Garden

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Quarter is shortly to emerge as a major new waterfront development and will represent the culmination of more than a decade of planning. Although this is a longterm multiyear project it is anticipated that the major interpretative spaces and public buildings will be completed by 2012 in order to mark the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912. As the largest regeneration project in Europe (at the time of writing), it is seen as a key driver in the social and economic development of Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Executive 2008; Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) 2003). So important is this endeavour that the NITB has designated Titanic Quarter as one of its six ‘signature projects’ (others include the Giant’s Causeway and Antrim Coast and the Walled City of Derry) each envisioned as ‘stand out world class destinations’ (NITB 2011). The designation of this area as Titanic Quarter brings with it an instantly recognisable brand (thanks in part to James Cameron’s 1997 film) and a set of expectations and issues. More locally, this transformation is part of Belfast’s refashioning of itself in the post-Troubles era into a historical and cultural city.

Ireland does not have a characterisation scheme in place. As we shall see below, the lack of a holistic landscape characterisation of the site has had distinct and significant consequences for the development of Titanic Quarter and its surroundings. As a landscape or a place is being created anew, however, as at Titanic Quarter, individual and group identities, a sense of the past and/or a sense of place are all being articulated and often this translates into a need or a desire (of those who are or were associated with a place) for the landscape of place to be represented materially and visibly. Teasing out the process behind that representation requires more than landscape characterisation schemes. Any study of the heritage of this site must be able to capture the tangible and intangible; the visible and invisible; an acknowledgment of these spaces as both places ‘of the past’ and places ‘apart’. One approach that has offered considerable potential for both emerging and extant heritage places (Garden 2006, 2009; Carman and Carman 2009, 310) is to use the concept of the ‘heritagescape’. The heritagescape is based upon the premise that all heritage sites (both interior and exterior) are landscapes. Acknowledging this key point serves to better locate a site within its larger environment and reinforces the notion that heritage sites are both distinct from and, at the same time, inextricably linked to their surroundings. Drawing upon approaches inherent in landscape archaeology, the concept of the heritagescape is based upon notions of ‘boundaries’, ‘cohesion’ and ‘visibility’ (Garden 2009, 2006). At the same time that the heritagescape focuses on the material elements of the landscape evaluating both their particular role and the relationship between the different tangible and intangible components, it also has at its heart a recognition of change. This latter attribute is important as it helps understand these sites over time.

Reworking Queen’s Island and the Harland and Wolff shipyards will see the transformation of an old and known place into a wholly new space; from a closed, private landscape of industry to an open, public, leisure landscape of branded heritage. By any benchmark this represents a significant change in the way that this area is used, understood, negotiated and perceived. The heritagescape These ‘new’ heritage places – sites that are in the process of becoming – share characteristics with established heritage sites and, at the same time, are distinct from extant sites. Both common and unique qualities need to be considered when developing suitable methods for examining these places.

Using the three ‘guiding principles’ of visibility, boundaries and cohesion (Garden 2009, 275) in concert with interpretative sources (including signs, maps, masterplans and mission statements), interviews (in this instance with private sector developers, governmental and non-governmental organisations and a variety of groups including the Belfast Titanic Society; Lagan Legacy and local neighbourhood representatives) and participant observation, this chapter employs the integrated vision of the heritagescape to understand the heritage of the Harland and Wolff area and how it fits together. This understanding makes it possible to move towards a more nuanced picture both of the individual sites or spaces and also of the larger landscape(s) in which they sit and of the ways in which the landscape is recognised, interpreted and used by the different groups who interact with it (Garden 2009).

Over the last 20 years, landscape has been the focus of scholarly research (Ashworth and Graham 2005; Bender 1993; Fowler 2004; Hicks et al 2007; Tilley 1994) and there has been a concerted effort to develop methods to better understand the historic environment (English Heritage 2000). Within the same period a variety of planning policies and laws have been instituted to better understand and manage heritage, for example, the European Landscape Convention (Council of Europe 2000). Out of both of these strands of work a number of different approaches to identification and management of the historic environment have emerged. Among the applied methods is historic landscape characterisation which is currently in use around the world, which ‘link[s] people to place in [...]powerful and influential ways’ (Penrose 2007, 13) in order to recognise the connected landscape of the past.

Titanic Quarter: Identifying landscapes The development of the Titanic Quarter has resulted in a complicated and divided landscape. Firstly, the redevelopment which has already taken place at Queen’s

Clearly, one way to get beneath the surface of Titanic Quarter is to draw upon landscape characterisation. However, unusually for the United Kingdom, Northern

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Figure 3.3. Harland and Wolff Headquarters and Drawing Offices (right); view from the ‘Slipway’ area. © Mary-Cate Garden

Island has created a set of internal boundaries. Secondly, the more discrete Titanic Quarter has been divided into seven planning zones (Northern Ireland Planning Service 2004). Thirdly, it is divided up between a series of leaseholders. Each has their own layout, for example, the Northern Ireland Science Park (NISP) holds the land on which the Thompson Dock sits and recognises a boundary that adheres roughly to the limits of its holdings. In addition to the disconnected sense of space that has been created by these divisions, the heritage assets (described below) are grouped into three ‘heritage nodes’. One of these nodes which sits largely in Zone C groups together the Hamilton Graving Dock and the Harland and Wolff Headquarters Building and Drawing Offices, while the Slipways are grouped into a separate node in Zone D (Figure 3.3). Apart from proximity, the rationale behind this is unclear; historically and functionally these three sites are closely related and splitting them runs against both historical and functional understandings of the landscape. Furthermore, ring-fencing the heritage assets into ‘nodes’ may serve to highlight their importance from a planning perspective, but has resulted in a number of isolated, protected structures being ‘scattered across the largest redevelopment site in Northern Ireland’ (Historic Monuments Council 2009, 9). Even in the areas of Titanic Quarter that have been heavily developed as public interpretation spaces (i.e. the areas in and around Thompson Dock and Pump House) the sense of a connected cohesive landscape remains restricted to a small area. Simply moving a few metres beyond this preserved

space reveals the remains of pulleys, machinery, fence lines and individual architectural and industrial elements lying neglected in the high grass and debris piles. This suggests that the role of setting is much diminished at Titanic Quarter (both within the site and in terms of connecting it to its wider environment) and fails to take in important aspects like ‘views’. Throughout Titanic Quarter the lines of fences, gates and individual architectural elements that define and make visible the historic spaces of the shipyard (thus offering a greater legibility of the past landscape(s)) are also variously selected or neglected depending on their location within the site. It is clear then that in Titanic Quarter, and in the Titanic story, many elements are unacknowledged or unreconciled (Garden 2009a) (Figure 3.4). Failing to recognise any or some of the many landscapes and landscape features associated with Titanic may mean that it will be hard to understand the relationship(s) or links between them. Rather than a rich, multi-stranded story the result is a loosely connected set of separate interpretations. Without interrogating these narratives and without exploring their relationships, a landscape or place will remain more contested than connected. Whilst it may not be a wholly dissonant landscape, it will most certainly be one in which there is considerable disagreement amongst the various individuals who interact with this site on a sustained basis. Using the set of heritage assets as compiled by the Northern

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Figure.3.4. Titanic Quarter: the boundary between interpreted space and unrecognised space. © Mary-Cate Garden

Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA 2008) as a baseline and applying notions of space, place and heritagescape, it becomes possible to gain insight into the way each group interprets the landscape through the filter of their own experience and in terms of their different values.

that are situated at the north end of Queen’s Road (Figure 3.6). Likewise, in-situ pavements, bollards, machinery, motorised gates, runs of fencelines, gateposts and myriad other components of this landscape of industry which would add to a more comprehensive sense of space and increase the legibility of the ‘new’ landscape are overlooked and omitted from protection. The listing process has meant that individual buildings have received listed status, without regard for the wider landscape. The process indicates how notions of value have been applied to the site and this selective approach continues.

The heritage assets The NIEA database of Listed Buildings and Scheduled Monuments lists a total of ten structures within Titanic Quarter (NIEA 2008, 2008a) The majority of these date to the 19th and early 20th centuries when Titanic and her sister ships were built and when Harland and Wolff was operating at its peak. Five of the listed items: the Thompson and Alexandra Graving Docks, the Twin Slipways where Titanic and Olympic were launched, the Hamilton Graving Dock and the Samson and Goliath giant yellow gantry cranes are Scheduled Monuments (Figure 3.5). Two other structures the Harland and Wolff Headquarters Building and Drawing Offices and the Thompson Dock Pump House are listed buildings. Notable among the buildings not included in the NIEA database are the Harland and Wolff Paint Hall (built in 1974), a number of smaller ancillary structures and the set of warehouses bearing the Harland and Wolff logo

When the important assets of Titanic Quarter are being enumerated by partners or stakeholders, it is the NIEA list that offers common ground. However, the way in which this list is used or understood by each of the groups brings to the fore differing notions of value. Perhaps as a result, it is rare that any of the Titanic Quarter stakeholders would refer to most or the whole of the list as a single group. Rather, it emerges that each stakeholder has its own subset of features that is often ranked. Usually the Headquarters Building and Drawing Offices (and, although listed as one building, the latter in particular) is ranked at the top of the subset. Depending on the group, this is closely followed

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Figure 3.5. Harland and Wolff Shipyards: transforming industry into branded space. In- situ office in the foreground and the ‘Samson’ and ‘Goliath’ gantry cranes in the background. August 2007. © Mary-Cate Garden

Figure 3.6. Harland and Wolff Warehouses in- situ, Queens Road. September 2008. © Mary-Cate Garden

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can also occur within a single structure or space (Figure 3.7). One of the most notable examples is the Harland and Wolff Headquarters Building and Drawing Offices. The Headquarters Building occupies an important position in the mental and material landscape of Titanic Quarter and the Titanic story (as currently recounted) (Figure 3.8). The building is featured in all the public marketing and interpretation materials and on the interpretation panels throughout the quarter, it figures highly for nearly all of the stakeholder groups and, for many (including Belfast Titanic Story and ‘Lagan Legacy’), it is the crucible wherein the story of Titanic is refined. Often referred to as the ‘crown jewel’ (Judith Webb and Martin Graham pers. comm. 30, July 2008), this building is valued by many of the stakeholders as the place in which the idea of Titanic was first ‘conceived’. In discussions of this building the Drawing Offices themselves are described as the ‘birthplace’ of Titanic and appear to hold a sacrosanct status. The Northern Ireland Tourist Board (Judith Webb and Martin Graham pers. comm. 30, July 2008) depicts these offices as the place of ‘conception’ and go on to describe the liner’s life history by linking ‘life’ stages to specific locations within Titanic Quarter (Reilly pers. comm. 23 Sept. 2008) ending with the departure or ‘death’ of Titanic when it leaves Thompson Dock. Not only is this last example of imagery notable for its vividness, it is also significant because it is one of only a few indicators that any of the principal stakeholders (in this

by the Slipways (Belfast Titanic Society) or the Thompson Dock complex (N.I. Science Park). The rankings tend to reflect the value that a group assigns to a particular location, individual or event. Looking to an individual subset and its ranking can often reveal information about the way those stakeholders interpret place and past. Overall, the NIEA database reveals the importance that is placed upon some of the features that had a direct association with Titanic or which date to a narrow period of time which spanned the construction and launch of Titanic and her sister ships Olympic and Britannic. Unfortunately, this gives little sense of the depth of time at the site and gives a punctuated sense of the past making it difficult to accommodate those changes which have occurred in the pre- or post-Titanic years. The highly stratified system of value and selection that has been applied to Titanic Quarter, in the absence of an overarching landscape characterisation scheme has, ultimately, created the impression that the individual sites and buildings operate largely in isolation and that they function more as a collection of individual heritage assets rather than forming any kind of connected landscape. This same trend of different systems of valuation and of an almost ad-hoc approach to designating significance

Figure 3.7. Differing value assigned to artefacts within the Titanic Quarter: fence and gate at Headquarters Building in the core area (left); chain fence and machinery in unmarked space at the periphery of the interpreted area (top right); fence and gate along Sydenham Road marking the limits of the Harland and Wolff yards (bottom right). © Mary-Cate Garden

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Figure 3.8. Front of Harland and Wolff Headquarters Buildings showing interpretative signage and tour bus. © Mary-Cate Garden

instance NITB) have a sense of the connectedness of the individual sites and structures within the larger landscape of Titanic Quarter.

further evidence of a disconnected sense of space within Titanic Quarter.

Despite the considerable value placed on the Headquarters Building it remains that the interiors – even the Drawing Offices themselves – appear to be perceived as less important than the exterior faces of these buildings. Inside the Headquarters Building there are obvious signs of neglect: plant life is growing out of cracks in the walls of the drawing offices and throughout the building there are large and evident water stains. A number of original artefacts including rolls of Harland and Wolff documents lie abandoned and apparently not valued as they are ‘recent, not Titanic’ (Reilly pers. comm. 23 Sept.2008).

The significance accorded to the exterior of the building is recognised by visitors who may have little or no direct experience of Titanic heritage or of the site. In this instance its importance may lie in an authenticity of the structure: it is both intact and in-situ and together these attributes provide an immediate and direct connection with the past. Even in its current state with little or no interpretation, visitors from outside the city (especially those from the cruise ships which regularly arrive in the Port of Belfast) are drawn to the Headquarters complex and on more than one occasion were seen to touch the building as a further, tangible means of connecting with the past.

Apart from the new Interpretative Centre in the Pump House (opened in late 2008) there is little public access to the inside of most of these structures. Once inside it is hard to gain a sense of the interconnectedness of the interior and exterior landscapes. Until 2008, the Thompson Pump House offered just such an opportunity with its view outwards to the Port of Belfast (Figure 3.9). Due to security issues, this line of sight has been blocked and the interior space remains (at time of writing) isolated from its surroundings,

It is not only this differentiation between inside and outside that has created a disparity between spaces, the imposition of the Titanic story has also resulted in marked differences in the way particular areas or features are interpreted. In some instances the effect of this has been to create a sort of ‘invisibility’ whereby some of the heritage stock fades into the background to such an extent that it becomes invisible or unnoticed. The Hamilton and the Alexandra Graving Docks, for example, both of which are in nearly every sense

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Figure 3.9. Interpretation panel for the Thompson Dock and Pumphouse (left); the Thompson Dock and Pumphouse (right). © Mary-Cate Garden

Similarly, artefacts located along the edges of Titanic Quarter also provide evidence that the concept of value can be very fluid. In one example two sets of gateposts and fences show considerably different treatment. The first gatepost, located on Sydenham Road, some distance from the main entrance to Titanic Quarter, is all but obscured by hoarding and has fallen into disrepair. Yet, a second set of gates, part of the Headquarters Building, is located centrally and has been restored and repaired. Such differing treatment, along with the directed views noted above, has served to highlight or enhance the site’s limits by strongly demarcating ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Ultimately, this has isolated Titanic Quarter from its spatial, temporal and thematic surroundings.

as important a feature as the Thompson Dock, tend not to figure prominently in the narratives of the stakeholder groups (Garden 2009a) or in the heritage interpretation of the site, overshadowed by the larger dock’s associations with the Titanic and Olympic. Similarly, the Pump House is largely omitted from interpretative strategy and devices and rarely figures in stakeholder discussions. Hamilton Dock, located in the shadow of the Headquarters Building suffered a similar fate, overlooked within the larger Titanic Quarter narrative and apparently, one of the least-valued aspects of the heritage stock. Interestingly this situation changed quite dramatically in late 2008 when it was announced that it would be the berth for the SS Nomadic, the tender ship for Titanic which has recently returned to Belfast and which is considered by many stakeholders (for example, Lagan Legacy) as a key heritage asset. As home to Nomadic, Hamilton Dock appears to have regained a visibility in the Titanic Quarter landscapes that it could not assume on its own ‘merits’.

Further, as the site itself is divided up into many parts, core areas are privileged over peripheral areas and, reflecting the situation around the limits of the site, this influences the ways in which people view and negotiate the space. The Titanic brand

Titanic Quarter in context

It is not only the selection of landscapes and landscape features that has affected the appearance of Titanic Quarter; the imposition of the Titanic brand also has had an almost overwhelming influence in the selection of marked heritage elements. It is not unexpected that the globally renowned Titanic story should be selected by tourist and government agencies as Belfast’s, and indeed Northern Ireland’s story; it circumvents other, more difficult heritages. However, the focus on Titanic privileges one shipyard over the many yards which operated in Belfast and gives primacy to one ship out of a long line of ships, and weight to one event over the lengthy and multi-faceted story of Belfast’s urban and industrial past. In such ways the Titanic Quarter becomes a

This differential system of valuation can also be found at a more overarching level. There is little connection between Titanic Quarter and its wider surroundings. In part, this is an outcome of the site boundary which is drawn around the property boundaries of legal holdings. The Masterplan, a document designed to set out a strategy for development and planning in the site, first conceived by Turley and Associates (2005), shows a landscape where the views are directed inwards with little or no acknowledgement of the wider setting in which Titanic Quarter sits or the ties that once existed between the shipyards and the smaller industries and neighbourhoods located on its periphery.

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flat representation of the past and fulfils the predictions of critics like Neill who fear the imposition of ‘a counterfeit representation of Belfast’ with ‘their shipbuilding heritage appropriately scrubbed and sanitised’ (Neill 2006, 115).

understanding of past and place. Each of the groups connected to Titanic Quarter have their own interpretation of the authentic or ‘real’. This is tied to different aspects of both the tangible and intangible landscape(s). In each instance the notion of authenticity and its connection to the Titanic Quarter has and will determine the way in which the quarter is used and understood. For the architects and planners, authenticity is located in the artefacts and so can survive the removal of an object to a different location or the reuse of a building for very different purposes. Authenticity for the NITB comes in the guise of an experience – of being in place and experiencing directly the material landscape of Titanic. In short, it is the way in which a sense of ‘the real’ is constructed that determines the relationship between people and place and an individual or group’s perception of a new heritage place.

There is little acknowledgement of ongoing change on the Queen’s Island site over time or of its connection with ‘the present’. The all-consuming story of Titanic has replaced the larger themes of shipbuilding and industry and, indeed, the life histories of the structures have themselves been subsumed. Although the business of shipbuilding has largely ceased, the use of this area as a port and as a ship repair facility has continued. Many spaces and structures are still in industrial use and it is still possible to see, hear and experience ample evidence of this. Many of the windows of the upper stories of the Headquarters Building are still taped up, a legacy of the Troubles. Rather than incorporating these contemporary elements into the Titanic Quarter narratives, they are ignored creating even more distance between past and present. Failing to acknowledge the more recent and/or ongoing history of the space isolates Titanic Quarter from its larger historical and spatial setting and will serve only to ‘freeze’ the site in time (Hewison 1987, passim)

Although Titanic Quarter is an emerging story, the lack of an overarching characterisation scheme in concert with a lack of transparency in the selection and promotion of heritage assets and the privileging of one story suggests that this new heritage space lacks a strong sense of place. The designers of Titanic Quarter have failed to recognise the landscape as a continuum which changes over time. It is well acknowledged that landscapes are never ‘inert’ but are constantly changing (Bender 1993). As Tilley notes, places are ‘both spatial and temporal. They are intimately connected to history, to the past and hold out the promise of a desired future’ (2006, 21). Whilst the designers of Titanic Quarter may be sympathetic to this notion, they have failed to fully grasp the nuances of space and place.

Summary and conclusions The need to develop a strong sense of place and an authentic, viable and living link to Titanic is, of course, vital to Titanic Quarter’s development. Its success will lie in acknowledging the ‘value of old buildings as symbols of community memory’ (Shaw 2001, 169). A successful regeneration project is one that takes into account the built environment and at the same time also manages to incorporate people, place and things into a coherent whole resulting in a cohesive space that has a strong sense of places and is readily recognised by visitors and residents as a ‘place of the past’ (Garden 2009, passim). These two components are essential in creating a credible, viable heritage space which is, in turn, a key component in creating an attractive destination for visitors and local residents. The interpretation of this space is therefore the cornerstone that will determine the use, understanding, sustainability and indeed ‘authenticity’ of a heritage place.

In the end, this story of Titanic holds promise, but is also a cautionary tale. Rather than a vibrant, authentic heritage and cultural quarter, there is a strong sense that the outcome might be a waterfront development that speaks little to the place identity of the urban setting in which it is located (c.f. Marshall 2001). Architect Christopher Hume (2008, 8) notes that successful, workable revitalisation projects only come together by ‘knitting together disparate elements, rediscovering the past and, through that, reinventing the future’. Creating a transparent strategy for development and preservation with a more holistic sense of heritage landscapes and historical setting is the first step in ‘knitting together’ the past, present and future and is key to the emergence of a heritage quarter and a waterfront place with a strong sense of place, identity and a sense of ‘the past’. Looking to Titanic Quarter as it is in the process of ‘being and becoming’ (c.f. Tilley 2006, 7) offers important insights into the process of heritage creation. Ultimately the lessons of Titanic Quarter highlight the importance of holistic planning in the heritage context, with a firm eye on past, current and future landscapes. This should ensure a long-term sustainability and will work towards creating a site that holds meaning for all of its visitors and those who interact with it.

These new places that emerge out of regeneration have roles as places of the past as well as places of the present. They must successfully incorporate old and new landscape elements together to create an integrated, ‘new’ place which ideally evokes some notion of ‘the past’ (Stewart et al. 2004) without erasing or obscuring the mental or material landscape(s) of the past (Shaw 2001, 169). This recognition of the role of a regenerated area as a distinct space, which is at the same time tied to its larger temporal and spatial surroundings, is a fundamental point of transforming a space and critically must be about more than preserving or conserving old buildings. This analysis of a regenerated landscape reveals a much larger story about authenticity and its role within the

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References

Marshall, R. 2001 (ed.) Waterfronts in the Post Industrial City SPON Press, New York and London. Moss, M. 1986 Shipbuilders to the World: 125 Years of Harland and Wolff, Belfast 1861-1986 Blackstaff, Belfast. Neill, W. J. V. 2004 Urban Planning and Cultural Identity Routledge, London. Neill, W. J. V. 2006 Return to Titanic and Lost in the Maze: The Search for Representation of ‘Post-conflict’ Belfast Space and Polity 10(2) pp. 109-120. Northern Ireland Executive 2008 ‘Minister Hails Spirit of Co-operation Behind Titanic Quarter Planning Progress’ www.northernireland.gov.uk/news [accessed 8 Dec. 2008]. Northern Ireland Planning Service 2004 Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan 2015 www.planningni.gov. uk/index/policy/dev_plans_az/bmap2015-belfast.pdf [accessed 8 Dec. 2008]. Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) 2008 Listed Buildings Database http://www.doeni.gov.uk/niea/otherindex/content-databases/content-databases-build.htm [accessed 12 Dec. 2008]. Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) 2008a Monuments Records Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record http://www.doeni.gov.uk/niea/otherindex/content-databases/content-databases-ambit.htm [accessed 12 Dec. 2008]. Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) (2003) Strategic Framework for Action 2004-2007, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) (2011) Signature Projects http://www.nitb.com/ CategoryPage. aspx?path=aedbda88-d741-4bec-b324-36204c735653 [accessed 15 March 2011]. Penrose, S. 2007 Images of Change: An Archaeology of England’s Contemporary Landscape English Heritage, London. Royle, S. A. 2006 Belfast: foundations of the twentieth century, pp. 11-29 in F. W. Boal and S. A. Royle (eds.) Enduring City: Belfast in the Twentieth Century Blackstaff Press, Belfast. Shaw, B. 2001 History at the Water’s Edge, pp. 160-72 in R. Marshall, (ed.) Waterfronts in the Post Industrial City SPON Press, London and New York. Stewart, W. P., Liebert, D. and Larkin, K. 2004 Community Identities as Visions for Landscape Change Landscape and Urban Planning 69, pp. 315-334. Tilley, C. 1994 A Phenomenonlogy of Landscape. Places, Paths and Monuments Berg, Oxford. Tilley, C. 2006 Introduction. ‘Identity, Place, Landscape and Heritage’ Journal of Material Culture 11(7) pp. 7-32. Turley and Associates 2005 Titanic Quarter Development Framework, http://www.titanicquarter.com/items/ abouttq/developmentstrategy/tq_develop_framework. pdf [accessed November 7, 2008]

Ashworth, G. J. and Graham, B. 2005 Introduction to Theme One, pp. 15-30 in G. J. Ashworth and B. Graham (eds.) Senses of Time, Senses of Place Ashgate, Aldershot. Bender, B. 1993 Landscape: Meaning and Action in Landscape, pp. 1-17 in B. Bender (ed.) Politics and Perspectives Berg. Oxford. Cameron, J. 1997 Titanic USA: Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox. Carman, J. and Carman, P. 2009 The Intangible Presence: Investigating Battlefields, pp. 292-316 in M. L. S. Sorensen and J. Carman (eds.) Heritage Studies: Methods and Approaches Routledge, London. CivicArts, Eric Kuhne Associates 2007 Titanic Quarter www.civicarts.com/titanic-quarter.php [accessed December 08, 2008]. Council of Europe 2000 European Landscape Convention, Florence, European Treaty Series, No 176, www.coe. int/T/E/cultural-co-operation/Environment/Landscape [accessed 7 July 2008]. Crooke, E. 2007 Museum and Community. Issues, Ideas and Challenges Routledge, Abdingdon. English Heritage 2000 Power of Place English Heritage, London. English Heritage 2008 Seeing the History in the View. A Method for Assessing Heritage Significance Within Views Draft for Consultation April 2008. Fowler, P. 2004 Landscapes for the World. Conserving a Global Heritage Place Windgather Press Ltd., Bollington. Garden, M. C. E. 2006 Put in their Place. Museums in their Settings Museums Ireland 16, pp. 26-33. Garden, M. C. E. 2009 The Heritagescape: Looking at Heritage Sites, pp. 270-291 in M. L. S. Sorensen and J. Carman (eds.) Heritage Studies: Methods and Approaches Routledge, London. Garden, M. C. E. 2009a The Titanic Quarter: A Heritage Assessment Study report on file, Belfast City Council, Belfast. Hart, M. 2006 From Smokestacks to Service Economy: Foundations for a Competitive City? pp. 84-98 in F. W. Boal and S. A. Royle (eds.) Enduring City. Belfast in the Twentieth Century Blackstaff Press, Belfast. Hicks, D., McAtackney, L. and Fairclough, G. 2007 Envisioning Landscape: Situations and Standpoints in Archaeology and Heritage (One World Archaeology 52) Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek. Hewison, R. 1987 The Heritage Industry Methuen, London. Historic Monuments Council for Northern Ireland (2009) Historic Monuments Council for Northern Ireland 2003-2009. 1st Report http://www.hmcni.gov.uk/hmc__1st_report.pdf [accessed 12 July 2011]. Hume, C. 2008 Enhancing City Life One Landscape Project at a Time Toronto Star 19 December 2008, Section A p8. Leary, T. and Sholes E. 2001 Authenticity of Place and Voice: Examples from of Industrial Heritage Preservation and Interpretation in the US and Europe The Public Historian 22(3) pp. 49-66.

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Chapter 4 The Aquatic Ape and the Rectangular Pit: Perceiving the Archaeology and Value of a Recreational Landscape Jeremy Lake

I think the town council may be forgiven a little justifiable pride as they look around at this beautiful scene. They have converted a wilderness into a garden, and from an ugly chrysalis has emerged a beautiful butterfly. But unlike the butterfly this beautiful pool will not merely live its little day and be no more. As the years go by and the young trees and shrubs grow up its beauty will be enhanced and its charm increased (Councillor Ward, Mayor of Cheltenham, speech at the lido opening ceremony, Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic, 1935).

heritage, including historic pools and open air swimming (Chitty and Wood 2002; Rew 2008; SAVE 1982; Smith 2005; Victorian Society 2008; Worpole 2002a). In 2006 the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) contributed more than £380,000 – boosting sums already raised locally – towards the cost of renovation works to the pool. Core to the HLF bid was the commissioning of a Conservation Management Plan which evaluated the significance of the site and made recommendations for future change and maintenance (Lake 2009). It concluded that it survives as a nationally important example of a lido landscape with a uniquely complete suite of the engineering plant which served to heat and purify the water, and summarised the benefits (educational, community, recreational and economic) it provides to wider society. This paper builds upon this work and will explore how the character of the lido and its landscape context frames sensory and emotional stimulation that people draw from the site as a whole. This, and its consideration of its communal value and cultural context, raises questions relevant to not only archaeological theory and practice but how planners and heritage practitioners can develop a more rounded way of managing ‘heritage’ sites.

Introduction Swimming pools are an integral part of the archaeology of 20th century Western culture, meriting examination in the contexts of their landscapes, the technologies that sustained them and the associated artefacts of the cultures that they reflect and developed within. They have bequeathed an archaeology of deep pits, mostly but not always rectangular in form, widespread in their distribution but concentrated along the coastlines of the Mediterranean and the United States. At the same time, and from the imaginations generated from their point of origin in the Hollywood Hills, the silver screen was bringing to millions the ‘aquacade’ and the antics of Tarzan the apeman, Jane and Cheetah the chimp in their ‘jungle pool’ and (Sprawson 1992, 239-62; van Leeuwen 1998, 169, 172-6). The age of the aquatic ape, and a collective yearning for the restorative benefits of water and sun, had arrived.

Symbolism and context Water played a key role within the villa landscapes of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and by the 19th century the planning of urban parks. Both reflected and reinforced the concept of the idyllic and wild as an integral part of Western culture (Schama 1995, 525). The architecture and landscape setting of swimming pools, on the other hand, provided a framework for modern forms of bodily expression and experience that developed within newly-developed or inherited landscapes. By the 1960s, for example, the private open-air pool had developed as an integral component of the newly-forged American suburban landscape, from its point of origin in the Hollywood Hills. The ‘splash series’ of paintings by David Hockney and Cheever’s short story The Swimmer (1964) provide two of the best-known examples of how the pool emerged as a focus for exploring changing social values and a theatre for bodily display and sensual immersion. Within Europe, private pools also signified, along with the restoration of the traditional farmsteads and houses with which they are

This article focuses on Sandford Parks Lido in Cheltenham Spa (Sandford Parks Lido 2011) which was opened in 1935. It is one of many communal open-air pools, termed lidos, which were built throughout the Western world in the inter-war period and reflect developments in 20th century society, politics and popular culture. By the 1980s it was threatened by closure and redevelopment, reflecting a downward turn in the fortunes of lidos across the country (Powers 1991), but since 1994 it has been successfully managed by a charitable trust and seen its opening season extended from 16 weeks to six months. There has also been a growing appreciation of the values of sporting

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Figure 4.1. The 1935 advertisement for Sandford Parks Lido, showing the iconic figure used throughout Western culture of the diving and Jantzen-clad woman. © Sandford Parks Lido

often associated, the expansion of urban cultures and their artefacts into a rural milieu. Such exurban cultures emerged and developed just as the farming industry required new functionally homogenous infrastructure in response to global commodity prices, rising labour costs and state grants.

exercise such as swimming, cycling and walking served as a striking and for many sportsmen unwelcome counterpoint to the more familiar discipline and spectacle of school drill and team sports (Birley 1995, 42, 204, 208; Holt 1990, 123-48). Growing consumer demand for this freedom of expression and performance in the open air was also enabled by technological developments. By the 1920s developments in pumping and filtration systems, in order to maintain the flow and purity of the water, were matched by that of strong materials such as reinforced concrete for containing tons of water and resisting surrounding ground pressure. New synthetic fibres, and in particular the Jantzen swimsuit – ‘the suit that changed bathing to swimming’ (Lenček and Bosker 1998, 187-9, 210) – freed women in particular from the soggy embrace of the woollen bathing suit and the way that it limited freedom of expression without considerable potential for embarrassment: the icon of the diving woman was the result (Figure 4.1). We are now so familiar with this interaction with the aquatic environment of pools and beaches, through our adult lives and memories of our childhoods, that its truly radical and transformative nature in the context of early 20th century society is easy to overlook.

The private pool thus emerged as a symbol of affluent modernity, in tandem with the development of the communal open air pool. Both exemplify what Foucault has termed the ‘technologies of the self’, a desire on the part of the citizen to attain happiness, well-being and other Enlightenment values through bodily action and transformation (1986a, 253-4). For a multiplicity of reasons, these strengthened and coalesced in the early 20th century, and were sustained by a personal and governmental intertwining of hygiene, technology and an individual and collective desire for regeneration. Until the early 1900s most swimming and bathing establishments served as places for discipline, instruction and hygiene. The latter was of particular importance for civic authorities and national governments as they sought to eradicate the threat of water-borne diseases. By the late 19th century local authorities, despite such concerns, were making increasing provision in public parks for swimming areas in response to public demand (Taylor 2000, 141). Wellknown figures such as the swimmer and music hall star Annette Kellerman extolled the democratic and liberating sensation of swimming beyond the surf line, as distinct from the tradition of bathing or the common practice of segregating pools into male and female areas (Lenček and Bosker 1998, 191; Smith 2005, 19). Free and participative

Cheltenham’s civic leaders, in the debate that preceded the vote to build the lido, drew attention to the provision of new facilities across the town for families and children, in addition to ‘an urgent national need which is to raise the standard of health and physique of its people’ (Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic 1934). National governments of different political hues, in response to such demand, wished to be seen to take the lead in the

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provision of sports facilities – in Germany for example under both the Weimar administration and after 1933 the National Socialists – or (as in Britain until the late 1960s) encouraging local action through grants and loans (Holt 1990, 270; Worpole 2002a). In inter-war England, as elsewhere in Europe, political and practical debates around the idea of citizenship revolved around complex and intertwining ideas of lifestyle, morality and bodily practices such as hiking, climbing and swimming (Matless 1998, 1213). The landscape had become an arena for modernisation and ‘the reorganisation of the senses’ through experience and discovery as well as instruction (Frykman 1994, 67 and 65). This reflected a common desire to utilise, adapt and where necessary create places where the body and mind would be invigorated and renewed. Councillor Waite’s opening speech made symbolic use of the butterfly, an apt analogy when one considers that the lido was born out of the site of a municipal rubbish tip. More broadly, such metaphors also reflected an individual and collective desire for mental and physical regeneration after the trauma of the First World War and the ‘Spanish Flu’ that followed in its wake – to ‘wash away the memories, the guilt and the pain; [and] by basking themselves in the sun, bake themselves to health and vitality’ (Sprawson 1992, 201, 264). This cult of sun worship, rejuvenation and a yearning for the exotic escape from the everyday emerged against the backdrop of a fearful and ‘morbid’ post-war age (Overy 2009, 382). It stimulated new patterns of commodification and consumption: innovative forms of revivalist or international modern styles of architecture, including schools and hospitals, and garden design which were designed to harness the benefits of sun and light (Châtelet 2003; Worpole 2002a), the repackaging of coastal resorts as ‘Riviera destinations’ and the promotion from 1929 of sun tan oil (Birley 1995, 137). The battle for purity through light and white characterised the archaeology of Western culture in its broadest sense in this period, whether New Deal American, Fascist or Soviet (Buchli 1999, 52; Ghirardo 1989) and found its way into the utopian communities subsequently promoted in the Cold War period. It is in this context that we can explain both the use of the open air pool as an icon of Western culture and technology, and their abandonment when no longer sustained by the investment of resources and in conflict with indigenous social practice (González-Ruibal 2006, 196).

and grazing land around the river Chelt, which had been acquired from private mill owners. In 1933 they settled for the present lido site to the east of the town. It was sited alongside a large park and close to a 19th century pumping station, an instructional swimming pool built in 1872 for the boys of Cheltenham College and the General Hospital. The latter had been built as an elegant Grecian block of 1848 facing south into the playing fields of Cheltenham College, which soon after its foundation in that decade acquired a reputation for the production of soldiers and administrators for Britain’s expanding empire (Figure 4.2). Over the later 19th and early 20th centuries the council was increasingly mindful of the need to enhance the supply of clean water and raise living standards for its population as a whole, including the construction in the 1880s of a communal bathhouse, a slum clearance programme and the provision of public housing. The lido was built on the edge of Sandford Park, which had been opened in 1927 as a ‘green wedge’ which connected the town centre to the edge of the Cotswolds hills. Its designer, Edward White, had married into a longestablished dynasty of Victorian garden architects (Hodges 1977, 76), and Victorian-style rockeries, walks and planting are a defining characteristic of the part of the park closest to the town centre. The park adjoining the lido, on the other hand, was designed as an open area for free play and sport, with a children’s paddling pool (now a play area) in one corner. In this respect it reflected the increased importance accorded to free play and children by civic authorities in this period and the move to landscape‑scale planning which was emerging as a dominant theme in urban planning. It is significant, in this context, that White played a prominent role (as President from 1931-1933 and founder member of its journal Landscape and Garden) in the newly-formed Institute of Landscape Architects which led the movement to utilise landscape for the concepts of citizenship and modernity which were emerging in this period (Harvey and Rettig 1985; Matless 1998, 223). White was invited in September 1933 to collaborate with the borough engineer, C. Gould Marsland, on the design of the lido and its integration into the park (Council Building Records (CBR) 1933, 24-5). The planting of the lido complemented that of the park, which was in turn served by a separate entrance and the lido’s own café. The main entrance, with its ticket offices and turnstiles, was accessed from the car park to the east. Car parking was, as with other leisure sites of the period, a feature of the original design (Walvin 1978, 140-2). All those entering the site were greeted by the sight and sound of the fountain, which both symbolised the purity of the pool and had a practical purpose in aerating water that was continually being filtered and pumped back into the lido from a plant house sited to the northeast. The fountain and pool were placed along the main axis of the site, which was enclosed at either end by the semi-circular quadrants of the main entrance and changing rooms to the east and the café and its flanking tea terraces to the west. The lido was planned and set out so that it could

Sandford Parks lido Cheltenham had developed from the 18th century as a spa town, and is best known for the clusters of professional and middle-class villas and terraces which developed around its spas and parks. As an ensemble, of special significance within the context of English architecture and urban planning, it represents the development of ‘a large, independent and self-confident middle class, equipped with a genteel education and enjoying sufficient affluence to support a life-style based on privacy and leisure’ (Stone 1977, 421-2). By the 1920s Cheltenham’s councillors were looking to build an open-air pool along the former meadows

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Figure 4.2. The lido’s relationship to Cheltenham, its principal amenity areas, and the town’s expansion since the 1930s. © Sandford Parks Lido/Chantal Freeman

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Figure 4.3. Aerial view of 1947 showing the lido from the south, with the playing fields of Sandford Park (opened in 1927) to the north of the smaller children’s pool. This was originally open to the park, but is now screened by trees and shrubbery. To the top right is the plant room that housed the pumps, filters and boiler house for heating and cleansing the pool, and also the Victorian pumping station. The open area between the plant room and the pool was originally intended for tennis courts and other sporting activities. The gardens in the foreground have since been developed into car parking for the hospital. © Simmons Aerofilms

take advantage of the passage of the sun, and open lawned areas and sun decks provided additional areas for relaxation, socialising, sports and sun worship (Figures 4.3 to 4.5). The landscape setting to the rectangular pool and its diving boards reflected a confluence of various national traditions of swimming. The diving board and the rectangular tank facilitated the spectacle of diving and speed-swimming (the ‘crawl’ stroke), as promoted respectively by the Scandinavians and Americans, and the planting evoked an earlier and distinctly British tradition, rooted in 19th century Romanticism, of landscape swimming which has been evoked in Deakin’s ‘aquatic journey’ across Britain (Deakin 1999; Sprawson 1992, 194-7, 223 and 132-56). Planting in Mediterranean cypress and native species was complemented by the English Arts and Crafts design of the low stone walls around the pool and its clipped yew hedges. The architecture also displays a distinctly modern mix of late Victorian and Edwardian suburban influence in its roughcast walls and red tile roofs, and of Moderne architecture in its internal detail. A children’s pool was added in 1938, extending into the park and surrounded by its own lawned area.

There has been little change to the lido since the 1930s, other than the removal of the diving board and – after only the first season – the replacement of shingle by flagstones on the sun terraces. Over the decades the planting around the site has matured and realised Councillor Waite’s dream of an Arcadian idyll, planned around the pool but affording a sense of the surrounding landscape including the park and (particularly when it was originally built) the Cotswolds hills. The café terraces were originally designed to enable spectators to enjoy views of the site but are now in little use compared to other parts of the site. The children’s pool which was built in 1936 now acts as the focus for family groups in the area around it, in contrast to the use of the sun terraces facing the pool for adults and the lawned area to the west where clusters of teenage children and young adults congregate and play games. The principal change, and one that can clearly be read in the archaeology of the fabric, has been a freeing-up of the original and tightlydefined routes of access for swimmers and non-swimmers. The original intention was for swimmers to move from the ticket offices into flanking crescents of changing cubicles, put their clothing into a wire basket and then deposit it for

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Figure 4.4. The lido from the east, showing the main pool and the division between the poolside area and walkway marked by a low drystone stone wall, which is often (as here) used as a seating area by swimmers. © Jeremy Lake.

safe-keeping in the basket stores. Bathers would then move towards the toilet and shower block at either end of these semi-circular sections and walk through the foot sprays to the pool. After their swim, they would walk around the rear of the toilet blocks to a hatch for the return of their clothes and then proceed back to the changing cubicles. A growing demand from swimmers to enter the pool direct put an end to this arrangement, the result being the blocking of the hatches and the conversion of the basket stores into heated changing rooms. The radical developments in social practice which underpinned the planning of the site, as a place where citizens would remove their garments and emerge into an open performative landscape, thus facilitated its further transformation within the overall framework of the original design concept.

framework for the values invested in it by its users and the general public, as well as their perceptions and sense of place. This builds upon the ‘values’ approach that has recently been adopted by the HLF and latterly English Heritage in its Conservation Principles (Avrami et al. 2000; Clark 2006; English Heritage 2008). A series of events and press releases between October 2007 and September 2008 asked the public to record ‘what makes the lido a special place for you’ on a coloured target which marked the relative importance of different attributes of the site and as free text. The target was based on a form of spider diagram (Figure 4.6) adapted from a ‘Place Consultation Tool’ employed by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE 2011). The most highly valued categories – clustered towards the middle rings and centre of the target – are ‘Swimming and Landscape’, followed by ‘Safe Environment’, ‘Relaxing’, ‘Family Day’, ‘Socialising’ and finally ‘Catering’ (mostly occupying the outer two circles of value) and ‘Other Activities’. The overwhelming majority (over 85 percent) of respondents were in the 25-60 age bracket, but comparison of the responses for ‘Very Important’ from the other age brackets suggests some interesting differences, and in particular the relative importance of socialising and relaxing for the over60s and for the 16-25 age group (Lake 2009).

The experiential landscape The design of the lido in its landscape context provides an arena for performance and experience at both a communal and individual level, very different from that offered by a private pool and still reflecting like all lidos ‘a democratic concern for a freely available, healthy, convivial environment, putting pleasure and health firmly at the centre of civic life’ (Deakin 1999, 153). The Conservation Plan for Sandford Parks Lido presented an opportunity to consider how the original design concept provides a

The box below presents some of the free text responses

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Figure 4.5. The experiential landscape. This plan shows the original patterns of access to and around the site. The raised bank marking the boundary between the hospital and the lido runs along the southern boundary of the footpath to the south east. Upon entering the site from the east after passing through the ticket office (1) visitors are greeted by the sound of the fountain and the opening-up of the lido’s landscape, which is initially dominated by views across the fountain and the main pool towards the café and its flanking seating areas. The main pool and the poolside (hatched) are surrounded by walkways for non-swimmers. The open areas and sun terraces (2 and 3) are used for solitary and group relaxation, the northern sun terraces (3) being more commonly used by those engaged in solitary relaxation and contemplation of the main pool. The large area to the south (4) is generally dominated by clusters of under-25s and when possible are used for ball games. Family groups with young children are usually clustered around the small children’s pool to the north (right of picture). Children tend to use the shallower end of the main pool to the east, with its water slides. The high boards have been removed from the deep end, but adolescents still tend to use the part of the deep end close to the open area (4) for competitive diving. © Sandford Parks Lido/Chantal Freeman.

to the following request made by the Lido Trust to its customers and the general public:

the local economy. It does not matter if there is an aspect that does not fit within these headings. We just want to know what you think is important and how you make use of the site.

We would welcome your thoughts on why the lido is a special place for you. There are a number of factors that you may consider important, ranging from its historic importance, the character and beauty of the whole site, or its value as a place for recreation, sport, the local community, education or

This is my ‘time out’ to be still, peaceful and switch off and swim – thank you. I was always brought up by a lido, Guildford, I would have

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can have a quiet snooze or watch the activity. I am no great swimmer but love the water. What a great place to cool off from the heat of the summer. The fountain is a delight and at the end of a visit I sit on its wall for a few minutes for it relaxes the soul especially when under stress. It is lovely to come to a town-located sports facility and feel you’re in the middle of nowhere. Fantastic, picturesque landscape makes an oasis of tranquility. The landscaping and trees around the pool together with the beautiful design of buildings make it a very attractive place to sit and enjoy good company. The sense of space and relaxation is an essential part of the experience. It’s a peaceful oasis in a world of chaos. It’s the jewel in Cheltenham’s crown accessible and available to all. Four generations of my family have been coming here and the place hardly changes. Long may it continue. A great place to chill out and look at the skyscape. Where else can you swim under a great big sky? Swimming in the open air, the views of the trees, the water, the glimpses of red tiles. It’s an institution, a rite of passage in Cheltenham. The lido is my haven of peace and tranquillity. I love swimming too and after spending all my summers here as an adolescent it also has a certain element of sexual awakening. It’s a fantastic place to be and enjoy swimming in the open air. On a sunny day I can imagine being in a foreign land… The pools and the fact that you can just meet your friends up and swim with them and have a good and fun time. Figure 4.6. The coloured target used by members of the public to score their perceptions of the values that the lido provides to them. © Sandford Parks Lido/Chantal Freeman.

It is a place for relaxation and tranquillity on school free days. It is also a place to meet new people and make more friends. The lido is special because it is a safe place to play and swim, also a lovely garden and parks.

to say this one is much better, its got a really beautiful landscape and that’s what I really love when I swim up and down, the different effects on the misty mornings and cool sunsets in the evenings. The wind on the water it’s the sort of things you don’t get in an indoor pool. It’s also a great place to sort problems.

The trees they are good to climb. The pool is good to swim in. The ice cream is lush and the doughnuts.

I first came to live in Cheltenham in 1961 and was fortunate enough to discover the lido and its delightful surrounds in that first summer. I don’t like heat and am no sun bather although it is the ideal location for those who do. I tend to sit in the shade of the veranda adjoining the café where I

These statistics and statements show that the environment of the lido and its surroundings provides the framework for how it is utilised and experienced. Like other communal open air pools that emerged in the inter-war period, it was

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envisaged as a place of escape and a portal into a newlydiscovered, mysterious and magical world. On busy days it rings to the joyous screams of children or the occasional admonishing whistle. Swimmers experience a wide range of sensations, from the amniotic swish of the pool, the colour and movement of the water and sky and the sense of moving through a green landscape with trees and planting. It is also a place for play and fun, meeting and making friends, relaxing, keeping fit and learning new skills. The statements show how users of the lido sense through rather than simply look at the environment around them, drawing sensory and emotional stimulation through their engagement with the site as a whole and through different forms of rest, play and movement. The result of this interaction between the environment and the ‘embodied mind (or enminded body)’ is both a ‘taskscape’ (Ingold 2000, 171, 199) and an ‘experiential landscape’ (Thwaite and Simkins 2006, 16), whose architecture, planting and space channels bodily movement and perception. Particularly prominent in design of both park and lido is that of a ‘continuous physical environment which envelops, maintains and develops the child’s body’ (Foucault 1986b, 280), offering a striking contrast for children to the formalised drill and discipline of the school playground, the formality of the Victorian park and certainly the ‘muscular Christian’ ethos of nearby Cheltenham College, the playing fields of which are bounded by a racquets court, gymnasium and chapel (Morgan 1968, 78, 117-27). More subtly, perhaps, it represents how the concept of regenerative and therapeutic landscape design, and confluence of ideas on public health and urban reform, met both the needs of the individual, the family and ‘the strategic aims of the nation state’ at a distinct point in time (Gandy 2006, 499).

2006, 504, 506). In recent years, however, a growing body of evidence has shown that exercise in urban and rural open ‘green’ spaces delivers tangible health benefits in terms of improvement of psychological well-being, physical health benefits and the facilitation of social networking and connectivity (cf. Barton and Pretty 2010; Hertzog and Streevey 2008; Ulrich 1979; Worpole and Greenhalgh 1996). This complements the evidence provided by public polls of the key role that public space plays in quality of life, memory and community identity (CABE 2004), the need to integrate the views of children and young people into public space strategies and understand how their experience of the environment ‘impacts on their attitudes, patterns of behaviour and development’ (Drake 2004, 1; Worpole 2002b). More recently, the heritage sector has recognised that approaches towards the understanding and valuing of the historic environment need to be more strategic and integrated (Clark 2006; DCMS, 2001; English Heritage 2000). Key to this approach is learning how to read the site itself, its wider context and the values invested in it by the wider community, which was taken forward by English Heritage in its Conservation Principles for the Sustainable Management of the Historic Environment (2008) and in March 2010 by Planning Policy Statement 5 (Planning for the Historic Environment) and the accompanying Historic Environment Planning Practice Guide (DCLG 2010a; DCLG 2010b; English Heritage 2008). The lido, although not subject to any national designation, is a Heritage Asset as defined in PPS5, because it makes a significant contribution to Cheltenham’s Central Conservation Area and it is included on the Borough Council’s Index of Buildings of Local Interest (2010). PPS5 advises that in considering the impact of a proposal on any heritage asset, the particular nature of the significance of heritage assets, including their contribution to ‘local character and sense of place’ and the value they offer to people should be taken into account. Policy HE10 sets out additional policy principles guiding the consideration of applications for development affecting the setting of a designated heritage asset. Critically, setting is defined in Annex 2 of PPS5 as ‘The surroundings in which a heritage asset is experienced. Its extent is not fixed and may change as the asset and its surroundings evolve. Elements of a setting may make a positive or negative contribution to the significance of an asset, may affect the ability to appreciate that significance or may be neutral.’

The contested landscape However, tensions were already evident, and translated into physical form, before the lido was built. As a result of concerns raised by the hospital about noise from the lido, and of cars entering and leaving the site, a raised bank planted with trees was built along the boundary between the two sites (CBR 1933, 24-5, 31). Since the 1960s the hospital has expanded onto former allotments and properties around the lido, ultimately leading to the threat of its demolition and replacement by a car park prior to the establishment of the Trust. This has now abated, but in August 2008 the hospital applied for a multi-storey car park for 407 cars to be sited right along the southern boundary of the site, which the Lido Trust considered would partly block out the sunlight and through its scale undermine the benefits it provides. The site boundary between the lido and the hospital has thus emerged as a zone of contention between two places perceived as having distinct identities. Its archaeology is a tangible reminder of how over the 20th century (and as memories of the water-borne epidemics that had characterised urban life receded) increasingly individualised and fragmented approaches to public health have displaced the earlier interconnections between urban governance, social reform and medical advocacy (Gandy

The case went to a Public Inquiry in March and June 2010, after the hospital trust and its car park operator appealed against the refusal of its planning application by Cheltenham Borough Council in April 2009. It was argued by the Lido Trust that the lido’s significance rests upon its character and integrity as a designed and functioning landscape, rather than any individual set-piece buildings, and that the proposal obstructed the open sense within which the site is experienced. This consideration had been entirely absent from the case put forward by the hospital and car park operator, and indeed the Council which had objected to the car park on the grounds of the proposed

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cladding rather than the impact consequent upon its scale, bulk and mass. In his rejection of the appeal, the Planning Inspector stated that ‘when one considers the Lido in its entirety, it is an undoubtedly special place. It clearly has historical value and provides the perception of a link between past and present people’. He significantly added that ‘many people value the Lido for many reasons beyond its utility as a swimming pool’ and that the development ‘would have a dramatic and harmful impact on the way that users experience the Lido in its setting and would unacceptably diminish the surroundings in which this heritage asset is experienced’ (The Planning Inspectorate, 2010). This judgement highlights the need to consider the inherited character and context of historic assets and how they are used and experienced, rather than simply relying upon expert judgements of their significance or conventional methods (as used in this case by both the hospital and the Council) of objectifying heritage, such as describing viewpoints across and towards assets within conservation areas.

look initially at whole sites in the broader context of their landscapes and communities (past and present) rather than ‘objectifying’ the past in the material record: an approach to which archaeologists working at a landscape scale are admirably suited. They also raise to the fore the importance of understanding how experience, enjoyment and dwelling is forged and sustained through the interaction of the embodied mind and the environment. This can deepen and enrich our understanding of the archaeology of childhood, class and gender (e.g. Dell et al. 2000; Wileman 2005), as well as the many projects that are focusing, for example, on the spatial experience of children and helping people to engage with and interpret their environments such as Hackney’s The Building Exploratory (2010). Such an understanding, of how places express past value systems and provide a framework for present uses and values, can enrich our perceptions of the environment and inform planning for the future.

Conclusion

This article was written in my own time and the views expressed are not those of English Heritage. My thanks to Frank Johnson formerly of Milner Son & White, and Annabel Downs of the Landscape Institute for information about Edward White, which is fully referenced in the Conservation Plan (Lake 2009). Detailed costs and specifications for the lido are contained in the Cheltenham Borough Surveyor’s Contracts Ledgers for Measured Work, Gloucestershire Records Office, Council Building Records C5/2/1/2, p.168.

Acknowledgements

As archaeologists we endeavour to extract meaning from the material record of the past. The debate about the lido and indeed the archaeology and context of its conception offers affirmation of the fact that the past, like the present, is negotiated within the processes of power and discourse in the wider world. Sandford Parks Lido was designed and is still used as a performative and contemplative place, irrespective of whether it fulfils criteria for the designation of inter-war ‘architecture’. Like other open-air pools it reflects developments in technology and society, offering an opportunity ‘to encounter the way agencies worked within the structural conditions of their time’, and how these ‘are reproduced or transformed through the various outcomes, both intended and unintended, of the practices which they facilitate’ (Barrett 2001, 157 and 150). It has been seen that new forms of bodily practice and performance conditioned how it was designed as an integrated whole and how it is used and valued at the present time. The shift within archaeology from representations to more subjective performances and perceptions of landscape (e.g. Schofield 2007) is significant in this context: as Thomas has asserted in his exploration of archaeology and modernity, ‘meaning and materiality cannot be separated’ (Thomas 2004, 248), an approach that has also been matched by writing on landscape which seeks to intertwine empirical, textual and representational ways of seeing with embodied practice and performance (Wylie 2007, 205-8). More importance is now being accorded to inter-disciplinary means of approaching the future of landscapes and places that also use the inherited or historic character of places to inform a broad range of social and cultural aims above those of ‘heritage’ as objects for official selection and management (Council of Europe 2000, 2005). Such concepts are, however, largely undeveloped. They present challenges to some of the particularistic ways of managing change to places that have developed in the last fifty years, for they impel us to

References Avrami, E. Mason, R. and de la Torre, M. 2000 Values and Heritage Conservation: Research Report The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles. Barrett,  J. C. 2001 Agency, the Duality of Structure and the Problem of the Archaeological Record, pp. 141-164 in I. Hodder (ed.) Archaeological Theory Today Polity Press, Oxford. Barton, J. and Pretty, J. 2010 What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health? A Multi-Study Analysis, Environmental Science and Technology (Journal of the American Chemical Society) 44, pp. 3947-3955. Birley, D. 1995 Playing the Game: Sport and British Society Manchester University Press, Manchester. Buchli, V. 1999 An Archaeology of Socialism Berg, Oxford. CABE 2004 The Value of Public Space: How High Quality Parks and Public Spaces Create economic, Social and Environmental Value Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, London. CABE 2011 Public Space, http://www.cabe.org.uk/publicspace [accessed 8 August 2010]. (CBR), Council Building Records 1933-1950, Gloucestershire Records Office C2/3/34/3. Châtelet, A. 2003 Open-Air Schools: An Educational and

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Architectural Venture in Twentieth-Century Europe Éditions Recherches, Paris. Cheever, J. 1964 The Swimmer, pp. 61-76 in The Brigadier and the Golf Widow Harper and Row, New York. Cheltenham Borough Council 2010 Index of Buildings of Local Interest and Conservation Appraisals for St Lukes and College Character Areas in the Central Conservation Area, http://www.cheltenhamboroughcouncil.gov.uk/ environmentandplanning/conservation   [accessed 8 August 2010]. Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic 1934 Cheltenham Town Council Approves £14, 460 Bathing Pool Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic, , February 10, 1934, p. 3. Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic 1935 New Bathing Pool at Sandford Park Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic, June 1, 1935, p. 7. Chitty, J. and Wood, J. 2002 A Sporting Chance. Realising the Value of Sports Heritage The Value of Public Places Conservation Bulletin 43, pp. 9-13. Clark, K. (ed.) 2006 Capturing the Public Value of Heritage: Proceedings of the London Conference English Heritage, Swindon. Council of Europe 2000 European Landscape Convention, Florence, European Treaty Series, No 176, www.coe. int/T/E/cultural-co-operation/Environment/Landscape [accessed 7 July 2009]. Council of Europe 2005 Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society Council of Europe, Florence. DCLG 2010a Planning Policy Statement 5: Planning for the Historic Environment Department for Communities and Local Government, London. DCLG 2010b PPS5 Planning for the Historic Environment: Historic Environment Planning Practice Guide Department for Communities and Local Government, London. DCMS 2001 The Historic Environment: A Force for Our Future Department of Culture, Media & Sport, London. Deakin, R. 1999 Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey through Britain Chatto and Windus, London. Dell, A., Mrozowski, S. A. and Paynter, R. (eds.) 2000 Lines that Divide: Historical Archaeologies of Race, Class and Gender The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. Drake, D. 2004 Children and the Spaces They Need http:// www.publicartonline.org.uk [accessed March 23 2009]. English Heritage 2000 Power of Place, A Future for the Historic Environment English Heritage, London. English Heritage 2008 Conservation Principles. Policies and Guidance for the Sustainable Management of the Historic Environment English Heritage, Swindon. Foucault, M. 1986a Space, Knowledge, and Power, pp. 23956i n P. Rabinow (ed.) The Foucault Reader Penguin, London. Foucault, M. 1986b The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 273-89 in P. Rabinow (ed.) The Foucault Reader Penguin, London. Frykman,  J. 1994 On the Move: The Struggle for the

Body in Sweden in the 1930s, pp. 63-85 in C. Nadia Sermatakis, The Senses Still: Perception and Memory as Material Culture in Modernity Westview Press, Oxford. Gandy, M. 2006 Zones of Indistinction: Bio-Political Contestations in the Urban Arena, Cultural Geographies 13, pp. 497-516. Ghirardo, D. 1989 Building New Communities. New Deal America and Fascist Italy Princeton University Press, Princeton. González-Ruibal, A. 2006 Ethiopia. The Dream of Reason: An Archaeology of the Failures of Modernity in Ethiopia, Journal of Social Archaeology 6, pp. 175-201. Harvey, S. and Rettig, S. (eds.) 1985 Fifty Years of Landscape Design, 1934-84 The Landscape Press London. Hertzog, T. and Strevey, S. 2008 Contact with Nature, Sense of Humor, and Psychological Well-Being Environment and Behavior 40, pp. 747-776. Hodges, A. 1977 A Victorian Gardener: Edward Milner (1819-1884) Garden History 5, pp. 67-77. Holt, R. 1990 Sport and the British: A Modern History Oxford University Press, Oxford. Ingold, T. 2000 The Perception of the Environment Routledge, London. Lake, J. 2009 Sandford Parks Lido: Conservation Management Plan Cheltenham: Sandford Parks Lido Ltd. http://www.sandfordparkslido.org.uk [accessed March 23 2009]. Lenček, L. and Bosker, G. 1998 The Beach. The History of Paradise on Earth Pimlico, London. Matless, D. 1998 Landscape and Englishness Reaktion, London. Morgan, M. C. 1968 Cheltenham College. The First Hundred Years The Cheltonian Society, Letchworth. Overy, R. 2009 The Morbid Age. Britain between the Wars Allen Lane, London. Powers, A. (ed.) 1991 Farewell My Lido Thirties Society Report, London. Rew, K. 2008 Wild Swim. River, Lake, Lido and Sea: The Best Places to Swim Outdoors in Britain Guardian Books, London. Sandford Parks Lido 2011 http://www.sandfordparkslido. org.uk [accessed 13 March 2011]. SAVE 1982 Taking the Plunge: The Architecture of Bathing SAVE Britain’s Heritage, London. Schama, S. 1995 Landscape and Memory Harper Collins, London. Schofield, J. 2007 Intimate Engagements: Art, Heritage and Experience at the ‘Place-Ballet’, International Journal of the Arts in Society 1(5), pp. 105-114. Smith, J. 2005 Liquid Assets: The Lidos and Open Air Swimming Pools of Britain Swindon: English Heritage Sprawson, C. 1992 Haunt of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero Random House, London. Stone, L. 1977 The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 Penguin, London. Taylor, H. 2000 Lakes and Water Features, pp. 133-148 in J. Woudstra and K. Fieldhouse (eds.) The Regeneration of Public Parks E & FN Spon, Padstow.

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Victorian Society 2008 Making a Splash: The National Pool Campaigners’ Conference Victorian Society, London. Walvin, J. 1978 Leisure and Society, 1830-1950 Longman, London. Wileman, J 2005 Hide and Seek: The Archaeology of Childhood Tempus Publishing, Stroud. Worpole, K. 2002a Here Comes the Sun: Architecture and Public Space in Twentieth-Century European Culture Reaktion Books, London. Worpole, K. 2002b No Particular Place to Go: Children, Young People and Public Space Groundwork UK, Birmingham. Worpole, K. and Greenhalgh, E. 1996 People, Parks and Cities: A Guide to Current Good Practice in Urban Parks Report for the Department of the Environment, London. Wylie, J. 2007 Landscape Routledge, London.

The Building Exploratory 2010 www.buildingexploratory. org.uk [accessed 8 August 2010]. The Planning Inspectorate 2010 Appeal by Vinci Park & Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. For case summary (reference 2115655), www.pcs. planningportal.gov.uk/pcsportal/casesearch [accessed 8 August 2010]. Thomas, J. 2004 Archaeology and Modernity Routledge, London. Thwaite, K. and Simkins, I. M. 2006 Experiential Landscape: An Approach to People, Place and Space Routledge, London. Ulrich, R. S. 1979 Visual Landscapes and Psychological Well-Being, Landscape Research 4, pp. 17-23. van Leeuwan, T. A. P. 1999 The Springboard in the Pond: An Intimate History of the Swimming Pool MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

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Chapter 5 Attitudes to London’s Heritage: Interpreting the Signs David Gordon

Introduction

In the above case there are political and historical reasons for the difference in the way the sites are presented. The site of the Rose Theatre is covered by a building and the information display was placed inside. Unfortunately, the arrangement did not prove financially viable and public access to the display became very limited. A programme of fairly frequent tours is now in place however. As there was, and is, no public access to the Globe Theatre site, the information display has been made visible from the street. In the City of London itself, there has been a history of neglect of parts of the archaeological environment,

Anyone researching the Scheduled Monuments in London would be intrigued by the differences in the way these monuments are presented to the public. For example, if you look at the two Shakespearian theatres in Southwark, the Rose and the Globe, neither of which has any visible remains, the Rose (L20851) has just a blue plaque to indicate its presence (Figure 5.1), while the Globe (L12606) (Figure 5.2) has a series of information boards. The two sites are opposite each other, just metres apart.

Figure 5.1. The Rose Theatre blue plaque: the photograph also shows temporary advertisements for drama productions on the site. © David Gordon

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Figure 5.2. Information boards on the site of the Globe Theatre. © David Gordon

resulting in a fair if random survival of the material culture of heritage. Projects run out of money. Signs attached to buildings disappear with redevelopment. Monuments languish in inaccessible basements. The patchy provision which results from this gives us the opportunity to look at the history of signage and to consider what the signs can tell us about historical attitudes to heritage (for detailed locations of Monuments see Table 5.1, Figure 5.3 and Figure 5.4)

or land and the provision of facilities and information’ (Section 17c). But it is only the recent white paper, and its outlining of PPS5, which really looks at ‘maximising opportunities for inclusion and involvement’ and seeks to ‘provide people with better access to improved information about the historic environment around them’ (DCMS 2007, 6). The question here is: to what extent do the signs that present the monuments reflect this historical progression? Historical signs in London

The influence of legislation

The result of the original emphasis on protection was the famous Ministry of Works generic sign (Figure 5.5), which named the monument and then went on to promise dire consequences for anyone daring to deface or injure it. In the past I have travelled miles to look at one of these obscure sites shown in gothic script on the Ordnance Survey map and the large Ministry sign was always a great disappointment – why did it give so little information? As far as I am aware there are none of these signs left in London. In most senses this is a good thing, although it does of course signal the imminent loss of the memory of that feeling of frustration and disappointment.

The legislative history seems to present a clear linear progression. Early antiquarians like Stukeley recorded the material heritage for their own interest and to share with a fairly small group of like-minded people. Sometimes, like Hutton, they tried to prevent its destruction (1802), and this urge for preservation led to the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882 (AMA1882). This act was heavy on preservation and protection, which was the issue at the time, but was light on public access and information. The Act of 1979 (AMAAA1979) does refer to ‘providing or facilitating access to the monument’ (Section 15b) and ‘the provision of facilities and services for the public’ (Section 15e) and also enables agreements for ‘public access to the monument

Some very early signage does survive. The sign on the

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Figure 5.3. Location map of Ancient Monuments mentioned in the text: London Boroughs. Numbered according to Table 5.1. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2011

Figure 5.4. Location map of Ancient Monuments mentioned in the text: City of London. Numbered according to Table 5.1. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2011

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Ref to maps

Site designation

1

L11

2

L12

3 4 5 6 7

L19 L27 L49 L55 L85

8

L88

9 10 11 12 13 14

L92A L95 L97 L106 L118A L129

15

L133

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

L134 L135 L160 L164 L12606 L13201 L20851 L26323 L26325

25

L26327

26 27

L26328 L27006

Site name

UK grid ref

The Chapter House and Pyx Chamber in the abbey cloisters, Westminster Abbey London Wall: Remains of medieval and Roman wall extending 68m north from Trinity Place to railway Roman hypocaust and building on site of Coal Exchange West Grove, Conduit House, Blackheath, Greenwich Roman wall in basement of 90 Gracechurch Street The Jewel Tower, Westminster Chiswick House, Hounslow Round barrows and ancient settlement, Farthing Down, Coulsdon, Croydon Coombe Conduit, Kingston upon Thames Kew Palace, Richmond upon Thames Windmill Bridge Howbury Moated Site, Bexley Queenhithe Dock The London Greyfriars, site of Newgate Street, Farringdon Hanwell flight of locks and brick boundary wall of St Bernard’s Hospital, Ealing Fulham Palace moated site, Hammersmith & Fulham Baynard’s Castle Huggin Hill Roman Baths Moated manor house of Edward III, Rotherhithe, Southwark The Globe Theatre, Souhwark Roman Amphitheatre, Guildhall Yard The Rose Theatre, Rose Court, Southwark London Wall: Section within the London Wall car park, etc. London Wall: Section bounding St Alphege Churchyard London Wall: Section of Roman and medieval wall and bastions, west and north of Monkwell Square London Wall: The west gate of Cripplegate Fort, etc. Faesten Dic, a medieval frontier work in Joyden’s Wood, Bexley

TQ301794 TQ336808 TQ331806 TQ386768 TQ330810 TQ30157939 TQ210775 TQ300587-302571 TQ205699 TQ185774 TQ142796 TQ527767 TQ322807 TQ320813 TQ142796-149797 TQ242762 TQ319808 TQ323809 TQ347797 TQ323803 TQ324813 TQ322804 TQ325815 TQ324818 TQ323816 TQ322815 TQ502711-502709

Table 5.1. Details of Ancient Monuments mentioned in the text. The sites may be located using the ‘Ancient Monuments’ overlay on the MAGIC map (DEFRA 2011) and the UK grid references listed here. This website also contains links to English Heritage descriptions of some of the sites, although this facility is only available for sites with 5-figure designations

city wall at St Alphege, in the City of London, (L26325) dates from 1862 and illustrates a surprisingly long-lived trend: people and organisations hoping for immortality through their association with the monument. The sign gives little information about the monument, but plenty about its authors. One wonders if George Kemp MA and his churchwardens had some special influence, since theirs is still the only sign on this substantial stretch of the wall. The earliest such sign that I could find is on the Conduit Head at Blackheath (Greenwich, L27), which seems to date from 1740, although unfortunately it is now almost impossible to read.

(e.g. L125: ‘SITE OF GREYFRIARS MONASTERY 12251538’) and the subject matter is selective. Sites such as the city wall and its gates, disappeared churches, the site of London’s first tube station at King William Street (Figure 5.6) are all represented, as is Dick Whittington’s house, but Roman sites, other than the city wall itself, are generally ignored. A problem with this type of sign is that they may be lost when a site is redeveloped – a frequent occurrence in the City although as with the Ministry of Works plaques they are difficult to steal or deface.

The familiar ‘blue plaque’ scheme was introduced by the Royal Society of Arts in 1867, and is now administered by English Heritage, with the exception of the distinctive square plaques in the City of London, which have been the responsibility of the Corporation of the City since 1879 (for more information see English Heritage Blue Plaques web page (2011)). Again there is rarely any further information

Heritage trails and guided walks have become a good source of signage and seem to have a reasonably promising future. Although maintenance can be a problem – there is often money to set up a trail but none to maintain the sites, the signs, or even the printed guide – such trails often provide informative signs, increasingly so as sign technology improves.

Signposted trails

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The first example of these is the City Wall Walk. This relied initially on ceramic signs, descendants of the blue plaques but with much more information, including graphics. These have the advantage of durability but have gradually disappeared through redevelopment and even, in the case of the Bishopsgate plaque, IRA terrorist activity. Even though each sign carries directions to its nearest neighbours it would be difficult to follow the route using the signs alone. Luckily there is an excellent web page (London Footprints 2010) to help you, although such websites can become out of date, and the page referred to has only recently been updated after a four-year gap. Sporadic attempts have been made to replace the signs where necessary and to update them with modern equivalents, with varying degrees of success. A sign outside the Museum of London (L26327) (Figure 5.7) is informative, but hasn’t worn as well as the older signs and now needs replacing. There are some newer ones nearby which are discussed below. The route is also incomplete, as it leads you anti-clockwise from the Tower of London to the Museum of London, continues for a 100m or so, and stops. Simpler but still elegant signs can be found on the Bow Heritage Trail in East London. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, there no longer seems to be any information available on this trail – at least there are several requests on local websites asking if anyone has the information. Fulham Palace (Hammersmith and Fulham, L134) has a well-designed trail around the filled-in moat with detailed information boards.

Figure 5.5. Ministry of Works generic sign: This example is at Vindolanda, near Hadrian’s Wall. There are almost certainly none left in London. © David Gordon

Figure 5.6. City of London blue plaques: This one marks the site of the King William Street tube station. © David Gordon

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Figure 5.7. City Wall walk sign at the Museum of London now showing signs of wear. © David Gordon

Official walking routes offer an opportunity to present monuments in a way which will both inform the walker and enhance his or her leisure experience. In terms of ‘maximising inclusion and involvement’ (DCMS 2007) signage on these routes is particularly important as it will reach and inform a target audience which might not otherwise be aware of the contemporary heritage issues. In this spirit, British Waterways have placed informative signs along the Grand Union Canal Walk at Hanwell (Ealing, L97 and 133). Signs have also begun to appear along the Thames Path. At an apparently vulnerable East London site, the moated manor house of Edward III at Rotherhithe (Southwark, L164), the excavated site has been largely reburied and turned into an attractive green (Figure 5.8). Good informative signage has been provided by English Heritage and there is a popular link to the more recent history of the area in the form of the sculpture of Dr Salter, his daughter and her cat (Figure 5.9). At Queenhithe (City, L118A) a new information board, also from English Heritage, has replaced the simple plaque of 1986 which echoed its much earlier ancestor at St Alphege (L26325) by giving as much space to the names of its donors as to its description of the site. An indication of the effectiveness of the new sign is that on every occasion when I visited it the sign was surrounded by interested readers. The Thames

Path passes close to many other sites of interest and there is an opportunity to make more of currently anonymous monuments such as Baynard’s Castle and the Huggin Hill Baths (City, L135 and 160). In Bexley, on the outskirts of London, the Crayford Marsh Wildlife and Heritage Trail provides a viewpoint with a description of Howbury moated site (L106). The site itself is a working farm where casual visitors would not be welcome, and one could argue that by satisfying the visitor’s curiosity as to the nature of this spectacular and obviously ancient building complex the sign actually discourages trespassing. Some waymarked trails are starting to reflect concerns which are arguably more political and may turn out to be more ephemeral. An example might be the ‘Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Walk’ (Royal Parks 2011). Recent trends External signage on sites where an entrance fee is payable can understandably be less informative. The ideal is often to tempt people to part with their money while providing more information inside. At the Jewel Tower in Westminster (L55) and at Chiswick House (Hounslow, L85) the opening times

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Figure 5.8. On the Thames Path: Manor House of Edward III, Rotherhithe. © David Gordon

Figure 5.9. Thames Path at Rotherhithe: Dr Salter’s daughter and her cat. © David Gordon

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are clearly displayed but for more information you need to pay and go inside. To see Kew Palace (Richmond, L95), you have to pay a very expensive entry fee to Kew Gardens to gain access. All these monuments offer informative displays once inside. Interestingly, at Westminster Abbey (L11) you could until recently get free access to the Ancient Monument sites through the cloister entrance (this has now been restricted to holders of English Heritage ‘membership’ cards), but you had to be prepared to argue your way past the verger on duty and promise not to go into any of the areas where there is a charge! Needless to say this fact was not widely advertised.

by another sign: ‘PRIVATE…NO PUBLIC RIGHT OF WAY…ENTRY AT YOUR OWN RISK…’ Secondly, however, this tendency to redundancy can lead to some surprising and interesting examples, many of which can contribute to our understanding of recent but easily forgotten attitudes to this aspect of heritage. Redundant signs often survive in London, hidden and near forgotten as a result of poor access. One of the most impressive pieces of the city wall (L26323) languishes in a car-park along with its rather forlorn 1950s sign, protected by ‘no entry’ signs and the threat of CCTV (Figure 5.10). Once the visitor has gained access to the site, the West Gate of the Roman Fort (L26328) is quite well displayed, but, unfortunately, it is in an underground bunker behind a locked door marked simply ‘PRIVATE 03’ and accessible only rarely. As a result the signage has never been updated. At Coombe Conduit Head in Kingston (L92A) there is a fine new English Heritage sign, but this can only be glimpsed through a gap in the locked gate, behind a simple paper notice explaining that you need an appointment to get in – an extreme case of a sign that has been locked away almost before anyone has seen it (Figure 5.11). Occasionally a sign may survive because it is on private property – one which is already itself a well-known part of London’s heritage is the shop sign at 90 Gracechurch Street (City, L49): ‘Ten Hairdressing positions and shoeshine. Plus ancient monument downstairs’ (Figure 5.12). Older signs are thus preserved, largely forgotten, and can give us an insight into the way monuments were displayed during the latter part of the 20th century.

In the outlying boroughs signage is often refreshingly good. The boroughs themselves, usually in conjunction with English Heritage, tend to keep up a good standard of information, particularly where Scheduled Monuments are sited in recreational areas. Paradoxically this generally means that older signs are regularly swept away and we would need to rely on old photographs for information about past signage. Linear earthworks, although clear on the ground, are often not signed at all, even where they form part of country parks and other recreational areas. A notable exception is the Fæsten Dic (Bexley, L27006) where a waymarked trail follows the earthwork courtesy of the Woodland Trust. Local societies are often very active and can produce excellent displays, particularly where funding is available from larger organisations such as English Heritage. However, their most interesting displays can be ephemeral – on Farthing Down in Croydon (L88) the smart but anodyne display of the owners, the City of London, is much enhanced by the noticeboard of the archaeologists but the latter is of a very temporary nature and is unlikely to survive for any length of time.

Thirdly, signage is increasingly subject to design parameters that seem to have more to do with the image of the owners than with information. The dated but informative ceramic signs on London Wall are being replaced by etched glass signs which can be impossible to read if the light is wrong. The display of the London Amphitheatre (L13201) is very impressive, but it could be taken to tell us more about the aspirations of the City of London than about the monument itself: the map at the entrance is oriented back-to-front, the information boards are almost hidden in a side corridor and the opportunity to display the material finds from the site in context has not been taken.

Moving back to the centre of London, several trends are apparent. Firstly, modern technology and design are making it possible to produce very informative displays, such as the new one at Queenhithe mentioned above. Walkers on the Thames Path now stop to read about the history of Queenhithe, where previously this important site was nothing more than an inconvenient obstruction to the path. This development brings with it its own danger of misinformation, since the content will necessarily be part conjecture, part simplification, and thus there will be a need for more frequent updating as theories change and new discoveries are made. Multiple funding sources can lead not only to a plethora of logos on the sign (the aspirational successors of George Kemp MA and his Churchwardens still seek immortality, even if it is the names of organisations and corporations, rather than individuals, which now dominate), but also to a degree of obsolescence. At a fine piece of city wall (L12) just north of the Tower of London a sign was erected during redevelopment. This once-excellent sign is now showing physical signs of age, carries out of date contact information and therefore is in need of renewal. The visitor also gets the impression that he or she is not exactly welcome, since access is guarded

Finally, it is worth lamenting those sites where there is still no information available, even when they are situated in popular tourist areas. As well as those already mentioned, two Roman sites in the City stand out. The Huggin Hill bathhouse (L160) is not itself visible but there is an extensive photographic record, the site is close to a popular tourist area, and an imaginative public display would do much to improve the drab appearance of the site. The Roman House at Billingsgate (L19) is only metres from the Tower of London and has extensive remains but it is completely anonymous. Bizarrely, the best available photograph appears on an English Heritage web page, but with text in French (APPEAR site – see bibliography).

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Figure 5.10. Hidden signs: this 1950s City Wall sign lies forgotten in an underground car park. © David Gordon

Conclusion To conclude, the signs do have something to tell us about changing attitudes to heritage and public archaeology in general. The text has moved from the monitory – effectively ‘You may be too stupid or plebeian to understand this, but if you damage it we shall punish you’ – to the mildly informative and now to the almost over-informative. There are moves nowadays to preserve and examine past attitudes through historic museum displays such as the Enlightenment Gallery at the British Museum, through studies of antiquarian collections and records, and through academic Heritage Studies courses such as the ones offered by the Open University; however, signs are ephemeral: they are easily replaced and only survive by accident. Recording them now, if the records can be usefully archived, will be of benefit to future researchers. A photographic record of the externally visible signage (or lack thereof) at all the Scheduled Ancient Monuments in Greater London was in fact made in 2007 and appended to an MA dissertation (Gordon 2007). A copy was deposited with the Greater London Sites and Monuments Record. The author is happy to supply copies of the photographic record – contact [email protected].

Figure 5.11. Locked away: The English Heritage sign at Coombe Conduit, glimpsed through the locked gate. © David Gordon

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Figure 5.12. City Hairdressers Nicholson and Griffin use their piece of the Roman forum to bring in the customers. © David Gordon

References

English Heritage Blue Plaques History 2011 http://www. english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/about/ history/ [accessed 05 January 2011]. Gordon, D. 2007 An Assessment of the Public Profile of the Scheduled Ancient Monuments in Greater London Unpublished MA Dissertation, Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Hutton, W. 1802 Hutton’s Wall Facsimile of 1813 Edition (no date, no pagination) Templar Books, Easingwold. London Footprints 2010 London Wall http://www.londonfootprints.co.uk/wklondonwallroute.htm [accessed 05 January 2011]. Royal Parks 2001 The Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Walk http://www.royalparks.org.uk/tourists/ dianamemorialwalk.cfm [accessed 05 January 2011].

AMA 1882 Ancient Monuments Protection Act 1882. Text at   http://heritagelaw.org/AMA-1882- [accessed 05 January 2011]. AMAAA 1979 Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 (as amended by National Heritage Act 1983). http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1979/46/ contents [accessed 05 January 2011]. APPEAR.  Billingsgate Bath House http://appearfr.englishheritage.org.uk/site/?95 [accessed 05 January 2011]. DCMS 2007  Heritage Protection for the 21st Century DCMS White Paper, http://www.official-documents. gov.uk/document/cm70/7057/7057.pdf [accessed 05 January 2011]. DEFRA (2011) Magic Map, http://www.magic.gov.uk/ website/magic/[accessed 05 January 2011].

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Chapter 6 Where the Streets Have no Name: a Guided Tour of Pop Heritage Sites in London’s West End Paul Graves-Brown

In May of 2008 I visited the Bowery, a run down street in New York’s Lower East Side, which was, until 2006 the location of CBGB’s. This club became globally famous due to its association with punk and New Wave acts such as the Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads. There is now nothing to distinguish 315 Bowery, but the street on the corner of the block has been re-named Joey Ramone Place (Figure 6.1). The commemoration of pop/rock performers in street names is unusual. However, there is a Bob Marley Way off Railton Road in Brixton, South London, and a Miriam Makeba Street in Johannesburg. In 2004 Waveney District Council considered naming a street in Lowestoft after the Darkness, but the plan seems to have withered with the demise of the band.

subsequently moving to a number of other locations. The blue plaque (Figure 6.2) was erected at the instigation of the London Mayor at the time, Ken Livingston, in 2006 as part of Black History Month (Muir 2006). It is not an official English Heritage plaque and indeed, not the only unofficial blue plaque we will encounter. Plaques associated with popular music have tended to be controversial, for example, that officially erected by English Heritage on 23 Brook Street, where Jimi Hendrix lived in 1970, aroused considerable debate, not least because it had also (from 1723 until 1759) been the home of George Frideric Handel (Figure 6.3). In addition to these unofficial blue plaques there is also, as we shall see, a competing scheme of green plaques erected by the City of Westminster council, which differ from the English Heritage plaques, in that they rely on commercial sponsors.

In this paper I want to explore the relationship between popular music and place. In particular the ways in which this relationship is or is not physically memorialised. In my view the connections drawn between the intangible, ephemeral medium of music and particular places is often tenuous, whilst attempts to create permanent markers of these connections have been, to say the least, haphazard. The paper is intended as both an exploration of the topic and a practical guide that the reader can follow around my chosen area, which is centered on London’s Soho. Soho was, for many years, the focus of musical activity in the capital, although for reasons of either fashion or finance, the focus has gradually moved to other areas, particularly Camden Town. Soho, and adjacent streets, has been the location of literally hundreds of jazz, rock and pop clubs and venues since the 1940s (Bacon 1999; Melly 1989). Numerous recording studios have been located in the area and, particularly in the 1960s, many performers lived in Soho. The tour is thus, necessarily, selective, covering around 17 sites which illustrate six basic categories; music venues, clubs where musicians socialised, recording studios, art work locations (places where images, film and video were shot), residences and memorials.

UFO Club – 31 Tottenham Court Road Heading south along Tottenham Court Road, the Odeon Cinema on the right (Figure 6.4) is the site of the former Berkeley Cinema, the basement of which, in 1966-1967, was the venue of the UFO Club (Bacon 1999; Hewison 1986; Melly 1989). Run by John Hopkins (aka Hoppy the Hippy) and record producer Joe Boyd, the club was the first in London to import the psychedelic underground culture of San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury (with associated use of LSD, which remained legal until 1967). Pink Floyd became the ‘house band’ of the UFO, and other bands of the Underground era, such as Soft Machine and Procul Harum were also regular performers. Eventually the club, and Hopkins, attracted the unwanted attention of the News of the World, headline: ‘The Psychedelic Experience: Pop Stars and Drugs’ (Bacon 1999: 96, Hewison 1986). As with the previous case of the News of the World’s campaign against the Rolling Stones, the press coverage eventually attracted the interest of the police and the club was forced to close, moving briefly to the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm (JulyOctober 1967), before closing altogether (Hewison 1986). Shortly afterwards, Hopkins was arrested, receiving a vindictive sentence of nine months in prison for possession of cannabis, the judge describing him as ‘a pest to society’ (Machell 2009). The role of the UFO was then taken over by the Middle Earth Club in Covent Garden.

Bob Marley – 34 Ridgmount Gardens This location (nearest tube station, Goodge Street), to my mind, amply illustrates the tenuous relationship between music and place. Marley lived in the first floor flat for about two months when he first arrived in London in 1972,

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Figure 6.1. Joey Ramone Place, Bowery, New York. © Paul Graves-Brown

Figure 6.2. Bob Marley Plaque, Ridgmount Gardens, London. © Paul Graves-Brown

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popular music in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In particular the rise of dance events without live performers where the djs eventually became the stars. Although, as discussed below, discotheques had existed in London since the early 1960s, disco had been regarded with disdain by mainstream rock audiences in the 1970s and early 1980s. In the late 1980s dance music had effectively become the mainstream, but retained an underground ethic reminiscent of that of the late 1960s underground. When The Trip closed at two a.m., clubbers would continue to party in the street, and in the Centre Point fountains (Reynolds 1998, 240-41). Denmark Street Further down Charing Cross Road, Denmark Street has been a focus of the popular music industry since the 1920s, being for many years the location of most of the music publishers (In and around Covent Garden 2011; The Guardian 2007a). For a number of years 19 Denmark Street was the offices of the now defunct Melody Maker, and in the 1960s, David Bowie is reputed to have lived in the street, albeit in a camper van. 4 Denmark Street is still, at the time of writing, Regent Sound Studios, although no longer a functioning recording studio. Used in the 1960s and 1970s by many artists including Elton John, the studios are most notable as the location where the Rolling Stones recorded their first album. According to Keith Richards, ‘We did our early records on a two-track Revox in a room insulated with egg cartons at Regent Sound’ (Shady Old Lady 2009). The building at the rear of 6 Denmark Street was leased by Malcolm McLaren in 1975 as a rehearsal space for the Sex Pistols (Figure 6.5, see Graves-Brown and Schofield 2011). McLaren,

Figure 6.3. Queue for Jimi Hendrix Exhibition, 18 September 2010, Handel House Museum, 25 Brook Street, London. © Paul Graves-Brown

In many ways the UFO is typical of the numerous shortlived clubs that have existed in central London, more often than not, it would seem, in basements of cafés and cinemas. Whilst culturally as important as many other locations, there is no physical sign of its brief sojourn at 31 Tottenham Court Road.

[asked] the future Haçienda architect Ben Kelly to smarten the place up and make it habitable. The designer recalls a sense of foreboding as he rang the doorbell for the first time, got no reply, then had drummer Paul Cook running after him in his underpants (The Guardian 2007a).

The Trip – The Astoria, 157 Charing Cross Road

Syd Barrett – 2 Earlham Street

Crossing Oxford Street, the building on the corner of Charing Cross Road, opposite Centre Point, was the Astoria (now demolished to make way for an extension to Tottenham Court Road station). Apart from hosting numerous rock and pop acts, the Astoria is notable for being the venue for The Trip, one of the first Balaeric/ house club nights, along with Danny Rampling’s Shoom and Paul Oakenfold’s Spectrum (at the nearby Heaven Club in Villiers Street) (Reynolds 1998). Started by Nicky Holloway in May 1988, the club featured djs Pete Tong and Mike Pickering, the latter shortly afterwards becoming famous for his work at Factory’s Hacienda Club in Manchester. Holloway (2009) recalls that he was forced to change the name of the club from The Trip to Sin as a result of the adverse press coverage of ‘Acid House’ that arose in 1989, an echo of the fate of the UFO club.

Further down Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus is 2 Earlham Street, now part of a 1980s building, of which the ground floor is a newsagent (Figure 6.6). In the late 1960s, the flat of the earlier building on the site was the home of Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. It is probably here that he wrote most of the early Pink Floyd songs that appeared on Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967). Earlham Street was presumably convenient for the nearby UFO club and it is symptomatic of changing times that in the 1960s it was quite common for pop stars to live in central London (for example, Paul McCartney in Wigmore Street and Jimi Hendrix, as previously mentioned, in Brook Street). Bob Dylan – The Savoy Hotel Turning into the Strand where Charing Cross Road reaches

The Trip is significant as a marker of radical change in

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Figure 6.4. Odeon Cinema, Tottenham Court Road, London, site of the UFO Club. © Paul Graves-Brown

Trafalgar Square, the Savoy Hotel is on the right just before Lancaster Place. At the rear is the Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy (completed in 1512). In the adjacent alleyway to the west, Savoy Steps (Figure 6.7), D.A. Pennebaker filmed Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neurith in a now famous sequence which opens the film Don’t Look Back (Pennebaker 1967). The sequence, in which Dylan holds up a series of cards illustrating the lyrics to ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ (Dylan 1965) is widely regarded as the first ever pop video, often shown separately from the feature film, which covered Dylan’s 1965 UK tour. Dylan, Ginsberg, Neurith and British musician Donovan supposedly spent most of the previous night in the hotel writing out the cards. A number of central London locations have gained notoriety from their association with pop videos, including the now disused Aldwych tube station, which was the location for the Prodigy’s Firestarter video (Prodigy 1995; Stern 1996). Nonetheless, despite the international notoriety of the ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ ‘video’, its actual location remains obscure and required some considerable time to track it down.

Figure 6.5. Backyard, 6 Denmark Street, London, Sex Pistols/ Badfinger rehearsal room to the left. © Paul Graves-Brown

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Figure 6.6. 2 Earlham Street, London, former location of Syd Barrett’s flat. © Paul Graves-Brown

Figure 6.8. The 2 i’s Coffee Bar – 57-59 Old Compton Street, London. © Paul Graves-Brown

The 2 i’s Coffee Bar – 57-59 Old Compton Street Returning to Charing Cross Road, turn left into Old Compton Street. Near the end of the street, on the left, the former 2 i’s Coffee Bar is marked by a City of Westminster green plaque (Figure 6.8). In 1956 the coffee bar was owned by an Australian former wrestler named Paul Lincoln. Previously, it had been owned by two Iranian brothers, hence the name (it was supposedly originally called the 3 i’s, but a third brother returned to Iran). The bar became successful during the Soho Festival when, skiffle musician Wally Whyton asked Lincoln if he could use the basement for a skiffle club (Bacon 1999). Skiffle, as pioneered by Lonnie Donegan, was the first indigenously British form of pop, although it may owe its origins to a form of New York street music. Requiring only a few basic instruments, skiffle grew rapidly in the continuing austerity of the mid 1950s, and the 2 i’s was just one of many skiffle clubs in the Soho area (Bacon 1999). Whyton (later a well known children’s TV presenter), and his group the Vipers, played regularly at the venue. Among its changing membership, the group included Mike Pratt (later to achieve fame in ATV’s Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)(ITV 1969-1970)) and merchant seaman Tommy Hicks, better known as Tommy Steele. Hicks performed with the Vipers when he was not away at sea, but it is not the case that he was ‘discovered’ whilst performing at the 2 i’s (Bacon 1999, contra Melly 1989). In fact he was first

Figure 6.7. Savoy Steps, behind the Savoy Hotel, The Strand, London. Location for filming Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues. © Paul Graves-Brown

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Figure 6.9. Cheun Cheng Ku Restaurant, former location of La Discothèque – 17 Wardour Street, London. © Paul Graves-Brown

seen by impresario Larry Parnes at another skiffle club in Wardour Street, although Parnes and fellow promoter John Kennedy regularly ‘circled hawk-like above the Two I’s [sic]’ (Melly 1989, 47). Nonetheless one might argue that this location, unlike some others actually merits its commemorative plaque as it marks a key location in the embryonic British pop industry which was at the time still dominated by US performers (BBC News 2006), although Melly is somewhat scathing,

Terence Stamp and I were walking along Lower Wardour Street and a pretty girl was handing out leaflets. She said: ‘La Discotheque is opening tonight,’ so we went in – you know, she was a pretty girl – and they were playing gramophone records and people were doing the twist (The Guardian 2007b). By 1962 the venue had begun to attract leading members of the Modernist or mod movement, including the then 15 year old Mark Feld, aka Marc Bolan. A mention of the club and a profile of Bolan in the September 1962 issue of Town magazine is possibly the first media reference to mods.

[...] the Two I’s was to become a somewhat dusty shrine to its claim to be the womb of British Rock and Roll. It is one of pop’s characteristics that, once a fad is over, everything connected with it loses all virtue and becomes indescribably tawdry (1989, 47).

Discotheques had their origin in occupied Paris, during the Second World War, where the first ‘La Discothèque’ opened on Rue de la Huchette in 1941. Here, banned American Jazz records – regarded by the Nazis as degenerate – were played. The modern concept of the disco probably originates with Régine Zylberberg’s use of turntables at the Whisky-a-Gogo club in Paris in 1953. As noted above, the concept of a disco as an alternative to live performance remained controversial until the late 1980s. But it may be no exaggeration to see the Wardour Street site as a landmark in the history of the virtualisation of popular music and the ever increasing divergence in the roles of live and recorded music (Graves-Brown 2009).

La Discothèque – 17 Wardour Street Turning left at the end of Old Compton Street and crossing Shaftesbury Avenue leads to Lower Wardour Street where, on the right, is number 17, now a (very good) Chinese restaurant (Figure 6.9). In 1961, this was the location of La Discothèque, the first ‘disco’ in the UK, which remained at the site until 1964 (Rawlings 2000b). Other such venues soon emerged, such as The Saddle Room and Annabel’s (Melly 1989). An early visitor to La Discothèque was actor Michael Caine,

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Figure 6.10. Former location of The Scotch of St James Club – 17 Mason's Yard, London. © Paul Graves-Brown

The Scotch of St James Club – 17 Mason’s Yard

At this time nearby 6 Mason’s Yard housed the Indica bookshop and gallery (partly funded by Paul McCartney). The bookshop was run by Barry Miles (often known simply as Miles) who, with the aforementioned John Hopkins, ran the underground magazine International Times and organised the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream concert at Alexandra Palace in April 1967 (Hewison 1986). The basement gallery was run by John Dunbar, significant as an early exhibitor of the work of Yoko Ono, and as the place where Yoko and John Lennon first met.

From Wardour Street, we travel west to join Jermyn Street in the Haymarket. Turning left into Duke Street, there is an alleyway at the side of the Chequers pub which leads to Mason’s Yard. In 1965, 17 Mason’s Yard (Figure 6.10) opened as the Scotch of St James, a drinking club decorated with lurid tartan wall coverings; ‘there are sporrans, swords and antlers in abundance [...]’ (Melly 1989, 109). The club is notable as the place to be for pop musicians in 1965-1966, frequented by members of the Beatles (who had moved on from the previously ‘in’ Ad Lib Club in Leicester Square) and the Rolling Stones (Melly 1989). In 1966 it was the scene of Jimi Hendrix’s first, if impromptu, live performance in the UK (Bacon 1999). The Scotch is archetypal of the era of ‘Swinging London’ (a term coined by Time magazine in its issue of 15 April 1966 (see map in Hewison 1986, 62-63) when it was still possible for the famous to frequent such places without being pursued by the paparazzi. That musicians and other artists could freely mix in such venues may be seen as an important aspect of the cultural ferment of the times. By the 1980s such places, including the Speakeasy in Margaret Street, had largely gone, perhaps one of the last being the St Moritz in Wardour Street, frequented by members of heavy metal bands such as Kiss, Metallica and Motorhead well into the late 1980s (Dillon Tonkin, pers. comm.).

Mason’s Yard might be seen as being at an opposite pole to some to the other sites mentioned in this paper. In some ways a key location in the cultural development of the late 1960s, it now languishes in total obscurity. David Bowie – Heddon Street Returning towards Piccadilly Circus and turning into Regent Street, Heddon Street is a small cul-de-sac on the left. It was here in January 1972 that David Bowie was photographed by Brian Ward for the cover of his breakthrough album, ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ (Bowie 1972). The hand-tinted black and white photos show Bowie outside 23 Heddon Street, then the location of furriers K. West, and in the Gilbert-Scott K6 phone box around the corner. The street has been somewhat

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Figure 6.11. David Bowie graffiti, telephone box, Heddon Street, London. © Paul Graves-Brown

gentrified in recent years and the current phone box has only been in place since 1997:

more formal scattering of blue and green plaques. City of Westminster council documents (2005) indicate that in 2005 a proposal was made to erect a green plaque at 23 Heddon Street to mark Bowie’s association. But this has clearly never happened, probably because of a lack of sponsorship.

It’s surprising to discover that the disturbing ‘space invader’ cover for David Bowie’s 1972 album, ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars’, was photographed in such an ordinary backstreet. K West [...] furriers, are still present and correct, but the phone box at the north end of the street (featured on the back cover) has been replaced by a more recent model. However, the graffiti on the wall behind bears testimony to its status as third only to the Tardis and Clark Kent’s changing room in Space Age phone-booth mythology (Time Out, 18-24 October 1984).

As Time Out suggests, the London backstreet seems an unlikely location for the otherworldly Ziggy Stardust, appearing as ‘a cross between Nijinsky and Woolworth’s’ as Bowie himself described his early style. Indeed, lyrically the album was already referencing American imagery, as in tracks such as ‘Suffragette City’ and ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’, as Bowie moved away from his early Anthony Newly style Cockney/Englishness: a move which achieved its full expression with the ‘plastic soul’ (a term originally coined for Mick Jagger, appropriated by Bowie to describe his ‘white’ soul sound) of the album ‘Young Americans’ (Bowie 1975) (Seabrook 2008). Thus, whilst a place of pilgrimage, Heddon Street seems to offer a sense of dissonance between the place depicted and the music.

The ‘recent model’ phone box seems to have replaced the original in 1982, but British Telecom were unable to tell me why this had been, in turn, replaced by a K6, or whether this had anything to do with the Bowie association. In 2007 and 2008 there was still a considerable amount of Bowie graffiti in and around the phone box (Figure 6.11), although I am told that as of 2010 it has all been removed. Nonetheless the box represents an informal monument and place of pilgrimage for Bowie fans, quite different in character to the

Small Faces and Don Arden – 52-55 Carnaby Street Immediately opposite Heddon Street is Beak Street, leading to Carnaby Street. Here we may note in passing that the

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Figure 6.12. Berwick Street, London, the view looking south as on the cover of Oasis’ What’s the Story (Morning Glory)? © Paul Graves-Brown

adjacent Kingly Street was the location of the Bag o’ Nails club, another favourite haunt of the Beatles (Bacon 1999). A City of Westminster council green plaque in Carnaby Street commemorates fashion entrepreneur John Stephen who was particularly noted for the development of Mod styles. A second green plaque marks the location of the offices of Don Arden (né Harry Levy) where the Small Faces signed to Arden’s management in 1965:

styled ‘Al Capone of pop’, he reputedly threatened to throw fellow promoter Robert Stigwood from a first floor window when he suspected the latter of trying to ‘poach’ the Small Faces (Milmo 2007). The Carnaby Street plaque leaves one with a sense of ambivalence. Arden was certainly an unusual figure, representing – along with the likes of Larry Parnes – an old style of management/promotion which might be traced back to the era of music hall and variety. But the Small Faces link seems a somewhat tenuous reason for a plaque, perhaps even more so than the Bob Marley example discussed above.

Monday June 7th (1965) The Small Faces (Marriott, Lane, Jones and Winston) assemble at 10.00am in Arden’s 52-55 Carnaby Street offices where he makes them an offer: “[...] you can have a percentage of the records, plus a shopping account in every clothes shop in Carnaby Street” (Rawlings 2000a).

Oasis – Berwick Street From Carnaby Street, Broadwick Street leads to Berwick Street. Turning left up to the junction with D’Arblay Street brings us to the location for the cover photograph of Oasis’ 1995 album ‘What’s the Story Morning Glory’. The front cover (facing south – see Figure 6.12) shows two figures in the road with Berwick Street market in the distant background. The back cover is shot at the junction with Noel and Holland Streets (facing north). Quite why Mancunians Oasis chose Berwick Street seems unclear. The

Arden, who had himself been a singer and vocal impressionist in the 1940s and 1950s, began his promotional career by bringing US acts such as Gene Vincent, Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry to the UK in the early 1960s. He then diversified into management of UK acts including the Small Faces and later Black Sabbath. Arden had a somewhat colourful role in the history of pop. The self-

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Figure 6.13. Abbey/Santander, location of The Marquee Club 1958-64 – 165 Oxford Street, London. © Paul Graves-Brown

only clue is that the front cover image shows independent record shop Selectadisc, later taken over by competitors Sister Ray. Again, as with the Bowie cover, the connection between musicians, music and cover image location seems dissonant.

also designed the interior of the cinema in 1954. McBean is more widely known as a photographer, most notably taking the photographs for the Beatles ‘Please Please Me’ album (1963); the shots taken in the stairwell of EMI’s then headquarters in nearby Manchester Square.

The Marquee Club 1958-64 – 165 Oxford Street

Kirsty McColl – Soho Square

At the top of Berwick Street turning left onto Oxford Street brings us to what is currently a branch of the Santander bank (Figure 6.13), but was until 1989 the Academy Cinema. Between 1958 and 1964, the basement was occupied by the Marquee Club, which has been claimed to be the most important popular music venue in Europe (Bacon 1999; Barroso 2009). The club was started by Arthur Pendleton, an accountant who ran the National Federation of Jazz Organisations. Initially a jazz venue, the Marquee gradually began to feature the emerging Rhythm and Blues bands of the early 1960s. The Rolling Stones played their first gig here in 1961, although in fact they only appeared as an ‘interval act’. As was common at the time, the Marquee did not have an alcohol license and hence both performers and audience would repair to the nearest pub during the interval of the main performance. It was during one such interval that the Stones made their debut.

Soho Square is reached via Soho Street from Oxford Street. Adjacent to the southern entrance to the square is a bench (Figure 6.14) dedicated to the memory of Kirsty McColl (one of many in the square commemorating a wide variety of people). The choice of the Square as the site of a memorial for McColl, who was killed under suspicious circumstances whilst on holiday in Mexico in 2000, derives from the song ‘Soho Square’ on her album ‘Titanic Days’ (1994). Kirsty MacColl had also worked in many of the recording studios in the area. In the early 1960s, her father Ewan had run a number of folk clubs in the Soho area. Unveiled in 2001, the bench was paid for out of a collection by Kirsty McColl’s fans, and as such is perhaps the most touching, and most genuine of the popular music memorials in the area.

The club décor was designed by Angus McBean, who had

Leaving Soho Square on the west side via Carlisle Street

St Anne’s Court

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leads onto Dean Street, with St Anne’s Court immediately opposite. Trident Studios are about halfway down on the right hand side (Figure 6.15). Set up in 1967, many famous artists recorded here from Manfred Mann with ‘My Name is Jack’ in 1968, through the Beatles, Elton John, Marc Bolan, Queen, and Bowie, who recorded ‘Ziggy Stardust’ here in 1972. Trident is one of the few studios still operating in the area; other major studios such as Advision and De Lane Lea no longer exist (or are no longer music recording studios). Like the live venues, most major recording studios left central London many years ago. St Anne’s Court has several other popular music connections: a short-lived club called the Blue Gardenia was supposedly the venue for the Beatles first ever gig in London, while Pete Best was still their drummer (Bacon 1999). The street was also the ‘home’ of Marianne Faithful, in that she was homeless here for two years after her split with Mick Jagger in 1969. The Marquee Club 1964-88 – 90 Wardour Street St Anne’s Court opens onto Wardour Street, turning left brings us to the final site of the tour; the location of the Marquee club from 1964 to 1988 (Bacon 1999, Barroso 2009). The main part of what was the club has been demolished and is now Terence Conran’s Meza restaurant. However, the entrance to the apartment building next door is the original entrance to the Marquee, which has recently acquired a blue plaque of its own, commemorating both the club and The Who’s drummer Keith Moon (Figure 6.16). Again this is not an official English Heritage plaque. An attempt to get an official English Heritage plaque was rejected, a spokeswoman for English Heritage said ‘only the most outstanding historical figures’ came through the shortlisting process for plaques (Osley 2009).

Figure 6.14. Kirsty McColl bench, Soho Square, London. © Paul Graves-Brown

Indeed one wonders if the Marquee should be specifically associated with Moon over and above anyone else that performed there. It might be arguable that the plaque would be better placed on the Ship Inn, just up the road. The Ship was a favourite of both performers and patrons of the Marquee, and one of Keith Moon’s (many) preferred watering holes in central London, before he was barred for letting off a smoke bomb. Just about every band one can imagine, from the Yardbirds and the Moody Blues to the Pretenders and Iron Maiden, played in the foetid room that was the Marquee, where the sweat literally ran down the walls. According to George Melly ‘It was in a club called the Marquee in Wardour Street [...] that British R and B established itself when, in the wider field of pop, the Beatles were carrying all before them (1989, 89)’. Arthur Pendleton had leased the site from Great Universal Stores who had previously used it as a clothing warehouse. When the lease expired in 1988, the club moved to Charing Cross Road for two years and having had several other brief incarnations – the last in St Martin’s Lane – closed in February 2008.

Figure 6.15. Trident Recording Studios, St. Anne’s Court, London. © Paul Graves-Brown

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been accompanied by a rapid decline in the sales of CDs and the demise of many of the record shops (Jones 2009). The aforementioned Sister Ray is (only just) one of a few survivals of the many such shops that used to exist in this area. Whilst at the same time the available means of portable listening from the Walkman to the iPod mean that listeners can create their own soundtrack to the city (du Gay et al. 1997). The various memorials encountered on this tour, official and unofficial, formal and informal, represent a variety of attempts to resist the ephemerality of the relationship between music and place. As with all such memorials they attempt to place some fixity on memory and to resist the process of forgetting (Forty and Kuchler 1999). Yet as we have seen this turns out to be a somewhat haphazard process. We have either visited or discussed virtually all of the pop music related plaques in the central London area, both blue and green (except the Bee Gees’ green plaque at 67 Brook Street). But putting together Bob Marley, Keith Moon, Jimi Hendrix, the 2 i’s cafe, the Small Faces and Don Arden does not give us even a fragmentary sense of the history of popular music in central London since the 1950s. Music tourism is a growing part of the tourist industry, as evidenced by the Visit England website’s pages on England’s rock history, England Rocks (http:// www.england-rocks.co.uk), but as we have seen, many of what might be considered key sites in the story of Swinging London are now largely obscure if not entirely forgotten. Perhaps necessarily so, since some potentially important events, such as Bob Dylan’s association with Savoy Steps, represent only the time it took to shoot a short piece of film or take some photographs. In a sense we might also say that the places represented in images associated with pop music – Heddon Street, Berwick Street, the Savoy – have themselves become portable, as part of the ‘aura’ of the recordings they accompany,

Figure 6.16. Former location of The Marquee Club 1964-88 – 90 Wardour Street, London (with plaque to Keith Moon). © Paul Graves-Brown

Discussion: It’s pale and it glitters like a faded movie star As a performance art, music is necessarily ephemeral; the former music venues visited in this tour are pregnant with the absence of so many significant events in the history of pop and rock. Although recording music would seem to somehow fix the intangible, it also, in the process, dislocates it. Indeed, as Gracyk (1996) points out, in recorded music, the recording ontologically precedes performance; the work only coalesces when the recording is played. Hence, contra Walter Benjamin’s (1999 [1968]) claims for the inalienable ‘aura’ of a work of art, each reproduction (or perhaps more precisely replication) of a piece of music carries its own aura with it. The rise of discothèques, from La Discothèque to The Trip, is indicative of the fact that the portability and placelessness of recorded sound could become an end in itself, where those who played the discs became the stars. Live music has had something of a renaissance in recent years, albeit not in Soho, but this almost seems a reaction against the gradual virtualisation of popular music. The rise of mp3 and iTunes, with the recent addition of web sites such as Spotify (www.spotify. com) which provide free and on-demand listening, has

[…] when this Terence Trent D’Arby video [Arnell 1988] slid into heavy rotation on state television, I was unprepared for this other, intensely romantic London, of warehouses and dive bars, of motorcycles, dandies and miscegenation. This is when London became a real place, a tangible desire of mine (Enigbokan 2009). Whilst pop music has a complex relationship with its sense of tradition and authenticity (Barker and Taylor 2007), it has, since the 1950s, been associated with revolt and rejection of the past (although, as Melly (1989) points out, this revolt has generally been commodified into ‘style’). It is perhaps not surprising, then, that virtually all of the 110 venues listed in Bacon (1999) have long been defunct, and that some would have existed for no more than a few months. Inevitably a number of the actual structures no longer exist: the Astoria, both Marquees, 2 Earlham Street, the original Heddon Street phone box. For those who could say along with the Who, ‘I hope I die before I get old’ (‘My Generation’ 1965), blue and green plaques

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ought to be as much an anathema as all memorials were for modernists such as Lewis Mumford; ‘[t]he notion of a modern monument is veritably a contradiction in terms: if it is a monument it is not modern, and if it is modern, it cannot be a monument’ (1940, 438). Pop iconoclasts should tend, ‘to deny “memory” a place, and indeed to negate it altogether’ (Forty 1999, 14).

BBC News 2006 Rock ‘n’ roll birthplace saluted, http:// news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/london/5357814. stm [accessed 21/10/10]. Beatles, The 1963 Please Please Me Parlophone. Benjamin, W. 1999[1968] Illuminations (edited and introduced by Hannah Arendt) Pimlico London. Bowie, D. 1972 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars RCA Records. Bowie, D. 1975 Young Americans RCA Records. City of Westminster 2005 Cabinet Member Report: Commemorative plaque to Ziggy Stardust (1972) item No. CMfP&CS/20/2005. In and around Covent Garden 2011 Street Features: Denmark Street In and around Covent Garden http:// www.coventgarden.uk.com/featureshistory/fh_streets. php?street=55&submit=Go&submitted=TRUE&p_ id=features&c_id=street [accessed 12 July 2011]. Dowling, S. 2008 Camden – Britain’s musical Mecca? BBC News Website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ entertainment/7238820.stm [accessed 21/10/10]. Dylan, B. 1965 Subterranean Homesick Blues Columbia. Enigbokan, A. 2009 London Calling, http://archivingthecity. com/ [accessed 21/10/10]. Forty, A. 1999 Introduction, pp. 1-18 in A. Forty and S. Kuchler (eds.) The Art of Forgetting Berg, Oxford. Forty, A. and Kuchler, S. (eds.) 1999 The Art of Forgetting Berg, Oxford. du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H. and Negus, K. 1997 Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman Sage, London. The Guardian 2007a Making Tracks, The Guardian Saturday 4th August 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/ music/2007/aug/04/popandrock.sydbarrett [accessed 21/10/10]. The Guardian 2007b Michael Caine meets William Orbit, Observer Music Monthly, Sunday 14th October 2007. Gracyk, T. 1996 Rhythm and Noise: Aesthetics of Rock Tauris, London. Graves-Brown, P. 2009 Nowhere Man: Urban Life and the Mediation of Popular Music, Popular Music History 4(2) 220-241. Graves-Brown, P. and Schofield, J. 2011, ‘The Filth and the Fury: 6 Denmark Street (London) and the Sex Pistols’ Antiquity 85, pp. 1–17. Hewison, R. 1986 Too Much. Art and Society in the Sixties 1960-75 Methuen, London. Holloway, N. 2009 Nicky Holloway - History http://www. nickyholloway.com/page15.htm [accessed 21/10/10]. International Times 2011 http://www.internationaltimes.it/ [accessed 12 July 2011]. ITV 1969-1970 Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) [TV] ITC Entertainment. Jones, G. 2009 Last Shop Standing. Whatever Happened to Record Shops? Proper Music, London. MacColl, K. 1993 Titanic Days IRS Records. Machell, B. 2009 John Hopkins: John, Yoko, Mick . . . and me Sunday Times, Sunday 3 June 2009 Manfred Mann 1968 My Name Is Jack Fontana.

Perhaps the evidence I have reviewed in this paper is not so much about the music itself, which is either gone or archived in one medium or another, but rather about the culture and history of people, places and their time. It is about the tentative rise of an indigenous British Pop music in the mid to late 1950s and its eventual flowering as a global brand in the Swinging London of the 1960s. Of an already distant era when the emerging stars of Pop could mix, socialise and exchange ideas in a variety of pubs and clubs without being constantly followed by a press hungry to feed an overwhelming celebrity culture (with the exception of the News of the World’s attacks on the Rolling Stones and the UFO Club). By the 1970s, the focus of activity was already shifting to areas such as Camden Town with the opening of venues such as Dingwalls (1973), The Electric Ballroom (1978) and the Music Machine (1977 later the Camden Palace) and the plethora of music pubs such as the Dublin Castle and the Monarch (Dowling 2008). Equally, as noted above, recording studios have gradually deserted central London. What remains is only, and can only ever be, that which is saved from forgetting by the active involvement of people. Perhaps here the case of Heddon Street is a nice example, for it has what amounts to at least a 23-year tradition of David Bowie graffiti. It is tempting to wonder just how long the pilgrims will scrawl their messages to Ziggy Stardust inside the phone box. Acknowledgements and notes I must thank Tom Cullis, Carolyn Graves-Brown, Robin Page, John Schofield and Dillon Tonkin for their help in various forms. For further information on sites beyond those listed in my bibliography, see the English Heritage Pastscape website: http://www.pastscape.org/default.aspx. Due to practical and copyright reasons, some relevant images (and for obvious reasons video) are not included, but are easily to be found on the World Wide Web, e.g. Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues (filmed at Savoy steps) can be seen, at the time of writing, on www.youtube. com. References Arnell, V. (Director) 1988 Sign Your Name [Video]. Bacon, T. 1999 London Live Balafon, London. Barroso, K. 2009 History of the Marquee Club http://www. themarqueeclub.net/history [accessed 21/10/10]. Barker, H. and Taylor, Y. 2007 Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music Faber & Faber, London.

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Melly, G. 1989 Revolt into Style Oxford University Press, London. Milmo, C. 2007 Hard man of the hit parade: The Al Capone of pop music The Independent, Wednesday, 25 July 2007. Mumford, L. 1940 The Culture of Cities Secker & Warburg, New York. Muir H. 2006 Blue plaque marks flats that put Marley on road to fame The Guardian, Friday 27 October 2006. Oasis 1995 (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? Creation. Osley, R. 2009 Keith Moon gets plaque at last despite English Heritage snub The Independent. Sunday 1st February 2009. Pennebaker, D. A. 1967 Don’t Look Back [film] Docurama, USA. Pink Floyd 1967 Piper at the Gates of Dawn Columbia/ EMI. Prodigy 1995 Firestarter Mute Records. Rawlings, T. 2000a Quite Naturally: The Small Faces - A Day by Day Guide to the Career of a Pop Group Cherry Red Books, London.

Rawlings, T. 2000b Mod: A Very British Phenomenon Omnibus Press, London. Reynolds, S. 1998 Energy Flash Picador, London. Shady Old Lady. 2009 Regent Sound http://www. shadyoldlady.com/location.php?loc=525 [accessed 21/10/10]. Seabrook, T. J. 2008 Bowie in Berlin. A New Career in a New Town Jawbone, London. Stern, W. (Director) 1996 Firestarter [Video]. Time 1966 Great Britain: You Can Walk Across It On the Grass, Time Magazine 15 April 1996 http://www.time. com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835349,00.html [accessed 12 July 2011]. Time Out 1984 Ziggy Stardust Stood here in 1972. London’s Rock Landmarks Time Out Magazine 18-24 October 1984 (quoted in http://www.5years.com/heddon. htm [accessed July 12 2011]). Town Magazine 1962 Faces without Shadows, Town Magazine September 1962. Who, The 1965 My Generation Brunswick.

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Chapter 7 Contemporary Places and Change: Lincoln Townscape Assessment David Walsh and Adam Partington

Introduction

one of the main aims of housing policy in PPS3 (DCLG 2006)

Cities by definition are complex; their character and townscape have been influenced by hundreds if not thousands of years of change and development. In Lincoln, as in many cities, the focus of attention is often on the historic townscape, in this case, the cathedral and castle. Focus is rarely on the post-war or modern housing estates but this is where most people live in Lincoln. These areas provide a sense of place and local identity which is hugely valued by the people who call them home and they have a history, as all places do: a history that reveals the fascinating recent changes to our way of life and the way we live in cities and towns.

Therefore the first step in managing change is to understand character. This paper describes the Lincoln Townscape Assessment (LTA) and discusses the approach taken to understanding the character of recent townscapes. The paper then describes the character of Birchwood, a residential suburb of Lincoln which has been developed since the Second World War and continues to grow. The case study shows how the changing character of Birchwood provides a fascinating insight into post-war suburban development and how our changing ideas, for example, of individuality and privacy, influence the townscape. The paper concludes by suggesting some ideas for managing change in recent townscapes in order to retain and build on their character and sense of place for the benefit of all who experience them.

The same is true in the way we cope with change in our inherited environment, in particular through the planning process. Much of the focus in ‘heritage planning’ is on ‘historic’ buildings, sites and areas and is concerned with identifying, or designating, those places which are special and then applying statutory controls to protect them when change occurs. In Lincoln’s areas of modern housing there is little or no designation, and it would be neither practical nor desirable to extend designation to include many of our more modern places but we should not ignore their importance, either to the local residents or as a record of recent changes. We therefore require a different approach to planning and managing change in order to provide the most benefit to those who live and work in their ‘inherited environment’.

The Lincoln Townscape Assessment The LTA is a four year project, finishing in 2009, which is funded by English Heritage and the City of Lincoln Council. The aims of the LTA are to develop a new method of townscape assessment for cities and to assess the inherited character of the current townscape of the whole City of Lincoln. Cities have considerable ‘time depth’ but will also contain many modern developments as they have grown in recent times. The term ‘inherited character’ is used here to clearly include these recent townscapes. The emphasis is also on the current townscape – what exists today rather than developments that have been and gone and left no discernable trace. Hence the assessment can more readily focus on what people experience and the evidence left to us of the changing way in which we live in residential suburbs.

Recent government Planning Policy Statements (PPSs) have a strong emphasis on the character of places and not just historic places. These provide a framework for considering change, for example, PPS 1: Delivering Sustainable Development (DCLG 2005) states that the aim of planning is to create places where people want to live and work; place is a matter of local context and distinctiveness. PPS1 also notes that good design needs to be ‘integral to the existing urban form and built environment’ and should ‘take the opportunities available for improving the character and quality of an area’. Furthermore, the creation of places with ‘distinctive identity’ and the maintenance of ‘local character’ through development which complements ‘neighbouring buildings and the local area’ is identified as

Why are we doing the LTA? The LTA is being done in order to help maximise the benefits which Lincoln gets from its inherited environment and sense of place. In summary, it will provide the context for planning, urban design and regeneration; it will help foster a sense of community and local identity; and it will be used to provide visitor information about the city.

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Birchwood

It is important to note that the LTA does not make value judgements beyond assessing contribution to character. It does not say what should be preserved or demolished. How change should be managed, particularly in recent townscapes, should be considered separately and this is discussed in the later sections of this paper.

Birchwood is a residential suburb which lies on the edge of the city in the Witham Valley, approximately four kilometres southwest of the city centre. In the Second World War the area was an airfield, a few traces of which remain in the current townscape. Birchwood includes both public and private housing developments dating from the 1960s to today.

Methodology The LTA methodology can be briefly summarised as a holistic approach which integrates (i) an analysis of the historical development of the current townscape, (ii) an analysis of the urban form, including the principles of urbanism, (iii) ecological information on sites and habitats in the city, and most importantly, (iv) the views of local people on the character of their areas. Particular regard is paid in the methodology to the more recent and ‘commonplace’ elements of our townscape (Walsh 2007).

Birchwood illustrates the changing attitudes and approaches towards the planning and construction of medium and large scale housing estates over the last 50 years. Key influences include the increased move to individualism and privacy away from more communal principles and ‘plan-led’ approaches, the increased use of the car and the changing approach to economies in medium or high volume house building. The public and private housing developments have overwritten much of the former landscape, however the townscape contains traces of its rural and military past, including the lines of field boundaries associated with the 18/19th century enclosure of land, boundaries of two probable 19th century woodland plantations, the 18/19th century remains of a former fishpond and a mill pond belonging to a now demolished farm complex and the remains of a taxiway associated with a Second World War airfield for heavy bombers.

The historical development of the townscape is assessed using historic maps, the GIS-based Lincoln Archaeological Research Assessment (Jones et al., 2003) and the council’s extensive heritage database as well as field surveys. The analysis of urban form includes characteristics such as movement patterns, block structure, urban ‘grain’, active or passive building frontages, sense of enclosure, as well as scale and architectural form etc. Using the language of urban design, albeit simply for ‘mapping’ what exists rather than designing change, is vital in providing an inclusive assessment that can be used by all within the planning process. All aspects of the methodology involve visiting, experiencing and assessing the townscapes. Local people’s views on character are captured through public workshops, including their ‘likes and dislikes’ and recent memories. Such an assessment of post-war housing, in particular, helps understand how and why townscape character has changed in the recent past.

Birchwood Estate Character Area Birchwood Estate Character Area (Figure 7.1) is a large public housing estate dating from between 1960 and 1980, with an associated community/commercial centre and green spaces. The housing was constructed in six phases over a short period of time, including a former RAF housing estate. The townscape variations in building form, layout and decoration in each phase illustrate changing approaches towards the development and use of post-war public housing estates. There are, however, common characteristics between all phases which are often associated with public housing of this period: straight and curvilinear streets, cul-de-sacs and closes; short rows of between four and ten dwellings set back five to ten metres from the footway; dwellings of mostly two-storeys in height and two/three bays in width; little decoration; mostly brick walls with high solid to void ratios; shallow pitch gabled roofs covered in concrete tiles; a small number of semi-detached houses and some larger three storey apartment blocks located along the edges of housing developments and bordering large open spaces. The buildings reflect the economies required at the time, e.g. in using common building materials and repeated plan forms. However, being public housing, the spaces around the buildings are generous as larger developable land areas were more readily obtainable compared to private developers.

Importantly, the complete assessment will be readily available on the Internet, including text descriptions, maps and images to which local people will be able to add their comments and photographs. Character areas The main component of the assessment is the Character Area. Lincoln has been divided into 108 Character Areas – each with a distinctive character which is discernable from neighbouring areas. For each Character Area, a description of the inherited character is provided which includes a summary, the key townscape characteristics, the historical development of current townscape, urban form, views, condition, use, and its relationship to the city and surrounding areas. At the heart of the Birchwood suburb there are two character areas, each of which provide a fascinating insight into the way our suburban townscapes have changed and why.

The RAF housing was built first, along straight, easily

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Figure 7.1. Birchwood Estate Character Area (in light grey) and Birchwood Modern Estate Character area (in dark grey). © City of Lincoln Council

navigable streets and all houses face the street. Many houses have passed from public to private ownership with the introduction of the ‘Right to Buy’ scheme in the 1980s and have been increasingly personalised, e.g. with the replacement of windows and doors. The fact that they have a clear arrival point and front façade has been exploited in this respect with new porches and driveways (Figure 7.2). The clear street layout and large front gardens have also meant that the houses have been easily adapted for increased car use. Most front gardens have been converted to driveways and the public/private boundaries are usually undefined. The streets are usually active with both cars and pedestrians.

infrastructure. The last phase of public housing was built using Radburn principles of planning – a strong ‘centralised’ plan being an important component of public housing at the time. Within this an important design aim was to incorporate public open spaces into residential developments. Houses were built facing greens, with narrow pathways in front, and the vehicle access was to the rear (Figure 7.3). Thus the pedestrian and vehicle traffic was largely separated. The greens are connected via pathways to larger open spaces around which in contrast the houses ‘turn their backs’, and eventually to the community/commercial centre. Despite the principles and the effort that went into designing this phase of housing its character today suggests that there have been unintended consequences. Most people arrive by car but there is no clear arrival point as they approach the

A key difference between the different phases is the setting and aspect of properties in relation to open space and road

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Figure 7.2. A new porch in the former RAF housing.© City of Lincoln Council

Figure 7.3. A ‘green’ in Birchwood estate.© City of Lincoln Council

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Figure 7.4. An irregular, sinuous pattern of cul de sacs and closes.© City of Lincoln Council

rear of houses which are bordered by tall fencing. There are also separated, communal parking areas for cars. The fencing and the lack of obvious entrances to the houses creates very inactive boundaries which contribute to a feeling of a lack of security on the streets. The separation between the cars and pedestrians also contributes to a lack of activity both to the rear and the front of the houses. The paths at the front and the greens are in poor condition and are sometimes badly littered. There is very little evidence of private ownership or individuality between the houses within this latter phase of development.

forms. Despite the variation between development units, many aspects of the townscape are strongly coherent in character. There is a medium to high density of residential housing, the majority of which consist of semi-detached or detached bungalows, or two storey properties, which all face the road. Except for the most modern developments (see below), the houses are sited in the centre/front of plots and are mostly set back five to ten metres from the footway with private driveways and gardens. Public/private boundaries to the front of properties are frequently indistinct. Houses have active front facades and medium to high solid to void ratios with regular, horizontal windows. Properties are generally plain in appearance and are built of brick. Roofs are mostly pitched gable roofs with concrete tiles. The large and often poorly delineated set-backs, low building height, medium to high building density, and wide residential roads combine to produce an open sense of enclosure and a horizontal emphasis throughout much of the Character Area.

Birchwood Modern Estate Character Area Birchwood Modern Estate Character Area is composed of a series of privately built residential developments dating to the late post-war [1946-1967] and modern [1968-2008] periods which illustrate, in particular, the move towards individualism: more individual houses and greater privacy in the construction of private residential housing estates.

The streets form an irregular and sinuous pattern of poorly connected cul-de-sacs and closes thus creating large, irregularly shaped urban blocks which frequently have impermeable boundaries (Figure 7.4). The street pattern reflects the greater requirement for privacy in modern housing. The curving pattern means that the houses which face the streets are usually at a slight angle to those opposite

The form and style of residential properties varies throughout the Character Area, but is generally highly coherent within individual development units from before c. 1995 as builders sought to reduce costs by maintaining a limited palette of materials and using only one or two plan

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Figure 7.5. Poundbury in Lincoln?© City of Lincoln Council

which increases the sense of privacy compared to the earlier largely parallel lines of housing. This sense of privacy is increased by the high number of cul-de-sacs which eliminate through traffic. The branching pattern of culde-sacs clearly illustrates the dominance of the car as the main means of transport. There are some footpaths running through the estates but they are sited to the rear of houses and are often bordered by high garden fencing giving a feeling of enclosure and a lack of security. In addition the direction and destination of many paths are unclear.

(to increase profit), and mainly shallow building setbacks this variety can suggest the appearance of a local ‘version’ of Poundbury (Figure 7.5). The Character Area lacks any formal public space and public buildings are few – only three schools in the south of the area. The complete absence of chimneys and telegraph polls also demonstrates that modern services are provided underground, or ‘over air’. Managing change in contemporary townscapes

Interestingly, within the newest residential estates (post c. 1995) the housing has been built with much more varied styles and form, which reflects the recent desire for more ‘individual’ properties that differ from neighbouring houses, and the fact that builders have sought to create this variety from the outset.

It is clear that Birchwood provides a fascinating archaeological record of the way we live and have lived, in residential suburbs in the past fifty years and the influences that have shaped the townscape. This history of change also provides a greater sense of place for the people who live in Birchwood. As change will, and must, continue, how should this inherited townscape, which is valued in these ways, be taken into account in the planning system?

The architectural variety is obtained by widely mixing up a fairly limited set of architectural components, materials and plan forms, thus still providing some economies of scale to the builder. The layout of streets and properties, and the size and decoration of buildings is also more variable. Together with the imitation of many ‘traditional’ architectural elements, a relatively high building density

Understanding the townscape is the first and key step in being able to manage change but inevitably what follows are decisions about what to keep, what to discard, or what to change. How do we do this if we do not designate?

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Indeed, should we try to manage change with regard to the historical context of modern places at all if these places are not considered of national importance? And how do we decide whether such an embodiment of recent change is of national importance when that change might be ephemeral and might be occurring in towns and cities throughout the country.

all elements of character to be considered holistically, especially where an area is not traditionally considered to be part of the ‘historic’ environment. For instance, the information is well placed to inform Design and Access Statements prepared at the preliminary stages of the development application process. As the LTA is used in future planning decisions in Lincoln, including Birchwood, there will be an opportunity to find out if change can be managed in this way so that we can obtain the full benefit from our inherited ‘modern’ places. Evidence to date shows that the engagement process itself encourages people to understand, enjoy and value their inherited environment. This may well provide the best way to both manage change and retain a sense of place.

Perhaps the reason to try to manage change in the context of our inherited environment and the means to do it are bound up in the same question: what is it that local people value? The planning context may lie in the recently strengthened emphasis on character and public consultation in the wider planning framework. But the response – ‘let the people decide’ – should not be seen as a ‘fob off’ or an ‘easy way out’. It requires a clear, accurate, concise, and largely agreed description of character which provides a framework for the negotiation of change. It requires a planning system which really can take account of character and local people’s views and in turn requires a determined and effective initiative to bring people into the planning system and record and take account of their views. All this requires a great deal of work!

Conclusion The townscape of the modern residential suburb of Birchwood is a fascinating archaeological record of the way we live, and have lived, in the past 50 years and the influences that have shaped our townscape. This paper suggests that the Lincoln Townscape Assessment provides a means of describing the character of our modern townscapes including local people’s views of character and can be a framework for the negotiation of change. The emphasis of the new planning processes on character and public consultation may well provide a wider planning framework in which the inherited character of modern places, and people’s views, on character can be integrated to help manage change and retain the sense of place for the benefit of all who experience them.

The Lincoln Townscape Assessment has put the basic building blocks in place. The intention is that the character descriptions provided by the LTA, which focus on named places with distinctive character and cover the whole city, will provide this framework for negotiation. The intention is also that the response of local people to this character assessment will allow their views and values to have appropriate weight within the planning process.

Acknowledgements

The response of local residents to the LTA character assessments has been extremely positive – particularly to ‘Character Areas’ that they recognise and that have a name that they associate with it. People understandably like the focus on their ‘home places’ and respond with comments on character including their likes and dislikes.

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Graham Fairclough, Clive Fletcher and David Stocker (English Heritage) and Glyn Stocker, Arthur Ward and Gill Wilson (City of Lincoln Council) to the work described in this paper.

The next step, which is the subject of a two year follow-on project funded by English Heritage and the City of Lincoln Council, is to develop policy and development management strategies to use the LTA, including local people’s views, in the planning process. At a strategic level the LTA may provide an evidence base for a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) as part of the Local Development Framework with reference to a specific policy in the Core Strategy. The SPD would describe how to use the characterisation information to guide new developments.

References DCLG (Department of Communities and Local Government) 2005, Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development Department for Communities and Local Government, London. DCLG (Department of Communities and Local Government) 2006, Planning Policy Statement 3: Housing Department for Communities and Local Government, London. Jones, M., Stocker, D. and Vince, A. (Stocker, D. ed.), 2003 The City by the Pool: Assessing the Archaeology of the City of Lincoln Oxbow Books, Oxford. Walsh, D. 2007 Post-War Suburbs and the New Urbanism: Lincoln’s Ermine Estates, Conservation Bulletin 56, pp. 7-9.

The information will also be used, and is already being used, to provide early information to developers etc. as part of the Council’s Development Management process. The combination of information on urban form combined with historical development and local people’s views allows

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Chapter 8

Revolutionary Archaeology or the Archaeology of Revolution? Landlord Villages of the Tehran Plain Hassan Fazeli and Ruth Young Introduction

of Iran’s rural population for the centuries leading up to the radical changes of the second half of the 20th century. This project aims to record the remains of these walled, mudbrick villages in the Tehran Plain before they are entirely lost and to situate them within an historical and ethnographic framework.

The Heritage CHAT conference and subsequent volume has offered us (as newcomers to historical and contemporary archaeology) the opportunity to consider different definitions and understandings of the heritage of the recent past, including value and significance, and to consider how different concepts might impact on our archaeological project, ‘Landlord Villages of the Tehran Plain’ in Iran. This is, of course, not simply an intellectual exercise, because in Iran, as in many countries around the world, often only monumental heritage, or heritage with clear monetary value, is considered worthy of being curated, preserved or presented. The importance of considering the heritage of the recent past in Iran is further increased because the material remains that are the subject of our work are closely linked to a particular political regime and the dramatic events surrounding the end of this regime and the movement to another. Such events have been played out on the world stage and the legacy of political and ideological change in the second half of the 20th century has done much to shape general views of life in Iran as perceived from the outside.

We also aim to record and analyse the material culture of landlord villages in order to further understand the social and economic relationships between landlord and farmers and between farmers; and in doing so to consider the creation and expression of identity within these villages and to provide a model of spatial analysis linked to function which can potentially be applied to self-contained settlements at different points in history and prehistory. Issues of struggle and resistance are major themes in historical archaeology (Casella 2002; Lucas 2004) and we explore them here through the study of artefacts and buildings, and by interviewing people who had lived in the villages. In this paper we will discuss our findings to date and our preliminary analyses and in we will show how our project is addressing the recent past as heritage, offering multiple readings of a past and also exploring boundaries between social and physical heritage. In conclusion, we argue that landlord villages illustrate how that the recent past of ordinary, unnamed people could be deemed as much a part of heritage as palaces belonging to rulers or religious sites.

The project is directed jointly by the authors and draws on staff and students from universities and museums in the UK and Iran and the three season of fieldwork to date (2007, 2008 and 2009) have been funded by the British Institute of Persian Studies. Many past and present travellers in rural Iran have noted the mud-brick walled, self-enclosed landlord villages in the landscape and these structures have also been the focus of more systematic historical and ethnographic observation and study. Now largely abandoned, these villages offered the opportunity for exploring the use of space in relation to status, economic function and individual and group identity. Iran’s ‘White Revolution’ of the 1960s and 1970s had a huge impact on social and political organisation and relations and one area where this impact is manifest in terms of material remains are landlord villages. The antiquity of these villages is generally agreed to be rooted in the early Islamic period (following the Arab invasion in the 7th century AD), although their origins and their actual dates remain largely conjecture. What is clear from a range of records is that landlord villages were an accepted and extensive form of social and economic organisation for large segments

Heritage in Iran ‘Heritage’ in Iran is extremely important in terms of shaping both national and personal identity and there is considerable pride in Iranian heritage, particularly in relation to the historic empires such as the Achaemenids, Parthians, Sassanians and Safavids (Brosius 2006; Mostafavi 1978; Niknami 2000, 172). The material remains of these empires are critical in the shaping and maintaining identity and a good example of this is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Persepolis the ceremonial capital and palace attributed to Darius I, and destroyed by Alexander the Great in c. 331-330 BC (Brosius 2006). Persepolis is, perhaps, Iran’s best known heritage site and image both within and outside the country providing some iconic ‘Iranian’ images, such as the bulls, kings, griffins, or mythological Homa birds,

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of complex hierarchy through analysis of the public and private spaces in the villages.

the latter used on Iran’s national carrier Iran Air as their distinctive logo. Persepolis was also the setting for the 1971 celebration of 2500 years of monarchy – from the Achaemenids to the 20th century – an event organised and hosted by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Persia. In addition to playing a powerful role in reinforcing his legitimacy to the throne and rule of Iran, this celebration was famous for the great tented city built at Persepolis and its displays, the invited heads of state from around the world and a state banquet lasting five and half hours, which was the longest and most lavish state banquet on record.

The villages themselves as structures, and other material culture have not been the subject of systematic study, nor has there been any sustained attempt previously to understand either the ways in which space has been shaped by the occupants, or the way it has in turn affected activity and function within the villages. Today, as abandoned, self-contained elements of an earlier economic and social structure, landlord villages provide an excellent opportunity for archaeological study in a number of areas.

Sites such as Persepolis, Imam or Naghsh-e Jahan Square and the mosques and palaces of Esfahan, and similar monumental sites, have contributed greatly to a heritage closely tied to royalty and elites in Iran. However, the length of occupation and diversity of peoples and geography that have contributed to modern Iran mean that there is far more to the heritage of this country than the most well known popular heritage images. Our project offers a rather different perspective on Iranian heritage, being concerned with the very recent past, and the material remains of very ordinary people; the rural poor who made up vast proportions of Iran’s population.

Landlord villages The project is located on the Tehran Plain to the south of Tehran itself, on the very fertile plain between the foothills of the Alburz Mountains and the deserts of central Iran (Figure 8.1). As in many other parts of Iran, there are numerous abandoned, often semi-ruined, mudbrick enclosure walls, around what appear to be large house compounds or small villages. These are landlord villages: mudbrick, walled villages with houses for farmers and a separate, much more elaborate house or houses for the landlord. The landlord owned not only the village itself, but all the surrounding farm land and had considerable power over the lives of the people in his domain. These villages represented social and economic order for a large segment of the Iranian population over many centuries until the ‘White Revolution’ of the 1960s and 1970s which was a series of reforms aimed at altering the economic and social structure for much of Iran (Ansari 2003, 211). A key part of these reforms was the redistribution of agricultural land owned by a small number of wealthy landlords amongst the farmers who had worked the land and lived in these walled, landlord villages.

Landlord villages and their occupants have been studied in terms of their role within economic and social history in Iran (Keddie 1968; Lambton 1953) but there are no known studies of the villages exploring them in relation to the cultural heritage of Iran. In the course of our fieldwork we spoke to former occupants of the villages, other local residents, archaeologists within Iran and other academics about these villages and life within them. While all of these people agreed that they had played an important role in the recent history of Iran, they were not viewed as unusual or special in any way; certainly not structures on a par with an archaeological site such as Persepolis. It would be difficult indeed on many levels to try to claim that there is parity in cultural heritage terms between these villages and Perspeolis, but we would like to show people that heritage is a highly nuanced concept and that the everyday, the recent and things perhaps associated with unpleasant episodes in the past could also be considered as part of identity and heritage.

Landlord villages have been described as feudal in nature, but as Richards points out, this is in fact inaccurate. While medieval European peasants had a measure of legal security and could pass down certain land access rights from generation to generation, Iranian villagers had no similar rights and were subject to what has been called the ‘arbitrary will of the landlord’ (Richards 1975, 4). The landlord/villager relationship was generally highly polarised where the ‘landowner regards the peasant virtually as a drudge, whose sole function is to provide him with his profits and who will, if treated with anything but severity, cheat him of his due’ Furthermore, according to Lambton, the landowners did not consider the provision of good housing or hygiene facilities important for the residents of their villages (Lambton 1953, 263). Keddie’s survey work in 1954 agreed, having found ‘appalling conditions; locusts and clover as the main food supply in a few areas; a majority seriously diseased’ (1968, 75). We were interested in finding out whether the analysis of material culture and interview data would support these general and negative accounts.

The majority of work to date on these villages in the form of historical and ethnographic studies, by scholars such as Keddie (1968) and Lambton (1953) has focused on such issues as land tenure, production, and land redistribution, with some attention to social and economic hierarchies within the villages. Keddie (1968, 74-5) reported a hierarchy of some 14 classes of adult males within Iranian villages, from the landlord (usually absentee), through cultivators to casual labourers, claiming that the vast majority of villages have at least some of these classes in place. Clearly these villages were not simple or egalitarian in their internal organisation and one of our objectives is to determine whether it is possible to detect this type

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Figure 8.1. Location map of villages. © Authors

Methodology

advance of construction of the Imam Khomeini Airport and the villagers re-settled in the nearby town of Robat Karim. We took the same approach at Gach Agach as we had at Kazemabad and Hosseinabad Sanghar, creating a detailed plan of the site and interviewing five people who had lived in this village up until the 1990s. Again, we walked with these interviewees round the village in order to determine the functions of spaces and buildings (Figure 8.4).

We have conducted two field seasons to date, the first in 2007 (Fazeli and Young 2008) and the second in 2008. In 2007 we identified two villages, Kazemabad and Hosseinabad Sanghar, both to the south of the city of Varamin and we produced very detailed ground plans of each building within each village. We created a digital photographic library of each building, both for analysis and to provide a record of condition to chart decay and loss of the villages over time. We also met and interviewed ten people who had been associated with these villages; eight who had lived in them, and two who had been linked to them though trade, asking questions about economic activities, social relations and use of space. We then took these interviewees to the villages and walked with them around each building asking them to explain the function of each and the activities that had been carried out there. This allowed us to produce annotated plans showing these functions and from this, we have begun to develop a model of use of space and social and economic activity within the villages (Figures 8.2 and 8.3).

In addition to planning the villages, the ethnographic interviews, creation of detailed annotated plans, and analysis of the standing remains, we were also keen to determine whether we could obtain artefact assemblages for these villages, and if so, analyse these in order to understand more about the lives and relationships within them. In order to do this, we carried out excavations at Kazemabad in 2008, opening five small test trenches in different parts of the village to test the viability of excavation as a means of collecting data. These five trenches were placed thus: Trench 1 inside a farmer’s house; Trench 2 inside the landlord’s house; Trench 3 across the base of the old wall inside the village; Trench 4 in the landlord’s house in room identified for use by women and Trench 5 in the yard of a row of farmers’ houses (Figure 8.5).

In 2008 we explored the village of Gach Agach, located south of Tehran near the road to Qom, which was occupied up until the early 1990s when the land was acquired in

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Figure 8.2. Kazemabad annotated plan. © Authors

Results of the planning and interviewing

living in Kazemabad was estimated at 25 families by our interviewees, with the average size of each household given as around six people, thus giving a village population of 150. At Hosseinabad Sanghar the interviewees said that there had been around 30 families. If we use the same figure of six people per family or household, we arrive at the figure of 180 for the village population. In relative terms, the landlord’s house and garden occupies around half of the area of Kazemabad, while in Hosseinabad Sanghar, the landlord’s house and animal stabling occupies around one quarter of the village area.

Preliminary analysis of our village plans and ethnographic interview data shows that in both Kazemabad and Hosseinabad Sanghar villages there was a clear separation of the space for the landlord and for the farmers, with the landlord occupying a much larger area than any single farmer (Fazeli and Young 2008). The landlord’s area was physically separated by a high wall from the area of the village occupied by the farmers and the landlord also had separate areas for their animals for overnight and winter stabling.

The only craft activity carried out in either village was carpet making by some women within individual houses. Otherwise, there was no metal working, or potting. We were told that all manufactured goods such as pans or clothes were bought in the market at nearby Pishva and Varamin or potters would bring in their wares by donkey from several (non-landlord) potting villages in the area. There were no religious specialists or specialised religious buildings and the only specialist ‘jobs’ were those of camel and horse tender for the lord; the gatekeeper at Kazemabad (who combined this job with camel tender); midwife at Kazemabad; and part-time hamam (public baths) attendant at Kazemabad. The hamam at Kazemabad was located within the landlord’s part of the village, accessed from a

In the farmers’ areas there were also divisions into private and public space, although this demarcation appears to be clearer at Kazemabad than Hosseinabad Sanghar. This may be the result of the better preservation of structures in the former which shows that there is a great deal of complexity within the village, and also the likelihood that certain areas and buildings have changed over time. The more complete plan of Kazemabad also allows us to understand more about changes in features and the different functions of space over time. It is interesting that while Kazemabad is the larger village in terms of size, the village population is similar for both, with possibly even more farmers’ houses in Hosseinabad Sanghar. The number of families

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Figure 8.3. Hosseinabad Sanghar annotated plan. © Authors

the time of the White Revolution) was estimated as 40-45 ‘large’ families. If we use the same average of six people per household, this gives an estimated population of 240270 people, which is considerably more than at either of the other two villages. One of our informants at Gach Agach said that seven was the average family size in the village. This higher population of farmers’ families is supported by the allocation of space within the village, as shown in Figure 8.4, the annotated plan giving the function of each area. The landlord’s house, located against the southern part of the western wall is far smaller in Gach Agach than at either Hosseinabad Sanghar or Kazemabad and there are many more farmers’ houses in the centre of the village than at Kazemabad. Although there are no clear walls or remnants of walls separating the landlord and farmer areas at Gach Agach as there are at the other two villages, the ground plan suggests that what are now the animal yards and the

lane alongside the landlord’s animal stables, and there were set days and times when the villagers were permitted to use it. The landlord and family had their own smaller, separate hamam. The absence of craft specialisation, other than carpetmaking, is surprising. This may be a result of the size of the villages studied. An estimated population of probably no more than 200 at peak periods, and much less than this at other times can be compared to landlord villages such as Aliabad near Shiraz, which had an estimated population of 3000 before land reform (Hooglund 1982, 11). Half the adult men of the village were engaged in trade rather than subsistence farming, and most of the itinerant traders and shopkeepers of the whole region came from Aliabad itself. The population of Gach Agach in the 1960s and 1970s (at

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Figure 8.4. Gach Agach annotated plan. © Authors

representative’s house would have likely been part of the landlord’s house complex in earlier periods, becoming used for different functions as the role of the landlord himself changed, and the needs of the village changed. In all three of our villages, the landlord’s house is located in the western half and in both Gach Agach and Hosseinabad Sanghar this house is in the south western quadrant of the village; in Kazemabad, the landlord’s house occupies the western half of the village. In both Gach Agach and Kazemabad the landlord’s animal housing is located along the west end of the southern wall, and at Hosseinabad Sanghar, along the western end of the northern wall.

that it is important to remember that these villages were not monolithic entities – they were living and changing things (Horne 1994). Gach Agach was occupied by a larger population until later than either of the other two villages and this means that there is more evidence for the re-use of buildings. Many houses had been converted into stabling during the most recent period of occupation and we were told about the use of two houses for shops selling sweets and drinks and similar items. Furthermore, one farmer’s house against the northern wall of the village was used first to house a pump for water for the whole village and then after the failure of that water supply, this building remained public, being used as a village primary school.

The results from Gach Agach confirmed our general findings from Kazemabad and Hosseinabad Sanghar; the separation of landlord and farmer; the separation of their animals; the relative absence of any production other than of agricultural goods, and the relative absence of any specialists within the village. However, Gach Agach offers a slightly different view of life in a landlord village and shows

Through our preliminary interviews we have identified four main social groups or classes within the landlord villages. These comprise the: landlord (arbob) and family; landlord’s agent (khadkhoda) and family; those with specialised tasks such as shepherds and camel keeper and door keeper (dash ban); and farmers and their families. However, this does not translate so readily or clearly to structures within the village

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Figure 8.5. Kazemabad plan showing trenches. © Authors

where we tend to see a duality of housing (and possibly a three-tier structure at Kazemabad) rather than a four-tier hierarchy. Previous ethnographic enquiry carried out by one author has indicated that wealthier families tended to have houses in the centre of the village, while the poorer families lived in houses against the village walls (Fazeli 2001). This will be considered in future ethnographic questioning and raises interesting questions about the subtle expression of hierarchies and powers beyond such obvious indicators as size and complexity of residential structures.

glazed sherds (83 percent) were recovered from Trenches 2 and 4 within the landlord’s house. One of the most interesting of the glazed or decorated pieces was recovered from Trench 4 (within the women’s room in the landlord’s house) (Figure 8.7). This plate fragment is plain white with a glaze and has a Russian manufacturer’s stamp on the reverse. Preliminary searches suggest that it was produced by the M. Kuznetsov factory in Verbilki in Russia, between 1892 and 1917 (Russian Antique 2006). This factory is located approximately 50m (85km) directly north of Moscow, making it 1600m (2580km) northwest of Tehran and the presence of this sherd shows that the landlord and family were using imported plates in this village, which provides a contrast with the very plain sherds of local manufacture recovered from the farmers’ areas.

Results of the excavation at Kazemabad If the reports of Lambton and Keddie are accurate, then we would expect the material culture of the farmers to be very poor in contrast to the material culture of the landlords and in general, this was borne out through excavation. A total of 393 finds were recovered from all of the trenches including pottery, metal objects, mud brick, plaster, and a range of organic materials and objects including charcoal and unburnt wood, desiccated plant remains, animal bones and bone items. As part of our preliminary analysis we have counted the number of sherds from each trench and divided this count into plain, glazed and decorated wares. These counts are shown in Figure 8.6 and although it is a small sample, it does show that the majority of decorated or

There are also other contrasts in the material culture between the landlord and farmers’ areas, such as the amount of plaster and decorated plaster. While small amounts of plaster were recovered from Trench 1, larger amounts were found in both trenches in the landlord’s house and no decorated plaster was found in the trenches in the yard of the farmers’ area. Floors were found in Trench 1 (inside the farmer’s house) and Trench 2 (the corridor in the landlord’s house), but the former was a thin layer of rough concrete,

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Figure 8.6. Sherd counts: decorated/glazed pottery and plain pottery numbers from each trench at Kazemabad. © Authors.

Figure 8.7. Russian plate Trench 4 Kazemabad. © Authors

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Figure 8.8. Pipes in Trench 2 Kazemabad. © Authors

while the latter was made of fired bricks. At the bottom of Trench 2 we found a jointed ceramic drain-pipe (Figure 8.8) indicating sophisticated plumbing within the landlord’s house, while nothing indicating plumbing was found in the farmer’s house. Additionally, a well made child’s leather shoe was found in Trench 4. Very little was recovered from Trench 1 (inside the farmer’s house) but one piece of pottery was identified by a visitor to the site (one of our informants from the previous season) as a piece of equipment for drug taking (Figure 8.9). Trench 5, in the yard of the farmers’ houses, produced part of a bone comb, (Figure 8.10), which is likely to have been made locally. Discussion

Figure 8.9. Pottery item for possible drug use Trench 1 Kazemabad. © Authors

While we are aware that three villages and 15 interviews is a relatively small sample there are some trends in the data. Analysis of the village plans shows that the landlord occupied considerably more of each village than the 25 or more farmers’ families, with the analysis of each building showing that the farmers’ houses comprised two-three rooms and a yard while the landlord’s house had perhaps five times as many rooms, plus extensive buildings used to stable the landlords animals. Furthermore, the gardens and open spaces of the landlord’s area occupied considerably

more of each village compared to the public spaces of lanes, yards and animal shelters in the farmers’ areas. The quality of buildings in the landlord’s area also provides a clear contrast with those in the farmers’ areas. While both are constructed of mudbrick we have recorded more plaster, ornate plaster, fired brick floors, ceramic drainpipes, highly

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Ansari has commented on what is now perceived to as the mismanagement of the implementation of many precepts of the White Revolution, for example, the lack of capital infrastructure, the lack of state intervention in response to changes to the price of grain and the lack of equipment owned by individual farmers (2003). This may go some way to explaining our interviewees’ contentment, indeed, nostalgia for life under landlord control. Without exception all of our interviewees said that life was better when the landlord had reason to invest in the land, equipment, and infrastructure such as qanats (underground irrigation canals). Many of our interviewees remained within the villages for years after the White Revolution, enjoying the social benefits of living within such a community and one interviewee from Kazemabad who left the village in the late 1970s returned again for several years in the 1980s because he believed that life was better for him inside the village. At Gach Agach, a reduced but significant population remained into the 1990s, leaving only when the village and surrounding land was subsumed into the security zone of the Imam Khomeini International Airport. For many of our interviewees from Gach Agach, the interviews and discussion of building function on site was the first time they had been able to return since the 1990s. Some of them, (including one who was an employee of the airport) found it an emotional experience, telling us what a very good place to live they had found it, how much they missed the place itself, their life there and the presence of the landlord.

Figure 8.10. Bone comb Trench 5 Kazemabad. © Authors

individual building and room plans and private hamams solely in the landlord’s area. In the farmers’ area we found plain plaster, thin concrete floors, no evidence of drainage, uniform building plans, and a shared hamam in village in the case of Kazemabad, and no hamam in the village at Hosseinabad Sanghar. The preliminary analysis of the artefacts recovered from excavation also shows considerable contrast, with the painted and glazed sherds primarily recovered from the trenches in the landlord’s house, including the imported Russian plate and the leather shoe. When compared to the artefacts recovered from the farmers’ area, such as plain local pottery, the bone comb, and the drug taking item, it is clear that the quality of material culture is greater in the landlord’s section of the village. The farmers’ houses were not totally devoid of items associated with leisure, even with activities that might be considered subversive or indicative of resistance. The interviewee who identified the drug taking equipment also told us that drug taking was not something permitted by the landlords in these villages. A preliminary comparison of the numbers of plain, glazed and decorated sherds recovered from the trenches shows that while most glazed and patterned pieces are from the landlords’ areas, some derive from the farmers’ areas.

Conclusion Landlord villages have a striking physical presence across rural Iran noted by travellers for many centuries (e.g. Browne 1893; Ferrier 1856; Sykes 1922) including modern travellers wanting to know more about these intriguing ruins. There are many reasons for wanting to record and explore these structures and the relationships within them which are connected both to the role they played in such a large segment of the Iranian population, generally lumped together as rural poor or peasants, and of course their role in the events of the White Revolution.

All of this would suggest that in terms of material culture the farmers are very poor, with very little in the way of elaborate or luxury goods and the landlords are living far more luxurious and wealthy lives. However, whilst the farmers did not have imported china or have decorated plaster in their houses, they did have attractive items such as bone combs which are likely to have been made locally, and plentiful plain pottery, which also is likely to have been locally made.

Drawing together the different strands of this project will allow us to offer a different view of landlord villages. While not as striking or glamorous as Persepolis they were home to large numbers of people over many centuries and they played a crucial role in the social and economic organisation of this vast country. If heritage is considered to be at least in part a record or memory of key events and processes that have helped to shape a group or society, then we would argue that these villages are indeed heritage, although not necessarily a heritage that is widely recognised as grand or widely significant. One of our objectives is to offer new understandings of these villages and the relationships within them and to then allow people to make their own decisions about whether or not they should be considered ‘heritage’ in Iran.

In turn, and taking into account the very grim descriptions in the earlier published ethnographic and historical accounts (Keddie 1968; Lambton 1953), we may have expected the farmers to consider themselves oppressed, and be actively or passively engaged in an ongoing struggle to subvert the landlord and the system in place. If this were the case, we would also expect that they would have welcomed opportunities for sweeping and long term change. However, the outcome of our ethnographic interviews suggests that this was really not the case at all.

In the early stages of planning this project several people

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outside Iran suggested that these villages are a rather unpalatable part of Iran’s heritage, and perhaps one best ignored and left to crumble and decay, and thus disappear out of sight and mind. Certainly, when we began our work we were unsure about the reaction of either those people with links to the villages from the 1960s or 1970s, or the people directly involved in the management of Iranian archaeology and heritage. This caution has been so far unfounded. Indeed, the immense interest and positive support we have received thus far suggests that they are of great interest to many different people, not only historical archaeologists.

people around Pishva, Galeh Boland and Robat-Karim made us welcome and shared information with us, in particular: Mr Faraj Uriyat, Mr Jafari, Mr Mahmod Sahrai, Mr Aziz Allah Uriyat, Mrs Zahra Jamali, Mr Suleymanye, Mr Ali Abargarhoui, Mr Haj Ahmed Akbari, Mr Haj Abolgasm Ghodsi, Mr Hassan Hosseini, Mr Khale Khoui, Mr Haj Akbar Mahabadi, Mrs Kouchak, Ms Jamileh Emem Ghouli and the Kazempour family, Mr Mohummad Hossein Mohseni, Mr Hassan Rahimi, Mr Mohsen Arab Salmani, Mr Abas Ramazon Zadeh, and Mr Haj Mahmoudh Zaraei.

Crucially, all of the villages are subject to decay and loss from a variety of processes, including industrial and agricultural encroachment, vandalism, looting, and weathering causing erosion of mud brick. Whether or not any of these villages should be preserved is a whole other complex debate drawing on ‘heritage’ issues, but this project exploring a small number of villages and the memories of people who lived in them, is ensuring that they are recorded before they are entirely lost.

Ansari, A.M. 2003 Modern Iran Since 1921: The Pahlavis and After Longman, London. Brosius, M. 2006 The Persians: An Introduction Routledge, London. Browne, E. G. 1893 A year amongst the Persians: impressions as to the life, character, and thought of the people of Persia, received during twelve months’ residence in that country in the years 1887-8 A. & C. Black, London. Casella, E. 2002, Archaeology of the Ross Female Factory: Female Incarceration in Van Diemen’s Land, Australia (Records of the Queen Victoria Museum Volume 108) Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Australia. Fazeli, H. 2001 An investigation of Craft Specialisation and Cultural Complexity of Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods in the Tehran Plain Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Bradford. Fazeli, H. and Young, R. 2008 Landlord Villages of the Tehran Plain, Iran: Results of the First Season (2007), Iran XLVI, pp. 347-360. Ferrier, J.P. 1856 (transl. Captain William Jesse) Caravan Journeys and Wanderings in Persia, Afghanistan, Turkistan and Beloochistan; with Historical Notices of the Countries Lying between Russia and India John Murray, London. Hooglund, M. 1982. Religious, Ritual and Political Struggle in and Iranian Village, MERIP Reports, 102, pp. 10-17 + 23. Horne, L. 1994 Village Spaces: Settlement and Society in Northeastern Iran Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC. Keddie, N. R. 1968 The Iranian Village before and after Land Reform, Journal of Contemporary History 3(3) pp. 69-91. Lambton, A. K. S. 1953 Landlord and peasant in Persia. A study of land tenure and land revenue administration Oxford University Press, Oxford. Lucas, G. 2004 An archaeology of colonial identity. Power and material culture in the Dwars Valley, South Africa Kluwer Academic, New York. Mostafavi, S. M. T. 1978 The Land of Pars Picton Publishing, Wiltshire. Niknami, K. A. 2000 Methodological Aspects of Iranian Archaeology: Past and Present British Archaeological Report 852. BAR Publishing, Oxford.

References

In the future we will continue to analyse the material we have collected thus far, and include further ethnographic work targeted at issues that have arisen thus far, such as the distinction between farmers’ houses against village walls and those in the interior of the villages. We will also be including work on government land documents compiled by an Iranian historian and we hope that further excavation will be possible. With an expanded artefact data set we aim to begin a preliminary artefact typology, particularly important for any pottery recovered, as at present there are no other records for recent and contemporary archaeological materials in this region. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the British Institute of Persian Studies for their generous support of this project. We would also like to express our gratitude to the staff of the Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research, Tehran; Iranian Cultural and Heritage and Tourism Organisation; the Institute of Archaeology, University of Tehran; and students from the Department of Archaeology, University of Tehran; and the Islamic Azad University of Varamin-Pishva; the Heritage and Handicraft Institute, Varamin. We are also grateful for the support of Dr Mehdi Mousavi, ICHTO; the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester; Dr Vesta Sarkosh Curtis, BIPS and British Museum; Professor Robin Coningham, Durham University; Professor Graeme Barker, Cambridge University; and Professor Timothy Insoll, University of Manchester. Ms Minoo Salami and Ms Maryam Naeemi (University of Tehran) were excellent interpreters, anthropologists and archaeologists, and Mr Pooria Saeedi (University of Shiraz) was an excellent draughtsperson and archaeologist; Mr Amir Arab, and Mr Abolfazl Moheban (University of Varamin-Pishva) were excellent archaeologists. Numerous

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Richards, H. 1975 Land Reform and Agribusiness in Iran, MERIP Reports 43, pp. 3-18 + 24. RussianAntique 2006 http://www.antiq.info/eng/glass_

porcelain_and_ceramics/2797.html [accessed 3 October 2008] Sykes, P. 1922 Persia Clarendon Press, Oxford.

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Chapter 9 Justifying Midcentury Trash: Consumer Culture of the Recent Past and The Heritage Dilemma Jessica Merizan Houses are like babies [...] to keep them happy, healthy [...] or both [...] calls for constant attention and unbounded love. Here are six, bright, new, sure, short-cuts to a happier, more useful home [...] and all of them reflect what smart manufacturers are doing to solve everyday household problems [...] in short, here are products by foremost firms that we feel are among the BEST IN THE HOUSE! (Good Housekeeping 1954)

My research involves a midcentury ranch midden belonging to the wealthy Coney family identifying with rustic cowboy nostalgia. Joseph Coney, or Joe, began acquiring the land in the early 20th Century and used it for business and leisure along with his family. He called it Annadel Farms. Since 1971 the property has been part of a California Recreational Park in Sonoma County. My interest in the site is primarily in investigating the dialogue between national marketing strategies and regional consumer behaviour from 1940 to 1960. However, within my research I have had to negotiate with a preservation ethic that protects our country’s historic features but is problematic in its concern for many smaller sites of the recent past. I will discuss the underlying nature of the preservation terms ‘significance’ and ‘integrity,’ both of which are central to managing heritage sites in the United States. Additionally, I will use my research with the Coney family as a case study to demonstrate the need to reevaluate our current preservation efforts, as our recent past is becoming the country’s heritage.

Introduction After years of wartime frugality, Americans entered the midcentury with prosperous outlooks and aims to consume, especially those objects with the allure of newly discovered disposability or the promise of convenience (Young and Young 2004, 4). Americans were inundated by advertising and media pressure. However, advertising is not the most reliable means of studying true consumer behaviour and mass consumption, since scholars have indicated that the long-term relationship between advertising and consumption is tenuous (Majewski and Schiffer 2001; Miller 1987, 169). It is important, thus, to turn toward multiple sources and threads of evidence in order to more fully understand the complex social, political, and economic conditions surrounding consumer choice during the 1950s.

Historical significance Movements to ‘save’ sites with significant cultural and historical meaning in the United States began in the mid 1800s. Independently wealthy individuals and philanthropic groups funded and managed preservation in order to save George Washington’s rapidly deteriorating home, Mount Vernon (Lea 2003, 2). This first effort would set a precedent for historic preservation and heritage management until the turn-of-the-century. In 1906, President Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act to restrict the usage of public lands, which largely concerned prehistoric Native American sites and artefacts. Subsequent legislative and executive endeavours created the National Park Service, National Monuments, as well as broader protection under the Historic Sites Act (which redirected preservation authorisation to the Department of the Interior). Organisations like the National Trust for Historic Preservation would later provide programs to support conservation. Largely however, the most significant piece of legislation to shape management and protection was the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966. The Act created State Historic Preservation Offices to survey, coordinate and recognise historic properties as well as the Section 106 review process, which protects historic properties from destruction

However, it is not as simple as documenting material possessions as direct reproductions of social relations, as Buchli and Lucas (2001, 5) caution ‘material culture is not passive and reflective but can act back upon us in unexpected ways.’ Bourdieu further stresses the complexities within the practices of material consumption and consumer choice as one ‘always presupposes a labour of appropriation, to different degrees depending on the goods and the consumers; or, more precisely that the consumer helps to produce the product he consumes, by a labour of identification and decoding’ (1984, 100). As one of my methodological strategies in understanding consumption is speaking with a site informant, it is important to remember there is, often, a disparity between what is said and what is done. Without being mistrustful of every piece of evidence, it is imperative to account for these inconsistencies in speech and practice (Rathje 2001, 63).

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and mandates possible intervention. The NHPA is further significant as it is enforced through the efforts of Cultural Resource Management, which employs a large number of archaeologists, historic architects, and historians in the United States.

during the summer of 1999 at the site (Stoeger, n.d.). A vast amount of material culture was excavated from two units (measuring 1m2), with eight arbitrary ten centimetre levels. There was little to no discernable stratigraphy noted, and it was presumed that the artefacts were deposited during a brief time period. The site is located within the stone foundation of a former historical building not associated with the trash dump.

While no one would argue that these legislative acts and government institutions have adversely affected the country’s interests in defending cultural resources, the movements are limited in their scope and protection, especially with regard to smaller sites and those of the recent and contemporary past. In order to register as a historic place, for example, properties must meet guidelines (King 2004, 22). These guidelines are much better suited to evaluate the significance of older sites within the country mainly because the concept of ‘significance’ is so problematic. Generally, we distinguish the importance of an event, person, or cultural movement by its impact upon society and culture, which usually happens over an extended period of time. With regard to many sites of the recent past, there has not been adequate time to truly judge the lasting effects of an individual person or site on society as a whole. The principles of significance also discount smaller sites over large imposing ones, a distinction Joyce characterises as ‘the monumental and the trace’ (Joyce 2006, 13).

While the site was never formally researched before now, the artefacts have been temporarily curated at the University of California, Berkeley and used in teaching collections. Originally, previous researchers surmised that the midden was used by a group of basalt workers (Roberts 2001). However, upon further investigation in the former landowner’s background, I was introduced to his granddaughter who is also an archaeologist working in cultural resource management. She verified that the artefacts belonged to her family during their inhabitance of the ranch. The artefacts largely consist of cheaply manufactured products leading me to believe the family chose to consume frugally in their vacation home and instead spend their wealth on living a rustic cowboy life. My research concluded a minimum vessel count of 64 ceramic vessels (plates, cups, mugs, etc.) and 199 glass vessels (bottles, jars, jugs, etc). The assemblage is predominately glass, followed by metal artefacts/fragments, ceramic vessels or sherds, miscellaneous artefacts (plastics, leather, mixed materials) and a small number of faunal remains.

Do we discount the trace sites of the recent past because we presently do not have such hindsight to garner the historic significance necessary for protection or curation? Is it fair to choose to preserve sites that are impressive or grand but do not necessarily reflect the values and qualities of American culture as a whole? These are issues that are not only found to be unsuitable to those interested in more recent sites, but also for archaeologists and historians working to preserve sites that provide a narrative for marginalised history. Like Mount Vernon, there has been a great deal of effort and funding to preserve a mythic American past, one that is also largely white, male, and upper class.

The earliest datable artefact is a whiteware ceramic sherd marked ‘8 20’ possibly indicating August 1920. The sherd is from unit 2 level 5. A terminus-post-quem of 1920 correlates with historical records, which indicate the family did not own and occupy the land until the mid-1930s. The artefact with the latest date range is a Knox Bottle Glass Co. jug, with a maker’s mark in use from 1924-1968, the later date coincides with historical documentation of Coney’s deal to make his farm a California Recreational Park in the late 1960s (Toulouse 1971; Krumbein and Noel 1988 32). However, the artefact with the latest dated mark is a Maywood Glass Company clear bottle bearing a maker’s mark c. 1958 (Toulouse 1971, 357).

Many policies openly depict more recent cultural periods as ‘detrimental’ to a site’s integrity. While it is understandable that sites retaining their original characteristics would indeed be worth preserving, it also maintains the pervasive notion that cultural resources should be alienated from the ever changing and ever shaping history of the country. They should be forever frozen in time. This alone is completely uncharacteristic of our society and its conversation with ever shifting culture. It portrays a non-existent or very small fraction of American culture, which begs the question: whose idealised history are we continuing to preserve?

Joe Coney built his fortunes upon his business enterprises. In the mid 1930s, he began acquiring plots of land in Sonoma County until he consolidated 3000 acres that would become Annadel Farms (Krumbein and Noel 1988, 31). He was interested in the property because of its great natural resources as the land was previously used as a Basalt quarry and pre-historically as a source for obsidian for local indigenous peoples. Joe purchased prized thoroughbred horses, among other livestock, from the British royal family and built an experimental perlite derivative factory to utilise refine into building material. The ranch also served as a private residence for many of his employees, including his brother’s family who operated

The archaeology of the 1950s John Charles Whatford identified state historic site CASON-1577H in 1993 as part of his Sonoma State University Masters thesis documenting archaeological sites within Annadel State Park (Whatford 1993). A former researcher at the University of California, Berkeley led an excavation

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the farm. Joe’s wife and his grandchildren would visit the farm on weekends and vacation there in the summer. Joe belonged to a local fraternal riding group, the Sonoma Trail Blazers. The men, primarily composed of successful businessmen, lawyers, and doctors, would gather annually for a weeklong trek throughout Sonoma County and the Valley of the Moon. While these privileged few chose to live out their ideals of the mythic West, Western Western nostalgia was common in the 1950s. Because the ranch was occupied by Joe and his extended family, in addition to its heavy usage for entertaining, it made functional analysis of the midden arduous, particularly in avoiding speculation or generalisations when interpreting material.

days were prevalent and vital within midcentury culture due to the socio-political tensions of the period. One could argue that the height of its popularity also coincided with the beginning of the Cold War, with the genre providing a reassuring and uniquely American patriotism as well as a framework ‘in which alternative approaches to the political and ideological problems of the Cold War era could be imaginatively entertained’ (Slotkin 1992, 347). This 25 year period, until the concluding years of Vietnam, would be the pinnacle of Western films, television, and even comic books, after which the genre slowly and quietly disappeared, its purpose having been fulfilled (Savage 1990; Slotkin 1992, 347). This is the same country that would later elect a former a Western film star, Ronald Reagan, as president—the leader who held power during the fall of the Berlin Wall and is credited (though with much debate) as being instrumental to ending the Cold War (Kengor 2007).

David Hurst Thomas has contemplated the implications behind the romanticisation of Mission and Western culture in an article that has recently been expanded in his lecture series, Re-harvesting Ramona’s Garden: Romance and Reality in California’s Mythical Mission Past (Thomas 1991). He demonstrates that this AngloAmerican interpretation of the American Western heritage has generated nostalgia for the Mission past that still has strong foundations in California culture today. Certainly, Thomas believes, the 1884 novel Ramona (Jackson 1884) greatly inspired and began a frenzied claim for the romance and nostalgia that Jackson associated with these past times; however, this has become problematic for archaeologists who attempt to redefine this view of the past. In terms of Annadel Farms, it is clear that Southwestern Ramona nostalgia was instilled in the heart of Joe Coney who in turn helped influence the landscape of Annadel and identities of his offspring.

We should not be surprised at America’s embracing of the cowboy, a hero who ‘stood for law and order, peace and quiet, God and country, Mom and apple pie’ (Savage 1990, 67). These leadership qualities directly juxtaposed the propaganda regarding communism, especially as the threat was unseen and undetectable, ‘fighting ubiquitous evil’ (Savage 1990, 36). This does not presuppose that the ‘Red Scare’ was the only driving force behind the Western movement, as Americans and Europeans have had a fascination with gunslingers and cowboys since William Frederick Cody, or Buffalo Bill, began mythologising the frontier and its most famous characters with his touring show and performers. The West became both an ideology and an identity from the late 1940s to mid-1970s. In a broader sense, the cowboy appeals to a variety of audiences and is timeless, as he acted with a sense of duty to his country—an agent of free will—without obligation, but choice (Warren 2005, 72).

The resurgence of American Western popularity and its peak in the 1950s was, however, a national movement and I wonder what motivated families to be so heavily influenced by the ideological values and nostalgia of the cowboy. Not un-coincidentally, one important architectural relic from the midcentury – still very present in culture today – is the ‘Ranch House,’ iconic of the American Dream. This style of housing, popular after the Second World War, drew inspiration from a number of sources including Prairie Style homes, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright; the architectural style was unique in that it ‘suggest[s] a unity with the adjoining natural world, but any unification also presupposes that nature has been tamed’ (Young and Young 2004, 63-64). The style of architecture generally features a single-story house with a low roofline. The exterior is composed with materials like stucco, wood, and brick with long overhanging eaves. The design of the house typically highlights an open floor plan, with an asymmetrical or L-shaped layout. While inspired by Spanish Colonial architecture, which used indigenous materials and similar detailing for comfort in the Southwestern climate, the Ranch house of the midcentury utilised American Modernist aesthetic. The style fell out of popularity in the late 1960s with the introduction of neo-eclectic architecture.

In the case of the trash midden at Annadel Farms, the artefacts and material culture demonstrate an American lifestyle practiced subconsciously as a response to the social and political struggles faced at both regional and national levels. Modernity became hybridised in American culture, with men and women enjoying midcentury innovations and conveniences while the ideology of these movements resonated with their need for both empowerment and comfort. While many Americans may not have overtly practiced the lifestyle and lived the ideology in the fashion that Joe and the Trail Blazers did, there is no doubt that this movement represents a significant portion of consumer trends and popular culture of the day. Artefacts recovered from Annadel demonstrate a continued performance of beauty maintenance despite the remote location and rustic setting of the site. As with the preservation of feminine stylistic elements within the ceramic and glass assemblage, women within the family were asserting their gender ideology and continuing to consume, or at least own, feminine products (such as cold crèmes, nail polish, beaded jewellery and hair pins) despite

Perhaps the cowboy and the reminder of America’s frontier

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inherent impracticality on the Farm. Most interestingly, period magazines of the time (Household 1952, Life 1954, etc.) as well as artefacts unequivocally reveal expectations for the next generation of women, i.e. children.

formed. How the older generations, with their own personal practices and beliefs, influenced the consumer tastes and identities of the younger generations in the Coney family is not known, but interesting to speculate. Whether a certain individual considered him or herself a budding Trail Blazer or not, the material culture associated with the midden provides an aspect of these identities, a glimpse into the lives of the Coney family as they made Annadel Farms their home.

For the women at Annadel Farms, however, the need to preserve femininity would go far deeper than asserting ideology. These women were constructing performative gender roles through their consumption of cosmetics and formal clothing. One artefact, a girl’s dress shoe, belonging to my informant as a child, demonstrates that these individuals, while presenting themselves as living informally and rustically, were actually active in the negotiation of selecting commodities to reinforce their ethnicity, class and gender. Perhaps her mother felt it important for her daughter to maintain a sense of femininity even though she would be spending the majority of her time riding horses and playing on trails with her brothers. This maintenance of gender performance would have been especially important when Joe and the family entertained guests. It would have been important for the family to appear within a specific class-context for guests and business associates linking them to particular regional and national identities. This can be seen in all aspects of the material culture. As demonstrated through artefact analysis, the family was consuming more wine and hard liqueur than beer—a consumer choice reinforced through glamorised images of drinking in the media and the cocktail would ‘epitomiz[e] drinking and the 1950s [...] for the middle class and above’ (Young and Young 2004, 109).

It is families like the Coneys and material culture like that in the trash assemblage that is beginning to be valued as heritage to the contemporary public. More and more often, we are seeing museum exhibits displaying midcentury pieces and retro culture, not merely for speculative purposes but rather because curators and researchers are recognising their importance to cultural heritage and public memory. I have had conversations with archaeologists in cultural resource management voicing concern that artefacts from the recent past are regularly encountered but rarely studied or published and that anthropological practices should reconcile with the prejudice that something must be a certain age or associated with a certain famous individual in order to be significant. Our heritage practices are moving away from artificially reconstructing the past—restoring original features to buildings and giving false integrity to sites that have not changed with society—and towards recognising the legacy of our daily cultural practices, as well as how those rituals inform our social, political, or historical heritage, albeit often subconsciously. Though the artefacts and architectural features do not meet state or federal criteria for historic protection, I argue that it is an intellectual and ethical responsibility beyond interested organisations to preserve and protect those sites and cultural resources that are significant and testimonial without being antiquated or renowned. We, as the public, must be stewards of history and cultural resources in order to defend our all our pasts: prominent, marginalised, or alternative.

Conclusions The men who rode with the Sonoma Trail Blazers represent a concession between romantic nostalgia for a past that never existed and the modern comforts and necessities to which they were accustomed (Stanley 1952). This same representation can be viewed within the artefacts from the midden and their complex relationship to the families that created and gave meaning to the assemblage. It would, however, be too simple to state that they are a reflection of the identities inhabiting Annadel Farms, but rather they represent an aspect of the behaviours demonstrated by these individuals. Gender and the practices that shape it are fluid and ever changing, and we view the men in these fraternal groups during one point of time, as they would have behaved (Wilkie 1998, 9; Clark and Wilkie 2006, 342). Keeping in mind the multifarious roles of the tense socio-political environment of Cold War America, a deepseated history for romanticising the past, and the ‘stylized repetition of acts’ to produce an engendered and social conception of self (Butler 1988, 519-520), we can better appreciate the role of the cowboy and the Mythic West as reaffirming white, middle class, masculine identities.

References Bourdieu, P. 1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Buchli, V. & Lucas, G. 2001 The absent present: archaeologies of the contemporary past, pp. 3-17 in V. Buchli and G. Lucas (eds.) Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past. Routledge, London. Butler, J. 1988 Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory, Theatre Journal 49(1) pp. 519-531. Clark, B. & Wilkie, L. 2006 The Prism of Self: Gender and Personhood, pp 333-364 in S. Nelson (ed.) Handbook of Gender in Archaeology Alta Mira Press, Lanham. Good Housekeeping 1954 Good Housekeeping Magazine (November Issue). Household 1952 Household Magazine (July Issue). Jackson, H. M. H. 1884 Ramona Harper, New York. Joyce, R. 2006 The monumental and the trace: Archaeological conservation and the materiality of the

The assemblage voices a multiplicity of taste, choice and behaviours that can be associated with individuals inhabiting the site and it is through the interactions between these individuals that collective, negotiated identities are

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Historical Archaeology of Gender and Family in Sonoma County Senior Honors Thesis. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. Savage, W. 1990 Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK. Slotkin, R. 1992 Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America University of Oaklahoma Press, Norman, OK. Stanley, L. 1952 Sonoma Trail Blazers 1941-1951 Anderson Printing Company, Oakland. Stoeger, G. n.d. Site records for CA-SON-1577H Thomas, D. 1991 Harvesting Ramona’s Garden: Life in California’s Mythic Mission Past, pp. 119-157 in D. H. Thomas (ed.) Columbian Consequences, Vol. 3: The Spanish Borderlands in Pan-American Perspective Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC. Toulouse, J. H. 1971 Bottle Maker’s and their Marks T. Nelson Publishers, Nashville. Warren, L. 2005 Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, New York. Whatford, C. 1993 A Cultural Resource Management Plan for Annadel State Park Coyote Press, Salinas. Wilkie, L. 1998 The Other Gender: The Archaeology of an Early 20th Century Fraternity, Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology 11 pp. 7-11. Young, W. & Young, N. 2004 The 1950s Greenwood Press, Connecticut.

past, pp. 13-18 in N. Agnew and J. Bridgeland (eds.) Of the Past, For the Future: Integrating Archaeology and Conservation Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles. Kengor, P. 2007 The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism Harper Perennial, New York. King, T. 2004 Cultural Resource: Law and Practice (2nd ed.) Altamira Press, New York. Krumbein, W. and Noel, W. 1988 Annadel State Park Interpretive Prospectus—Draft On File, Historical Archaeology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. Lea, D. 2003 America’s Preservation Ethos: A Tribute to Enduring Ideals, pp. 1-20 in R. Stibe (ed.) A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. Life 1954 Life Magazine (March 8th Issue). Majewski, T. and Schiffer, M. 2001 Beyond Consumption: Toward an archaeology of consumerism. pp. 26-46 in V. Buchli and G. Lucas (eds.) Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past. Routledge, London. Miller, D. 1987 Material Culture and Mass Consumption Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. NHPA 1966 (2000) National Historic Preservation Act Public Law 89-665, 16 U. S. C. 470 et seq. Rathje, W. 2001 Integrated archaeology: A garbage paradigm, pp 63-74 in V. Buchli and G. Lucas (eds.) Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past. Routledge, London. Roberts, E. 2001 Bachelor Pads and Other Castles:

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Chapter 10 Motorways, Modern Heritage and the British Landscape Peter Merriman

Introduction

spaces such as shopping centres, many people deem them to be too mundane, ubiquitous, characterless, and recent to be of architectural importance or to have heritage value. Academics, too, have tended to either overlook or contribute to the devaluing of motorways, classifying them as ‘placeless’ spaces (Relph 1976) or as ‘non-places’ (Augé 1995; cf. Merriman 2004). In one sense, it is easy to understand where these academics are coming from: motorways and car travel are frequently associated with negative processes and experiences from global warming and globalisation to congestion and the degradation of local environments. However, I would argue that it is unnecessary to delineate a new species of place – i.e. ‘non-place’ or ‘non-space’ – to account for the contemporary distaste for such spaces, or the detachment, solitariness, boredom and distraction which some – perhaps many – travellers and consumers experience in fairly standardised, mundane and familiar environments (Merriman 2004, 2009a, 2011). Indeed, while sociologists and anthropologists of the late 20th century may characterise such spaces as non-places, a range of architectural historians, geographers and others have studied roadside spaces, landscapes and architectures (as distinct from roads themselves) whether in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere (Croft 1999; Crowe 1960; Jakle et al. 1996; Jakle and Sculle 1994, 1999; Jones 1998; Lawrence 1999; Merriman 2007 Venturi et al. 1972).

In this paper I examine the cultural and historical geographies of a space which has been largely overlooked by architectural historians and heritage practitioners concerned with the built environment of post-war Britain. Motorways are extraordinarily linear spaces, comprised of hundreds of more-or-less monumental, memorable and visible architectural structures. It is difficult to consider them as ‘sites’ or ‘structures’ in any conventional sense, and yet they form an important part of our built environment and architectural heritage. This paper outlines some of the challenges facing academics and practitioners concerned with preserving the architectural heritage of Britain’s motorways. These include those challenges faced by English Heritage and the Twentieth Century Society when attempting to preserve other contemporary landscapes (Bradley et al. 2004; Penrose 2007; Schofield 2007) and also the challenges that arise from the distinctive layout, function and architecture of motorways. I trace the history and geographies of the early sections of England’s M1 motorway by examining the architectural and landscape histories of the spaces of this modern motorway through the critical responses to its design in late 1950s and 1960s Britain, and the more recent incorporation of the motorway into debates about modern architectural heritage. I then outline the cultural practices and values which emerged with the widespread use and representation of the M1 in the 1960s, before examining a second wave of excitement which arose in the 1990s, as modern motorways started to be celebrated for their kitsch aesthetic values. In the concluding section I discuss the role that heritage practitioners, contemporary archaeologists and others could play in understanding the spaces of the modern motorway, and in persuading politicians, engineers and highway management agencies of the importance of maintaining these spaces in a sensitive manner.

If motorways are an important part of the nation’s modern architectural heritage, do they need preserving or protecting? Later 20th century places like the M1, Heathrow Airport and Brent Cross Shopping Centre do not appear to be under threat of closure or wholesale demolition, but they are modified, upgraded, refashioned and expanded on an ongoing and incremental basis, leading to the covering up or destruction of many original features, often with little resulting publicity (Calladine and Morrison 1998, 1999; Penrose 2007). Furthermore, even when the landscapes or architectures of motorways change very little, people’s experiences of these spaces and modes of journeying and inhabiting can and do vary; a change which is not only apparent in past celebrations of the modernity of these spaces, but may also clearly surface in future celebrations of the architectural importance of these spaces.

Motorways and modern heritage As with many other structures of the recent past, motorways are rarely imagined by the public, or indeed a great many professionals, as part of the nation’s architectural or landscape heritage (Penrose 2007). Motorways are familiar, functional, mundane spaces of transportation, and as with

Motorways present other challenges for heritage

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practitioners, archaeologists and architectural historians, as they are rather unusual engineering features or architectural structures which have an unparalleled linearity and extensivity, and a rather strange and intermittent monumentalism. Motorways are comprised of hundreds of more-or-less monumental, more-or-less memorable, more-or-less unique, and more-or-less visible architectural structures. We may remember Sir Owen Williams’s twospan reinforced concrete over-bridges on the earliest sections of the M1 (Figure 10.1). We may be familiar with the Pennine Tower of Forton Service Area near Lancaster on the M6. But how many people have seen Sir Owen Williams’ mass arch River Ouse viaduct which lies under the M1 near Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire (Figure 10.2) or the plaque celebrating the start of the construction of the M1 which is embedded into the parapet of a bridge alongside the hard shoulder of the M1 near Luton? Many important architectural features are not visible to passing motorists. Motorways are both horizontally and vertically distributed collections of architectural features which lack the proportionality and unified visual impact of most buildings. Nevertheless, they do function as important landscapes in modern Britain.

motorways (like airports and the railways) face pressures which rarely emerge in other kinds of architectural environment. Motorways are important, strategic spaces in the economic and social lives of millions of Britons, and in an age where the public (and hence politicians) care about congestion and traffic flow, heritage practitioners will have to work hard to ensure that motorway ‘improvement’ schemes do not result in the widespread destruction of important structures and features. If all of this seems a bit ‘doom and gloom’ it is not meant to be, for there is an increasing awareness of the importance of the heritage of motorways, which is reflected in the work of academics, bodies such as English Heritage and the Twentieth Century Society, and private companies such as Atkins Heritage (Bradley and Walter 2007; Calladine and Morrison 1998; Penrose 2007). ‘Brutal bridges in careless contexts’: The critical reception of the architectures of the M1 motorway The Luton to Rugby sections of the M1 were surveyed, routed and designed by Sir Owen Williams and Partners in the mid-1950s. Owen Williams (1890–1969) had established his reputation as a consulting engineer and architect during the 1920s and 1930s (Cottam 1986b; Stamp 1986; Yeomans and Cottam 2001; Saint 2004). In 1921 he was appointed consulting engineer to the 1924 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, and his work with architect Maxwell Ayrton on the Exhibition’s structures was followed by their collaboration on at least ten reinforced concrete bridges for the Ministry of Transport between 1924 and 1930 (Cottam 1986a, 1986b). During the 1930s Williams strengthened his reputation as one of Britain’s leading experts in concrete reinforcement, acting as consulting engineer, and frequently architect, of a number of important and celebrated modernist buildings, including the widely praised Boots ‘Wets’ Factory in Beeston, Nottingham (1932) (Cottam 1986b). Williams ‘dazzled the [modern architectural] avant-garde’ with his pioneering, modernist, functional concrete and glass designs (Saint 2004, 2; Stamp 1986), but whereas his inter-war structures were widely praised by architectural commentators, his post-war work on the M1 was not well received.

The stretched-out nature and often inaccessible features of motorways makes them hard to study or visit on the ground. The majority of motorway structures are designed to be seen and encountered at speed (if at all), and it is illegal to stop and view them from the motorway without special permission. Many motorway structures are invisible or only partially visible if they lie under the road. Many cross private land, provide private access for farm vehicles, or cross railway lines or small streams, and any attempt to survey such structures would entail hundreds of miles of driving along country lanes and tracks, or a rather expensive ride in a helicopter. These difficulties of access, coupled with the incremental refashioning and widening of motorways and the often very limited archives of private consulting engineers, contracting engineers, and landscape architects, makes it relatively difficult for architectural historians, archaeologists or heritage practitioners to explore the material forms of the motorway. A further challenge is that if we accept that motorways are historically important features in our landscape, then where and how do we delimit these landscapes? As spaces designed by engineers and landscape architects to provide particular experiences of the landscape and particular views out from the road, should there be an attempt to preserve views of and from motorways, just as the sight-lines of St Paul’s Cathedral are protected in London (Green 2008)? Are the functionally designed landforms of motorways and their relationships with the surrounding landscape as important as their most prominent architectural features? While I would suggest that they are (in all counts), it is unlikely that such design principles will be recognised in any attempts to preserve the architectural heritage of Britain’s motorways.

At a time when many engineers were designing light, unobtrusive, clean-lined pre-stressed concrete bridges – with open metal rails replacing a solid parapet – Williams’s reinforced concrete over-bridges were criticised by a broad array of established architects, engineers, and landscape architects as somewhat dated and heavy, from modernists and traditionalists (Baker et al 1961). The central columns, solid parapets and reinforced concrete design had been adopted for reasons of cost and speed of construction, but landscape architect Sylvia Crowe suggested that they appeared as ‘rough knots’ in the landscape, providing ‘a visual check’ on the sense of flow in the landscape (Crowe 1960, 94; Merriman 2006). The Architectural Review’s Raymond Spurrier likened the ‘visual interruption’ experienced by the motorist to a ‘thump, thump, thump

Finally, as key infrastructures in the life of modern Britain,

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Figure 10.1. Two-span M1 motorway over-bridges. Reproduced by permission of Laing O’Rourke.

Figure 10.2. The M1 motorway viaduct spanning the River Ouse in Buckinghamshire. Reproduced by permission of Laing O’Rourke.

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against the sensibility with painful monotony like the expansion joints along a bad concrete road’ (Spurrier 1961, 230). An array of other commentators renowned for their quite different attitudes to modern architecture also voiced criticisms of the bridges. Reyner Banham, the architecture and design critic who detailed the rise of New Brutalist architecture in 1950s Britain, was especially hostile to the design of the motorway’s ‘coarse, cheap bridges’ which announced ‘the ugliest piece of motor road in the world’ (Banham 1960; Banham 1972, 242).

felt that the four-span farm access bridges passing over the motorway were ‘more attractive visually’ than the two-span road bridges (Harris 1959, 164). He was less complementary about the four pre-cast, cantilevered railway bridges that took railway lines under the motorway and were so complicated ‘as to be positively comic’ (Harris 1959, 164). Spurrier felt these bridges performed their function ‘with the grunting for effect of a second-rate acrobat and still leaves an impression that it would be unsafe to venture beneath such a complicated structure’ (Spurrier 1961, 234). Complicatedness is contrasted with functional design, but for Owen Williams these cantilevered bridges were simple, functional structures designed so that their construction would cause minimal interference to railway traffic. Other structures gained more favourable reviews. Where the motorway’s embankments were high enough, mass-arch tunnels carried roads and access-ways under the motorway. In contrasting a mass-arch cattle creep with a square-topped under-pass, Crowe reserved light praise for the arched design, which was ‘not quite so gloomy’ as the square under-bridge, and served its function without an ‘ornamental parapet’ (Crowe 1959, 160). Brenda Colvin described the larger mass arch road tunnel at Newport Pagnell as having ‘a curious gigantic beauty’ (Colvin 1959, 246). Harris felt that its design was ‘very impressive’ (Harris 1959, 165). Pevsner was less approving, complaining that such structures ‘impress by a cyclopean rudeness rather than elegance’ (Pevsner 1961, 66). Pevsner, like Banham, Crowe, Colvin and others, was quite clear that modern architecture and modern bridges could be attractive and well-designed, but the design of motorway structures must reflect an appropriate, contemporary, functional modernism, and their form and presence must be light, almost imperceptible, and not appear to impede movement and the visual flow of the landscape.

Writing from a very different critical position in his ‘Men and buildings’ column in the Daily Telegraph, the poet, conservationist and architectural commentator John Betjeman referred to the landscaping and bridges on the M1 as ‘matters of lasting regret’ (Betjeman 1960, 15). Nikolaus Pevsner added to the barrage of critical writings and reviews in his The Buildings of England series. In the introduction to the guide to Northamptonshire he wrote, [...] more than 130 BRIDGES had to be built. [...] Especially surprising are the supports between the traffic lanes in the N and S directions: a kind of elementary columns [sic.], without base and capital, but with an abacus – a curious period suggestion, not called for in this forward-looking job. Sir Owen Williams evidently wanted to impress permanence on us, and permanence is a doubtful quality in devices connected with vehicles and means of transport. Elegance, lightness, and resilience might have been preferable [...]. On the motorway elegance was arrived at only in the foot-bridges. Even retaining walls, revetments, etc., are of concrete blocks (Pevsner 1961, 66). As the two-year old motorway was ‘the most prominent structure’ built in Northamptonshire in the 20th century, Pevsner felt obliged to include it in his architectural history of the county, but he was careful to add that the motorway was not typical of the capitalised category/style ‘MODERN ARCHITECTURE’ (Pevsner 1961, 66). Reflecting on the entire Buildings of England series in 1974, Pevsner inferred that he had got rather carried away documenting this modern motorway:

Criticisms were also aimed at the design and layout of the first two service areas at Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire and Watford Gap in Northamptonshire. The main buildings at Watford Gap were designed by Harry W. Weedon and Partners. Weedon was renowned for his designs for over 150 cinemas across Britain, as well as industrial and housing projects in and around Birmingham (The Times 1970), but The Architects’ Journal disliked his ‘commonplace design’ for the service area buildings, which ‘does not auger well for future motorways’ (Astragal 1960, 417). Newport Pagnell service area – which was designed by Sidney Clough and Sons, architects of a number of Britain’s largest ice-rinks of the 1920s – received similar criticisms. Spurrier criticised Newport Pagnell services for its ‘nondescript buildings and irresolute planning’ which had the ‘usual subtopian results’. The service area had brought subtopia to rural Buckinghamshire, and Spurrier insisted that the solution was to establish a functional road-style which would become an acceptable part of the landscape, as had the age-old ‘nautical tradition’, the contemporary ‘aeronautical tradition’, and the ‘hard functional engineering’ of the railways (Spurrier 1960, 406-407).

[...] it seems odd already now that only twelve years ago I sacrificed one of my one hundred illustrations to so rich a county as Northamptonshire for the purpose of showing the M1 (Pevsner 1974, 17). In 1959, 1960 and 1961, the M1 appeared new, modern and exciting to Pevsner. By 1974 it had aged and was just another motorway. Architectural and design commentators inevitably focused much of their attention on the fifty-nine two-span bridges passing over the motorway (Figure 10.1), but critics also cast their judgement on a range of other structures, many of which were invisible to the motorist’s eye. Alan Harris

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While in the late 1950s and 1960s the relatively experimental structures of the M1 and its service areas were widely criticised by commentators, they have now come to be examined and appreciated by design historians and some heritage practitioners (Calladine and Morrison 1998; Lawrence 1999). In 1992, following the publication of A Change of Heart: English Architecture since the War, A Policy for Protection by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and English Heritage, Andrew Saint suggested that important buildings deemed to be ugly may need to be preserved, and he suggested that Williams’ M1 bridges were ‘an important part of our heritage’ and were one possible target for listing (Saint, quoted in Glancey 1992, 30). Later motorways overcame many of the design problems that were evident on the M1, as the government’s Landscape Advisory Committee exerted more influence on their routing and design, landscaping and planting (de Hamel 1976; Fairbrother 1970; Jellicoe 1970). In 1971 the Civic Trust gave design awards to the M6 in Cumbria, M62 Pennine Way footbridge, M62 Scammonden Bridge, and the A1(M) Washington-Birtley motorway service area (de Hamel 1976, 3), while even W.G. Hoskins proclaimed that the landscaping of the second section of the M1 through Leicestershire was ‘good’, with ‘lovely sweeping curves through Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire’ (Hoskins 1973, 95): ‘I do not think the landscape historian can resent what he sees now. It is a fine road, and already a bit of history’ (Hoskins 1970, 14).

foreign as a ski-jump course or a bull-fight ring, and every day the public, the police and the producers of the motorway are discovering something new about it (McKenzie 1959, 13). McKenzie emphasised the novelty, innovativeness and foreignness of Britain’s first major motorway. The motorway emerges as a space of discovery and experimentation, an exotic space which had not been fully incorporated into the English landscape and society. This modern motorway caught the press and the public’s imagination. A large number of motorists queued up at the junctions to try out their vehicles on the 2nd November and 3000 vehicles used the motorway in the first hour. The flow rate fell to 1500 vehicles an hour for the remainder of Monday (The Times 1959a), but the busiest day by far was the first Sunday after opening, when the flow rate peaked at 5000 vehicles an hour (The Times 1959b). Sunday drives had been a popular pastime amongst car-owning families since the 1920s and 1930s (O’Connell 1998) and the motorway quickly became established as a popular destination and route for ‘heavily laden family cars’ (The Times 1959b, 10). London Transport ran special Sunday afternoon motorway bus trips throughout November 1959 (The Times 1959c), while ‘thousands of sightseers lined the motorway’s bridges and flyovers’ to enjoy the free entertainment provided by passing traffic (The Times 1959b, 10). The motorway emerged as a modern spectacle, and it became firmly located as the site of modern motoring, the driving environment for the ‘modern motorist’.

Motorway modern: Consuming the M1 Archaeologists, historians, geographers, anthropologists, architectural theorists and others continually emphasise the importance of examining the ways people have inhabited, consumed and used landscapes, buildings and environments at different points in time. Buildings and landscapes are not simply approached as objectively present material heritage but increasingly also as spaces that are subjectively experienced and perceived in changing ways. Motorways are no exception. It is important that scholars examine the history of the idea of the motorway, as its spaces and structures start life in civil servants’ offices and engineering plans. The ever-changing and often temporary landscapes and structures of construction need to be considered; and perhaps most importantly the way in which motorway structures and landscapes were inhabited, traversed and experienced by contemporary motorists and cultural commentators needs to be understood (Merriman 2003, 2007, 2009b). Indeed, it is easy to forget that the M1 and other motorways were encountered as distinctively new and even alien spaces in the late 1950s and 1960s. As the Daily Telegraph journalist W.A. McKenzie proclaimed in late November 1959, almost one month after the opening of the M1:

‘Motorway culture’ started to spread in 1960 and 1961, and became a common reference point in a broad range of more-or-less-popular cultural forms: from plays and films, to children’s books (Carter 1961; Martin 1961), toys (e.g. toy racing car sets by Marx and Triang’s Minic Motorways), and popular music songs. Journalists paid particular attention to the motorway, and on Sunday 8 November 1959 Ferrari’s 27 year-old grand-prix racing driver Tony Brooks wrote a review of a journey along the M1 for The Observer newspaper, in which he provided a striking celebration of the novelty, difference and detachment of the M1 motorway from the English landscape: To drive up M1 is to feel as if the England of one’s childhood, the England of the British Travel and Holidays Association advertisements, is no more. This broad six-lane through-way, divorced from the countryside, divorced from towns and villages, kills the image of a tight little island full of hamlets and lanes and pubs. More than anything – more than Espresso bars, jeans, rock ‘n’ roll, the smell of French cigarettes on the underground, white lipstick – it is of the twentieth century. For all that, it is very welcome (Brooks 1959, 5).

M1 is still news. It is surprising that this should be so, since the world is lined with motorways of one sort or another. But Britain’s first route of the kind has come to this insular nation as an innovation as

Brooks describes how Britain’s newest motorway brings an international-metropolitan modernity into the English

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Figure 10.3. ‘The M.1. Motorway’, black and white postcard, c. 1960–63. Source: Author’s collection.

countryside, and it was amidst such celebrations of European and American modernity that Newport Pagnell service area’s cafés emerged as fashionable, youthful, modern (and provincial) extensions of Soho’s popular coffee bars. As one regular visitor reflected somewhat nostalgically in 1985, Newport Pagnell service area quickly became a ‘place of pilgrimage for teenagers hoping for instant glamour’:

By the mid- to late-1960s, motorways had become fairly familiar and ordinary features of our everyday landscapes for an increasing number of motorists. A trip on the motorway could still generate feelings of excitement, fear or adventure in drivers or passengers, but the M1 was no longer different. Motorways have been and continue to be inhabited and consumed in a variety of different ways, and feelings about these roads are ever-changing. In 2002 Michael Bracewell suggested that as motorways had become worked into our everyday lives, acting as familiar backdrops for daily commutes and family holidays, so a new generation of nostalgists had begun to re-examine the modernist aesthetics of the motorway:

For young people, the new road was a concrete escape to a new kind of excitement. Along it, on a Saturday night, would swarm the Morris Minors, XK Jaguars and Norton motor bikes, eating up the miles at incredible speeds in search of the bright lights. Their destination? Mr. Forte’s snack-bar on the M1[...] this cosy man-made island called out to Britain’s youth, the generation of teenagers who did not know there was anything special about being young but forsook the coffee bars of Soho to spend Saturday night ‘doing a ton’ on this long straight road (Greaves 1985, 8).

Increasingly, as the motorway features in the reclamation of shared and formative memory for successive generations, so its initial cultural status as a non-place is being exchanged for a new measure of significance. You could say that the phenomenon of the “nonplace” is beginning to carry a romance – as a portal to nostalgia, and as a quasi-ironic metaphor of some lost state of innocence – that in Britain has been formerly ascribed to the Victorian suburb and the Edwardian seaside town (Bracewell 2002a, 285-6; 2002b).

As Britain’s motorists revelled in the modernity of the M1 and its service areas, some visitors bought postcards of the motorway and service areas from vending machines and service area shops (Figure 10.3) (Hartwell 1959; Parr 1999). Motorway service areas had become destinations: places to visit, eat, hang out, and buy a souvenir postcard.

A good example of this romanticisation and celebration of

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the kitsch qualities of post-war modernism is photographer Martin Parr’s book Boring Postcards (Bracewell 2002a; Parr 1999). The book and postcard collection reflects Parr’s long-standing fascination with the mundane, the everyday, the kitsch and the boring, and specifically the ways in which, ‘through the act of representation, the ordinary can become absurd and remarkable’ (Williams 2002, 24). The first postcard in Boring Postcards is the same as the black-and-white postcard of the M1 and Newport Pagnell service area (from my own collection) in Figure 10.3. The excitement, novelty and modernity which became associated with the motorway, the service area, and this postcard in the early 1960s, becomes displaced through the inclusion of this postcard in an amusing collection of ‘boring postcards’ in 1999 (Parr 1999). Parr’s viewers may become nostalgic for these more optimistic and exciting times. They may remember when these places were not deemed to be boring. They may wonder why postcards were ever produced of these kitsch scenes and seemingly mundane places, or who actually bought such postcards. Parr explores the shifting geographies and archaeologies of taste and nostalgia, provoking a variety of responses through his witty and provocative selection of postcards from his personal collection, illustrating different dimensions of a vernacular modern British architectural landscape (Williams 2002).

and all manner of academic disciplines, in addition to heritage professionals, can have a role to play in ensuring that the history and heritage of motorways is recorded and preserved. Potential studies might examine the material culture of the motorway verge – with its distinctive planting, fauna, and layers of discarded rubbish – or the architectural and engineering importance of motorway forms; lobbying English Heritage, the Ministry of Transport and Highways Agency to ensure that important features are safeguarded. Likewise, anthropologists, geographers, sociologists and contemporary archaeologists must undertake further investigations on the complex practices of motorway inhabitation. What is vital is that Britain’s motorway heritage receives further attention from both academics and practitioners, of heritage, ecology, geography and other disciplines, and while motorways present distinctive challenges, it is vital that the heritage of these spaces is addressed in the present and future planning of the nation’s transport infrastructure. Motorway widening and reconstruction programmes, as well as verge management programmes, must take account of the architectural, engineering and natural heritage of these spaces. While important work has already occurred, with Atkins Heritage undertaking contemporary archaeological and photographic studies of the widening of the M1 in Hertfordshire (Bradley and Walter 2007), and English Heritage looking at the architectural merit of Britain’s motorways and service areas, more must be done to encourage engineers, politicians and highway management agencies to value the heritage of these spaces alongside their economic and strategic importance as spaces of national and international flows of people and goods.

Conclusion In this paper I have outlined some of the challenges facing contemporary archaeologists, architectural historians, and heritage practitioners concerned with studying and preserving the spaces of the British motorway. Motorways do not appear to be under threat of demolition, and for many commentators and observers they do not appear to have much architectural merit. However, as spaces of marginal interest to architects, and of more concern to engineers and landscape architects, motorways are in danger of being overlooked or marginalised by heritage practitioners and architectural historians. What’s more, motorways are unusually linear and stretched-out constructions, comprising hundreds of architectural features, many of which are invisible to passing motorists, due to the speed of travel and the location of many architectural features below the carriageways. Motorways also present many challenges for practitioners interested in undertaking site visits, while their constant modification and widening pose practical and political problems for those who may wish to campaign for their preservation or listing. Nevertheless, motorways are an important part of the built environment, and the history of England’s M1 motorway, its spaces and structures, are a significant component of Britain’s history, and of its modern landscapes. The M1 was envisioned and experienced as a novel and experimental space, where pioneering experiments were undertaken: innovations in carriageway construction, roadside planting, emergency telephone technologies, traffic policing, and junction, road sign and service area design were piloted on the M1. Motorway heritage encompasses these components,

References Astragal 1960 Pull-up for socks? The Architects’ Journal 132 pp.417. Augé, M. 1995 Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity Verso, London. Baker, J. F. A., Glanville, Sir W. H., Williams, Sir O., Williams, O. T., Laing, W. K., Broadbent, B. H., Fisher, J. M., Ffolliott, C. H. and McMillan, T., 1961 Discussion on the London-Birmingham motorway Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 19, May–August, pp.61–119. Banham, R. 1960 The road to ubiquopolis, New Statesman 59, pp. 784 and 786. Banham, R. 1972 New way north, New Society 20, 4 May, pp. 241–243. Betjeman, J. 1960 Men and buildings: style on road and rail, Daily Telegraph and Morning Post 27 June, p.15. Bracewell, M. 2002a The Nineties: When Surface Was Depth Flamingo London. Bracewell, M. 2002b Fade to grey: motorways and monotony, in pp. 288–292 P. Wollen, J. Kerr (eds.) Autopia: Cars and Culture Reaktion, London. Bradley, A., Buchli, V., Fairclough, G., Hicks, D., and Miller, J. 2004 Change and Creation: Historic

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Landscape Character 1950-2000 English Heritage, London. Bradley, A., Walter, M. 2007 The M1, Conservation Bulletin 56, p.13. Brooks, T. 1959 The hazards of M1, The Observer 8 November, p.5. Calladine, T. and Morrison, K. 1998 Road Transport Buildings: A Report by RCHME for the English Heritage Post-1939 Listing Programme Royal Commission on Historic Monuments in England, Cambridge. Calladine, T. and Morrison, K. 1999 New building types for the car age, pp.17-20 in C. Croft (ed.) On the Road The Architectural Foundation, London. Carter, B. 1961 The Motorway Chase Hamish Hamilton Ltd., London. Colvin, B. 1959 The London-Birmingham motorway: a new look at the English landscape, The Geographical Magazine 32, pp.239–246. Cottam, D. 1986a Selected projects, pp.33–143 in G. Stamp (ed.) Sir Owen Williams 1890-1969 The Architectural Association, London. Cottam, D. 1986b Chronology, pp.149–174 in G. Stamp (ed.) Sir Owen Williams 1890-1969 The Architectural Association, London. Croft, C. (ed.) 1999 On the Road: The Art of Engineering in the Car Age The Architectural Foundation, London. Crowe, S., 1959, ‘The London/York motorway: a landscape architect’s view’, The Architects’ Journal 130, 10 September, pp.156–161. Crowe, S. 1960 The Landscape of Roads The Architectural Press, London. de Hamel, B. 1976 Roads and the Environment HMSO, London. Fairbrother, N. 1970 [1972] New Lives, New Landscapes Penguin, Harmondsworth. Glancey, J. 1992 A Bridge too Far?, The Independent Magazine 18 July 1992, pp.24–31. Greaves, S. 1985 Motorway nights with the stars, The Times 14 August 1985, p.8. Green, S. 2008 Seeing the history in the view, Conservation Bulletin (English Heritage) 59, pp.18-20. Harris, A. J. 1959 The London/York motorway: an engineer’s view, The Architects’ Journal 130, pp.162– 165. Hartwell, E. 1959 Provision of catering facilities, The Guardian 2 November 1959, p.13. Hoskins, W. G. 1970 Leicestershire: A Shell Guide Faber and Faber, London. Hoskins, W. G. 1973 English Landscapes British Broadcasting Corporation, London. Jakle, J. A. and Sculle, K. A. 1994 The Gas Station in America Johns Hopkins University Press, London. Jakle, J. A. and Sculle, K. A. 1999 Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. Jakle, J. A., Sculle, K. A. and Rogers, J. S. 1996 The Motel in America Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.

Jellicoe, G. A. 1970 Corridors of communication, The Architectural Review 148, pp. 381-384. Jones, H. 1998 Buildings designed to advertise fuel, British Archaeology 38, October, pp.6–7. Lawrence, D. 1999 Always a Welcome: The Glove Compartment History of the Motorway Service Area Between Books, Twickenham. McKenzie, W.A. 1959 Motoring: shedding light all along the motorways, Daily Telegraph and Morning Post 25 November 1959, p.13. Martin, R. 1961 The Mystery of the Motorway Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., London. Merriman, P. 2003 “A power for good or evil”: geographies of the M1 in late-fifties Britain, pp. 115–131 in D. Gilbert, D. Matless, B. Short (eds.) Geographies of British Modernity Blackwell, Oxford. Merriman, P. 2004 Driving places: Marc Augé, non-places and the geographies of England’s M1 motorway Theory, Culture, and Society 21(4-5) pp. 145–167. Merriman, P. 2006 “A new look at the English landscape”: landscape architecture, movement and the aesthetics of motorways in early post-war Britain Cultural Geographies 13 pp. 78–105. Merriman, P. 2007 Driving Spaces: A Cultural-Historical Geography of England’s M1 Motorway Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. Merriman, P. 2009a Marc Augé on space, place and nonplace Irish Journal of French Studies 9 pp. 9-29. Merriman, P. 2009b Automobility and the geographies of the car Geography Compass 3(2) pp.586-599. Merriman, P. 2011 Marc Augé, pp.26-33 in P. Hubbard and R. Kitchin (eds.) Key Thinkers on Space and Place (Second Edition) Sage, London. O’Connell, S. 1998 The Car and British Society: Class, Gender and Motoring, 1896-1939 Manchester University Press, Manchester. Parr, M. 1999 Boring Postcards Phaidon, London. Penrose, S. 2007 Images of Change: An Archaeology of England’s Contemporary Landscape English Heritage, Swindon. Pevsner, N. 1961 Northamptonshire Penguin, Harmondsworth. Pevsner, N. 1974 Staffordshire Penguin, Harmondsworth. Relph, E. 1976 Place and Placelessness Pion, London. Saint, A., 2004, ‘Williams, Sir (Evan) Owen (1890–1969)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press, Oxford. http://www.oxforddnb.com/ view/article/51931 [accessed 27 March 2006]. Schofield, J. (ed.) 2007 Modern times (special issue) Conservation Bulletin (English Heritage) 56, pp. 1-41. Spurrier, R. 1960 Road-style on the motorway The Architectural Review 128, pp. 406–411. Spurrier, R. 1961 Better bypasses The Architectural Review 130 pp. 229–235. Stamp, G. 1986 Sir Owen Williams and his time, pp.7–11 in G. Stamp (ed.) Sir Owen Williams 1890-1969 The Architectural Association, London. The Times 1959a Minister “appalled” by new motorway driving The Times 3 November 1959, p.8.

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The Times 1959b 5,000 cars an hour on motorway The Times 9 November 1959, p.10. The Times 1959c Trips to see motorway The Times 6 November 1959, p.6. The Times 1970 Mr Harry Weedon [obituary] The Times 20 June 1970, p.12.

Venturi, R., Scott Brown, D. and Izenour, D. 1972 Learning from Las Vegas The MIT Press, London. Williams, V. 2002 Martin Parr Phaidon, London. Yeomans, D. and Cottam, D. 2001 The Engineer’s Contribution to Contemporary Architecture – Owen Williams Thomas Telford, London.

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Chapter 11 Liberating Material Heritage Elizabeth Pye

Introduction

dimensional impression of an object by staring at through glass (or through hearing someone else’s description).

The Museums Association defines museums as institutions which:

Handling objects can bring them to life. Objects such as tools, were designed to be handled and may become much more understandable once picked up and held in the hand (Figure 11.1). This form of access is obviously crucially important for people who are visually impaired, but is interesting and enjoyable for everyone. Museums do allow handling of some objects but it is not the norm, and is usually limited to separate handling collections considered, by implication, less significant than the core collections. As an archaeologist and conservator I have always found objects fascinating, and this fascination has brought many of us into the heritage profession. Why should we keep this intimate contact with objects to ourselves when it is potentially so exciting (Pye 2007; 2008)?

enable people to explore collections for inspiration, learning and enjoyment. They are institutions that collect, safeguard and make accessible artefacts and specimens, which they hold in trust for society (Museums Association 1998). Thus museums in the contemporary world are expected to do more than simply curate and display collections. They are expected to make their collections accessible not just for education but for pleasure; furthermore they are now expected to attract and engage new and different audiences. At the same time they are expected to preserve their collections, so collections are normally carefully protected in order to minimise damage. Visitors may gain only a two-

This paper argues for a less cautious approach to

Figure 11.1. Handling a tool: the way the handle fits into the palm and the way the tool is used becomes understandable once it is grasped in the hand [NB this illustration demonstrates the concept but this is a sharp tool so it would not be used for handling without some modification]. © Elizabeth Pye

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conservation and a positive view of handling as a form of access. It argues that handling can offer a three dimensional understanding and appreciation of objects and can breathe renewed life into objects by allowing them to resume an active role. It argues for research into the effects of handling and for the development of handling policies.

When ancient objects and buildings were originally in use they were unlikely to have been clinically clean and tidy – we know the past was a dirtier (and almost certainly a smellier) place. Many objects have, in fact, become familiar to us in their dirty state: the black brickwork on 18th and early 19th century housing in central London, the black stone work of the Scott monument in Edinburgh, the ceiling of the Sistine chapel before it was cleaned (and many controversies have arisen when there is visible difference in the appearance of an object after conservation cleaning – see Bomford 1994).

Our multi-sensory appreciation of the world There is growing appreciation of the importance not only of our intellectual ability but our wider sensitivity (e.g. to emotions – now often defined as emotional intelligence – or to body language). What is relevant here is an increased understanding of the importance of all our senses to our well-being, not just the ‘higher’ senses of vision and hearing, but also those of touch, smell and taste (Classen 2005; Howes 2005). In fact, we only have to watch our own behaviour and reactions to appreciate that our understanding and enjoyment of the world is multi-sensory. To gain a really rich experience of our surroundings involves all the senses – we all know how nostalgic a sound or a smell can be as it conjures up a memory, or how instinctive it is to touch something we are interested in.

During the 20th century ancient monuments in public ownership were kept scrupulously tidy, surrounded by closely mown lawns and covered in neat signage to restrict visitor movement. However, more recently monuments such as Wigmore Castle (in the care of English Heritage) are maintained and presented as apparently crumbling ruins surrounded by vegetation, rather than tidied up and fenced in (Coppack 1999). However, the monument with romantic plant growth from its walls, or the seemingly decrepit historic house is often a highly conserved ‘stage set’. The signs of earlier ruination and decline are preserved, but any further change will be carefully minimised.

Heritage and multi-sensory evocation

We also value the signs of age and use in the objects in our collections. We appreciate ‘patina’ (e.g. corrosion on metals, or mellow surfaces on furniture) and we are concerned about over-cleaning (Caple 2000, 39-45; Clifford 2009). The small tobacco box shown in Figure 11.2 is covered in a fine network of scratches resulting from being carried in a pocket with coins and keys. This surface reflects the life of the object during its association with its original owner. Polishing the scratches away would leave the box lifeless and uninformative.

This sensitivity has been recognised by the National Trust who have recreated evocative atmospheres at some of their properties. They have done this through sound at Barrington in Somerset: Now through the echoes of chickens clucking in the hall, to dance band music in the jazz age and haunting voices of evacuees, visitors will be taken on a voyage of discovery through a fascinating house (National Trust: Barrington 2009).

As with buildings, conservation has tended to prioritise a particular state or period in an object’s life and to freeze it at that point. Traditionally, objects have been cleaned, restored and protected in a state of suspended animation.

They have assembled furnishings and objects at Upton House (Oxfordshire) to recreate ‘a party atmosphere so visitors are invited to touch, delve, read and discover what life was like in 1938’ (National Trust: Upton 2009).

So we accept that change, including damage, happened in the past, and we are now more likely to preserve the visible evidence of this past change. But once the monument or house has been designated as heritage, or the object becomes part of a museum collection we continue to attempt to halt any further change.

It is this sense of atmosphere and excitement that we also gain from seeing, hearing and smelling extraordinary machinery in motion. This is why the great steam locomotive, the Flying Scotsman, ‘a star icon of the National Collection’ is being restored so she can run again (The Flying Scotsman 2009).

Conservation: changing principles and practice

Attitudes to change in objects and monuments

A guiding principle of conservation has been that treatments should not reduce the material and technological significance of any object, in other words should not cause any physical or chemical damage (Icon 2009). By implication, this means that conservators are unwilling to support any use of objects which may risk such damage.

These examples show that buildings and objects can pass through many changes during their existence. This is often expressed in terms of object lives, and hence, object biographies (Appadurai 1986, Marshall and Gosden 1999). The biographies are shaped by associations of the objects with people and by material changes detectable in surface or structure.

However, views about the role of conservation are also changing. Most conservators no longer see conservation

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Interestingly, however (and in apparent contradiction of the conservation principle of minimising change) there is an established custom in some museums of running working objects such as steam engines or clocks, even though this is known to cause wear on moving parts (Brodie 1994, Mann 1994). This is accepted because the meaning of these objects is considered to be inseparable from their motion, (and possibly also because the damage and repair are often not visible on the surface of the object). It may also be that traditionally they have been repaired and maintained by technical specialists such as engineers or clock-makers whose practice (both inside and outside the heritage field) has always focussed on regular maintenance and replacement of parts when necessary. Despite variations in attitudes and practice, fear of material damage continues to make conservators (and curators) reluctant to sanction handling of museum objects. When handling collections do exist they are often separate from the core museum collection and selected as being particularly robust, or less interesting, or even disposable.

Figure 11.2. Silver tobacco box (Birmingham 1906). © Elizabeth Pye

as a one-off act of halting all deterioration, but a continuing process of monitoring and minimising change (often expressed as ‘managing change’). Many conservators now see conservation as a stage in the continuing life of the object rather than somehow separate from it, and accept that conservation leaves its own legitimate mark, as in the visible effects of cleaning a painting, or restoring a pot (Munos Viñas 2005; Pye and Sully 2007). Early conservation treatments are now seen as an important aspect of the life history of an object and may be considered worth conserving in their own right (such as metal rivets or staples used to repair ceramics before the advent of efficient modern adhesives). It is interesting to note that in the 19th and early 20th century conservators sometimes signed their work indicating that they felt they had made an important impact on the object – e.g. Robert Ready working at the British Museum in the mid 19th century (Watkins and Scott 2001).

Reasons for the discouragement of handling Apart from the understandable fear of damage, there may be other reasons for the general ban on touching museum objects. We may have inherited attitudes from 19th century museums: when collections were opened to the public there was suspicion of how visitors might behave. Consciously or unconsciously, curators and conservators may still see themselves as the experts with the exclusive right to handle and examine objects (Candlin 2004). We may be influenced by the traditional western hierarchy of the senses in which the senses of smell, touch and taste are classed as the ‘lower’ senses, ranked below the superior (the ‘higher’) senses of sight and hearing (Howes 2005). We may be cautious about providing this sort of access to museum visitors because it would provide (only) individual and private pleasure (whereas facilitating access to objects for scholarly research is a generally accepted role of museums).

Contemporary conservators have acknowledged that objects have not only changed through their lives, but that they may continue to change. We now even accept the return of sacred objects and human remains to descendant communities (often for ritual use or reburial) and the deterioration of conceptual art – if this was the artist’s intention (Pye and Sully 2007). However, we have not yet, apparently, reached the point at which we are ready to see ‘museum uses’ of objects (which may risk some damage) as an acceptable (or even meaningful) continuation of the life an object, or any resulting changes as part of the object’s continuing biography. Thus signs of wear, such as are seen in worn down steps or a much-sharpened blade, may be interpreted as interesting evidence of original use, but visible change to an object resulting from a perfectly legitimate museum use may be a matter of embarrassment. Failing to prevent further damage is still seen as a violation of our responsibilities.

There are, of course, obvious practical reasons for limiting handling and use of objects: handling and touching can cause damage. This may be catastrophic if an object is dropped and broken, or slow and cumulative as the gilding or paint on a surface is gradually worn away. Of course, too, setting up handling sessions is costly in terms of designing context and allocating staff time (but setting up exhibitions is very costly too). Another practical reason for restricting handling is to limit the possibilities of theft, although this is more of an issue with small objects than with large immoveable sculpture. Shifts in conservation philosophy and practice have, perhaps, also influenced attitudes to handling. Over the last half century we have adopted a precautionary approach to caring for objects. The emphasis is on preventing damage by improving the conditions in which objects are handled, stored and displayed, so the focus of our practice has moved

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Figure 11.3. Flat irons of different sizes, shapes and weights. They would be heated in front of a fire, or on a range, before use. © Elizabeth Pye

away from repair and restoration (Pye 2001; Williams 1997). Unfortunately, we have reacted by restricting handling rather than by trying to discover how we might make it possible. In contrast to our extensive research into the effects of light exposure (necessary for display of objects), we have not yet investigated what happens when different types of object are touched or handled: we know little about what types of damage may result, or how quickly, or to what extent this may depend on mode of handling, as well as on the nature of the object.

For example, simply looking at a selection of flat-irons, or an early sewing machine enclosed in a glass case does not tell us about the weights and the feel of the irons, or what it was like to manoeuvre cloth under the needle of the machine with one hand while turning the handle with the other (Figures 11.3 and 11.4). We use our sense of touch all the time. It is indispensable in handling and using objects ranging from cutlery to telephones and it is known that of the sites in the brain that are receptive to touch messages, the largest area relates to the fingers and hands (Wing et al. 2007). Just looking at objects can be a fairly passive activity, but once we can touch them we are actively involved. Touch and handling enable us to explore texture and contours, to sense weight and temperature, to look inside hollow objects, or to manipulate moving parts in order to understand how an object works. For these reasons, touch used in an appropriate context seems to enhance learning and provide fascination and inspiration (Figure 11.5).

Why we should encourage touch and handling in museums There are, quite rightly, political and economic pressures to make our museum collections much more accessible – not just to traditional audiences but to those who might not normally visit museums. At the same time, passionate interest (and sometimes even anger) can be expressed by people who feel they are denied direct access to museum objects – particularly expressed by those with visual impairment (Khayami 2007).

There are well-established educational handling collections and themed loan boxes designed for schools and for use by adult groups, and there are some touch exhibitions designed for people with little or no sight. But handling is not yet a normal form of access in museums, although the British Museum now has a series of very successful handson desks, run by volunteers, making it possible to handle objects without special arrangement (British Museum 2009; Morris 2007).

While there is a huge interest in heritage, encouraged by the media, particularly television, there are many collections that are little used (Keene 2008). Most museum collections are held on behalf of local groups or of whole nations – so they belong to us all. Objects do not have inherent significance; they have significance only through contact with people and only because they are interesting and important to us (Avrami et al. 2000, Clavir 2002). If they are inaccessible this obviously limits their value. It is the job of museum professionals to interpret objects to visitors i.e. to make them accessible. While it can be argued that objects on display are accessible, for many people objects are really only accessible once they fully understand them.

It is usual to describe collections as held in trust for future generations. While this is a proper aspiration, it should not prevent us from also making them accessible now. In fact, taken together, the intention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations 1948) and

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Figure 11.4. Sewing machine and instruction book (Willcox and Gibbs, 1877 design). (The machine is quiet but not silent!) © Elizabeth Pye

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Figure 11.5. Handling a small basket enables a student to feel its weight, examine its surface texture, and look inside it. © Elizabeth Pye

by Keene (she used ‘mystery shoppers’) has shown that it is often difficult to gain access to stored materials (2008). There is increasing discussion of how to react to unused collections, ranging from finding new uses for the material (Glaister 2005; Keene 2005) to dispersing or disposing of some collections. Inaccessible collections are lifeless and of no value to those for whom they are held, more objects could be given a useful role as handling material and so regain a life as valued museum objects.

of the UK Disability Discrimination Act (DDA1995) is to make cultural life, in all its forms, accessible to everyone, including people with some form of disability (Pye 2008). The impact of the Disability Discrimination Act should go further than providing better physical access to museum buildings – it should be self-evident that we should make access to objects much more possible for blind and partially sighted people, and that we should work with them to learn the best ways to do this. A recent project focused on the coin collections at the British Museum shows what can be achieved with relatively simple arrangements. One participant appreciated that,

The benefits of handling There is growing evidence that contact with objects can be not only enjoyable, but beneficial to others, for example in communicating with isolated elderly people or with those marginalised in some way (prisoners, or diaspora communities) (Lynch 2008), or in enhancing experience and possibly also recovery of hospital patients (Noble and Chatterjee 2008). Examples of how powerful objects can be are striking. A hand-woven basket passed round amongst a reminiscence group of elderly people prompted a rich array of memories and stories:

[...] he could use a magnifying glass freely, feel the surface of objects and bring them as close as he needed. Object handling provided a way for him to access the collections successfully (Phillips 2008, 201). It is well-known that many stored collections are little used, furthermore, that the cost of maintaining closed stores is very high (Merriman and Swain 1999). Recent research

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apple-picking, tea plantations, haggling in markets, queuing for rations, knitting, going to the beach, going to school, displaying flowers, visiting grandparents and carrying babies. This list was taken from just one reminiscence group at one meeting (Arigho 2008, 209).

in the wider museum context: some objects are displayed only for limited amounts of time, some are never lent for exhibition elsewhere, and some are made available for use only in the form of replicas (for example, musical instruments – Lamb 2007). The effects of touch and manipulation could be fully researched. This would enable us to identify the risks involved and shape the responsible use of objects for handling. It would be possible to develop touch policies for museum collections which include guidance on selection of objects – both for their ability to withstand the risks of handling and their ability to stimulate interest and provide information. Currently objects provided for handling are often drawn from a separate collection which carries the implication that these objects are somehow expendable, or not ‘good enough’ to be included in the museum’s mainstream collection. While the use of a separate handling collection is probably sensible in some contexts (e.g. for work with young children), for general audiences surely it should be a matter of policy to select from the whole collection? A touch policy could cover not only selection of objects, but other factors such as safeguarding objects in use, and monitoring and maintaining their condition.

I have heard voluble pleasure and enthusiasm at touch exhibitions, expressed by blind and partially sighted people who may have previously felt that museums had little to offer (Khayami 2007). Balancing risks with benefits There are risks, but possible risks to objects and the need to conserve collections should not be used as barriers to using objects in these ways. Not only may making collections accessible widen our audiences – to include groups who have felt that museums were not for them – but we will almost certainly discover more about the collections we hold. This has been the case for those responsible for ethnographic collections, who work closely with descendant communities to learn from them about their material heritage (e.g. Feinup-Riordan 2003).

Conclusion – a wider use for collections

In fact, much of conservation practice focuses on risk assessment and risk management. (Ashley-Smith 1999). Exposing objects to sufficient light so we can see them may risk fading and other forms of degradation, and exposing them to temperatures which are comfortable for attendants and visitors is not ideal (lower temperatures would slow down many forms of chemical deterioration). Transporting objects by road or air over long distances so that they can be lent to other institutions also risks damage (knowing this, objects are normally accompanied by a conservator or curator). These risks are studied, accepted and worked with.

This paper calls for a relaxation of the normal ‘do not touch’ rule, and acceptance that change through museum use could be seen as part of the continuing life of the object. This will require research into the effects of handling which will inform the development of handling policies. Ultimately allowing handling should be accepted as a feature of responsible stewardship and its effects should be seen as something positive rather than the result of negligence. For this to succeed, conservators and curators would need to adapt to a reality of many more objects accessible through active physical use (rather than almost all objects protected and isolated) and accept that there will be some consequent wear and tear. Keeping objects in active use would bring a greater need for remedial rather than preventive conservation, thus adopting philosophy and practice closer to repair and maintenance (the traditional approach to managing change). Perhaps, as economic pressures and climate change force us to move away from our behaviour as a ‘throw-away society’, the skills of mending objects and keeping them in use will become more valued, and help to shift attitudes towards the active use and repair of museum objects.

In libraries and archives visitors handle books and documents in order to read them, thus direct physical access is considered normal and the risks are acknowledged. Motorised or mechanical objects such as cars and clocks may be kept in working order and demonstrated judiciously, even though this risks wear to moving parts. (It is interesting to note that using objects in this way has other consequences: repair and replacement of parts helps to conserve the skills of running and maintenance of these objects.) Researching risks and developing touch policies In each of these contexts there is some form of policy or agreement which controls the use of the objects and in no case is every book, document, or mechanism available for handling or use. The policies are based on an understanding of the risks inherent in exposing objects to light or to use, or to the hazards of transport. Policies also involve an assessment of the objects themselves, taking into account their rarity and other values, and of course their vulnerability. This concept of selection is well established

References Appadurai, A. (ed.) 1986 The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Arigho, B. 2008 Getting a handle on the past: the use of objects in reminiscence work, pp. 205-212 in H.

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Keene, S. (ed.) 2008 Collections for People: the stored collections of UK museums as a public resource UCL Institute of Archaeology, London. Lamb, A. 2007 To play or not to play: making a collection of musical instruments accessible, pp. 201-204 in E. Pye (ed.) The Power of Touch: Handling Objects in Museum and Heritage Contexts Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek. Lynch, B. 2008 The amenable object: working with diaspora communities through a psychoanalysis of touch, pp. 261272 in H. Chatterjee (ed.) Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling Berg, Oxford and New York. Mann, P.R., 1994 Working exhibits and the destruction of evidence in the Science Museum, pp. 35-46 in S. Knell (ed.) Care of Collections Routledge, London. Marshall, Y. and Gosden, C. (eds.) 1999 The cultural biography of objects World Archaeology 31(2) pp. 169178. Merriman, N. and Swain, H. 1999 Archaeological archives: serving the public interest? European Journal of Archaeology 2 pp. 249-267. Morris, J. 2007 Handling stored collections Museum Practice 37 pp. 65-67. Munos Viñas, S. 2005 Contemporary Theory of Conservation Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. Museums Association 1998 http://www. museumsassociation.org/about/frequently-askedquestions [accessed 27 March 2011]. National Trust: Barrington 2009 http://www.nationaltrust. org.uk/main/w-global/w-news/w-latest_news/w-newsbarrington_chickens.htm [accessed 07 June 09]. National Trust: Upton 2009 http://www.nationaltrust.org. uk/main/w-global/w-localtoyou/w-west_midlands/wwest_midlands-news/w-west_midlands-upton_ millionaires.htm [accessed 07 June 09]. Noble, G. and Chatterjee, H. 2008 Enrichment programmes in hospitals: using museum loan boxes in University College London Hospital, pp. 215-223 in H. Chatterjee (ed.) Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling Berg, Oxford and New York. Phillips, L. 2008 Reminiscence: recent work at the British Museum, pp. 199-204 in H. Chatterjee (ed.) Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling Berg, Oxford and New York. Pye, E. 2001 Caring for the Past: Issues in Conservation for Archaeology and Museums James and James, London. Pye, E. 2007 Introduction: the power of touch, pp. 13-30 in E. Pye (ed.) The Power of Touch: Handling Objects in Museum and Heritage Contexts Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek. Pye, E. 2008 The benefits of access through handling outweigh the risks, pp. 162-165 in D. Saunders, J. Townsend and S. Woodcock (eds.) Conservation and Access (Preprints of the 22nd IIC Congress) International Institute of Conservators, London. Pye, E. and Sully, D. 2007 Evolving challenges, developing skills The Conservator 30 pp. 19-37. United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights www.unhcr.ch/udhr [accessed 04 January 2009].

Chatterjee (ed.) Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling Berg, Oxford and New York. Ashley-Smith, J. 1999 Risk Assessment for Object Conservation Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. Avrami, E., Mason, R. and de la Torre, M. (eds.) 2000 Values and Heritage Conservation The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles. Bomford, D. 1994 Conservation and controversy IIC Bulletin April 1994 pp. 3-4. British Museum 2009 Hands on desks: http://www. britishmuseum.org/join_in/volunteers/what_we_do.aspx [accessed 07 June 2009]. Brodie, F. 1994 Clocks and watches, a reappraisal? pp. 27-32 in A. Oddy (ed.) Restoration: Is it acceptable? (British Museum Occasional Paper No 99) British Museum, London. Candlin, F. 2004 Don’t Touch! Hands Off! Art, Blindness and the Conservation of Expertise Body & Society,10 (1) pp. 71-90. Caple, C. 2000 Case Conservation Skills: judgement, method and decision making Routledge, London. Case study: the Statue of Liberty pp.39-45 Classen, C. (ed.) 2005 The Book of Touch Berg, Oxford and New York. Clavir, M. 2002 Preserving What is Valued: Museums, Conservation and First Nations UBC Press, Vancouver and Toronto. Clifford, H. 2009 The problem of patina: thoughts on changing attitudes to old and new things, pp. 125-128 in A. Bracker and A. Richmond (eds.) Conservation Principles, Dilemmas, and Uncomfortable Truths Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. Coppack, G. 1999 Setting and Structure: The Conservation of Wigmore Castle, pp. 61-70 in G. Chitty and D. Baker (eds.) Managing Historic Sites and Buildings: Reconciling Presentation and Preservation Routledge, London. Disability Discrimination Act 1995 http://www.opsi.gov. uk/acts/acts1995 [accessed 13 April 2007]. Feinup-Riordan, A. 2003 Yup’ik elders in museums: fieldwork turned on its head, pp. 28-41 in L. Peers and A. Brown (eds.) Museums and Source Communities Routledge, London and New York. The Flying Scotsman 2009 http://www.flyingscotsman.org. uk/ [accessed 07 June 2009]. Glaister, J. 2005 The power and potential of collections, pp. 8-9 in H. Wilkinson Collections for the Future Museums Association, London. Howes, D. (ed.) 2005 The Empire of the Senses Berg, Oxford. Icon 2009. Institute of Conservation Professional Ethics http://www.icon.org.uk/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=121 [accessed 07 June 2009]. Khayami, S. 2007 Touching art, touching you: BlindArt sense and sensuality, pp. 183-190 in E. Pye (ed.) The Power of Touch: Handling Objects in Museum and Heritage Contexts Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek. Keene, S. 2005 Fragments of the world: uses of museum collections Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford.

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Watkins, S. and Scott, R. 2001 Timeless problems: reflections on the conservation of archaeological ceramics, pp. 195-199 in A. Oddy and S. Smith (eds.) Past Practice – Future Prospects (British Museum Occasional Paper 145) British Museum, London. Williams, S. L. 1997 Preventive conservation: the evolution

of a museum ethic, pp. 198-206 in G. Edson (ed.) Museum Ethics Routledge, London and New York. Wing, A., Giachritsis, C. and Roberts, R. 2007 Making sense of touch, pp. 31-44 in E. Pye (ed.) The Power of Touch: Handling Objects in Museum and Heritage Contexts Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek.

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Chapter 12 Unbuilt Heritage: Conceptualising Absences in the Historic Environment Gabriel Moshenska

Introduction

considerations arising from this peculiar discourse and its chances of finding a home in studies of the historic environment.

A few years ago I visited the library of the Imperial War Museum to study the construction of municipal air raid shelters in London. In the rotunda beneath the dome, high up in the building, I read engineers’ reports on burster courses, danger coefficients and detonating slabs, as well as government handbooks, political pamphlets and other alarming literature. Amongst these dry and dusty works I found a series of captivating and awe-inspiring designs by the engineer Ove Arup for vast deep shelters holding thousands of people: giant blunt corkscrews drilled into the ground, great honey-combs and grids as well as smaller bulbous lumps and blisters. The most titanic designs, holding 7,600 or 12,300 people, were part of a long-term project by the company Tecton to provide bomb-proof shelters for the London Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. I later learned that in 1939, amidst public outcries, political intrigues and government pressure, the project was cancelled and the deep shelters were never built.

Absences and traces Our modern understanding of a shocking, uncomfortable or outrageous absence has its roots in Sartre’s metaphysics of nothingness in his seminal Being and Nothingness (2003 [1943]). Sartre describes entering a café to meet a friend and finding that ‘Pierre’ is not where he had been expected to be. In the context of Sartre’s expectation, his experience of this fact leads to a sensation of the café being ‘haunted’ by the friend’s absence. Most importantly for this study, Sartre ‘distinguishes clearly between non-existence that depends on consciousness and non-existence that does not’ (Priest 2001: 137). Unlike the case of the transient and ephemeral Pierre, in the built environment we can more easily distinguish two kinds of absence: things which were once present and are no longer; and things which were never there in the first place but might have been hoped or expected to be. A rather tasteless analogy might be to distinguish the congenital absence of a limb from the loss of the same limb through amputation. It is vital we remain aware that the basis of these absences is consciousness and perception. In the context of heritage and the built environment an absence depends upon memory. As long as the site or potential site in question is remembered it can be considered absent, but it may pass beyond living memory into popular perceptions of the past or the doldrums of history. Aside from memories it is traces such as documents, plans and related materials which preserve the potential for physical absence.

London’s Home Front and Civil Defence landscape of the Second World War was and remains a vast and largely forgotten network of buildings and installations; many modified for new employment or long returned to their original uses. It is also a record of absences: 1950s and 1960s concrete monstrosities, or simply gaps, where bombed buildings once stood. It was amongst these tragic, haunting absences that the absence of deep shelters beneath the streets and squares of Finsbury seemed to me to fit – not perfectly, perhaps inappropriately and somewhat mysteriously – but there nonetheless. In this paper I explore the potential meanings and implications of considering absent, unbuilt structures such as these to be cultural heritage sites. This necessarily abstract field of study draws in issues of place, memory, contestation and historical narrative, already central themes in the study of the material remains of modern conflict. By examining ideas of absence and loss I hope to elucidate the concepts in question. Having clarified the meanings and significance of some of my key concepts, such as lieux de mémoire, I will return to the example of the Finsbury deep shelter program to evaluate their efficacy and relevance. In concluding, I consider practical consequences and

The intricate architect’s plans for bomb-proof shelters that inspired this study are just such a trace. My response to these images was principally an aesthetic one before their political and historical significance became clear. Similarly the romance of architectural ruins as described by Rose Macauley (1953) and others draws on our knowledge and imagination of what is lost and absent. Albert Speer’s grandiose neo-classical designs for ‘Germania’ – the proposed rebuilding of post-war Berlin that was to have followed the German victory in the Second World War –

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were admired by senior Nazis even as the old Berlin was bombed and shelled to rubble. The ruins are traces of the absence of a Berlin that was; Speer’s plans and models are traces of a Berlin that might have been (Huyssen 2003, 55, 57).

and the sites of forgetting. Few studies of sites of this type deal with the concept of absence in the sense that I wish to explore it; nonetheless it is useful to consider the dynamics of memory construction around sites that are essentially negations of built heritage. At the Berlin Wall we commemorate the deaths its presence caused but in Finsbury we must choose whether or not to commemorate the deaths caused by the absence of shelters. The ‘What If?’ school of popular history publishing is a lucrative one, but it is not what we are engaged in here. The voids where buildings might have been are worth studying in their own right as absences rather than considering them solely in terms of what they are absences of. We must confront the absence of the Berlin Wall as a material phenomenon, and leave the half-serious campaigns for its re-erection to the reactionary political fringes where they belong. This is not to say that we cannot explore the implications of unbuilt structures: grief and anger at lives lost are the well-spring of the memory narratives that crystallise around the sites. It is not necessarily cold or unfeeling to study the events and their implications, leaving the anguished ‘What Ifs’ to the grieving processes of which they are an integral part.

Like memories, even these last traces can be lost. Histories, archaeologies and other studies can uncover the traces; museums and archives can guard them. The choice of what is preserved, what is studied and what is taught and recalled is a pivotal one: it privileges contentious sites and disputed pasts, as well as aesthetically notable or socially significant ones. But contestation lies at the root of most of these successful traces, as it raises the likelihood of a continuing discourse. For now, we need a way of understanding absences and traces as aspects of the same phenomenon. Sites of memory A void, an absence, may constitute a place of cultural significance (Feversham and Schmidt 2007, 204). The most useful conceptual model in this discussion is Nora’s lieux de mémoire: sites of memory encounter where narratives are contested, negotiated and reified (1989). Nora uses the word ‘site’ in the loosest sense, to include places, objects, cultural representations and other material and immaterial things. The defining feature of lieux de mémoire is that they are the things around which people create discourses of memory. In the context of this discussion they can include absences, remains and traces, provided that the events they recall were sufficiently controversial to create a disjuncture of memory. Amongst the most commonly cited sites of memory are monuments and memorials including cemeteries, mementoes and mnemonic objects, and battlefields or other sites of violence that have come, for various reasons, to symbolise entire conflicts.

The absence of deep shelters in Finsbury Even an apparently purely material site, like an archive, becomes a lieu de mémoire only if the imagination invests it with a symbolic aura (Nora 1989, 19). Following the bombing of Guernica, Barcelona and other Spanish cities, and the 1938 Munich Crisis, the provision of air raid shelters became the focus of enormous public and political attention in Britain (Meisel 1994). The gloomy prediction of former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin that ‘the bomber will always get through’ was widely accepted and was supported by public intellectuals such as the scientists J.D. Bernal and J.B.S. Haldane (chairman of the Communist Party Air Raid Precaution Committee). A 1937 act had put air raid precautions (ARP) in the hands of local authorities. As popular concern grew the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury, with a Labour majority council and a population that was almost completely working class, sought a decisive solution to the issue. They approached the firm Tecton, founded by radical modernist architect Berthold Lubetkin, who had carried out a number of projects in the borough. The civil engineer Ove Arup was commissioned to produce a detailed survey of the area and a proposal for total air raid protection for the population (Jones 2006, 66-88).

Many of these sites, such as the Berlin Wall, engage with issues of loss either literally or symbolically: Huyssen has argued that throughout the last century Berlin was a city of absences, and that ‘When the Wall came down, Berlin added another chapter to its narrative of voids’ (2003, 55). The Wall, or ‘Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart’, was breached in 1989; by 1991 its most prominent parts had largely been removed, moved or sold in fragments and slices. The empty spaces left behind, formerly the ‘Death Strip’, became for a short time a wasteland of weeds and rubble (Jordan 2006). Today the Wall ‘hovers uneasily between memory and reality’ (Feversham and Schmidt 2007, 193). In many parts of the Death Strip office blocks of glass and steel now sit comfortably atop the former route of the wall. In places a bronze stripe set into the paving slabs offers a subtle and altogether optional reminder of the structure that bisected Berlin and Europe for decades (Till 2005). Even within the void left by demolition there are types and degrees of absence; these are the sites of memory

Arup’s conclusion was that the only way to protect the population and workforces of Finsbury from bombing, given the strictures of space, resources and money, was to construct fifteen vast deep shelters beneath the squares and parks of the borough (Meisel 1994, 312). These giant concrete spirals were designed with total protection in mind, in contrast to the partial protection of the famous Anderson shelters, and the designs included plans and

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models for post-war uses of the structures as car parks (Jones 2006). An innovative top-down construction method was proposed, and the fittings such as lights, generators and air-conditioning, designed to make the shelters more comfortable, were modelled on those used in the giant bunkers of the Maginot Line. Existing tunnels, pipe ducts and sections of the London Underground beneath the borough were to be integrated into the finished network of shelters. Virtually the entire population of Finsbury would be within 300m of a deep shelter entrance point. As part of the campaign for bomb-proof shelter protection, supported by the Left Book Club and others, Tecton published a popular book on the project (Tecton 1939) as well as a technical report (Arup 1939), and created an exhibition to emphasise the importance of deep shelters. Publicity for the scheme in the press and in government debates was substantial but ultimately fruitless.

meant in all seriousness, even sadness? What does it mean to say that Finsbury today is haunted by the absence of deep shelters? Can it tell us anything we did not already know about sites of conflict, memory, commemoration and trauma? I believe it can, and I will outline some points that support my assertion. To ask such strange and counter-intuitive questions of the unbuilt heritage serves to highlight critical issues in our understanding of contested sites and spaces. The Borough of Finsbury no longer exists today as a distinct entity and its population demographics have changed beyond recognition. The public debates about deep shelters are probably only a vague memory for a tiny and shrinking proportion of the population. As a historical controversy, the deep shelter issue has proved to be of minor scholarly interest to social historians, architectural historians and biographers of the individuals involved. As a heritage issue it is stymied: there is nothing to see, nothing to protect or present, and no audience. However significant or haunting that nothingness may be, it is hard to justify putting time, effort or money into commemoration or education.

The Finsbury deep shelter project became the arena in which national and international politics were contested by scientists, politicians and parties, architects, engineers, journalists, conspiracy theorists and the public. When the council approached the Home Office for financial support for the project they met stubborn resistance. The Home Secretary John Anderson was adamant that his pathetic projects for brick surface shelters, reinforced basements and flimsy blast-proof (but not bomb-proof) private shelters would suffice and against overwhelming evidence he argued that a ‘deep shelter mentality’ would lower civilian morale. Many commentators such as Haldane regarded the neglect of Air Raid Precautions, together with official refusal to open the London Underground for use as shelters, as a conspiracy to deprive the urban working classes of adequate protection (Meisel 1994). The construction of deep bomb-proof shelters for the Royal Family and other VIPs did nothing to resolve these questions: for some, particularly within the Communist Party and its assorted front organisations devoted to Civil Defence, the government’s dithering, inefficiency and cynicism in the face of the mounting bomber threat was analogous to the policy of appeasement. Arguably the Communists’ vigorous support for deep shelters was a final nail in the coffin of the deep shelter campaign, given Churchill’s vocal anticommunist rhetoric and the tenuous position of the Party during the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact era (Jones 2006). It is these debates, raging even as the first bombs fell on Finsbury, that we might attempt to trace onto the empty squares and public spaces of the former borough today.

The Finsbury shelters and other outrageous, haunting absences in the material world are a challenge to the guardians of heritage. The normal toolkit of listing, preserving, surveying, maintaining and resource enhancing is of little use; the sheer absurdity of a commemorative plaque is revealed in the satirical example above. Opening the sites to the public faces insurmountable practical problems, not to mention ontological ones. At the same time, the conceptual peculiarities of unbuilt heritage offer an opportunity for innovative responses to space, place and sociality. Within such projects creative and imaginative approaches to representation could be given an unusually free rein. Some of the most radically inclusive and multidisciplinary work linking built heritage, performance, archaeology and the visual arts have focused on the material remains of modern warfare (Boulton 2006; Schofield 2006). These challenging and provocative partnerships and networks offer a possible starting point for explorations of unbuilt heritage. In addition communication and public involvement will inevitably play a central part in any such scheme. Most sites can be preserved with or without public interest; here public interest is the only way to preserve the significance of the sites, to make the absences resonate. If we remember them faithfully they are indestructible. They are sites of memory first and foremost, or they are not sites at all.

Discussion

The deep shelters under Finsbury fall into the second category of Sartre’s formulation of nothingness: their nonexistence is dependent upon our consciousness of their absence. I appear to have outlined the heritage equivalent of the old problem: if a tree falls in a forest and no-one hears it, does it make a sound? In practice this is a semantic argument not a philosophical one, and so is the question of absent air raid shelters. In a period when heritage professionals are paying more and more attention to the

Without the human factors of memory and emotion, any debate about monuments or cultural heritage is pointless; without them, no cultural significance can exist (Feversham and Schmidt 2007, 206). A novelty catalogue sells plaques reading ‘On this spot in 1829 nothing happened’; we smile, recognising the pastiche of memorial mania. What happens when that quote is

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Papers from the 2008 CHAT Conference

Huyssen, A. 2003 Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory Stanford University Press, Stanford. Jones, P. 2006 Ove Arup: Master Builder of the Twentieth Century Yale University Press, London. Jordan, J. A. 2006 Structures of Memory: Understanding Urban Change in Berlin and Beyond Stanford University Press, Stanford. Macauley, R. 1953 Pleasure of Ruins Barnes and Noble, New York. Meisel, J.S. 1994 Air raid shelter policy and its critics in Britain before the Second World War Twentieth Century British History 5 pp. 300-319. Nora, P. 1989 Between memory and history: les lieux de mémoire Representations 26 pp. 7-24. Priest, S. (ed.) 2001 Jean-Paul Sartre: basic writings Routledge, London. Sartre, J-P. 2003 [1943] Being and nothingness: an essay on phenomenological ontology Routledge, London. Schofield, J. 2006 Constructing place: when artists and archaeologists meet [e-book]: Proboscis. Available at: http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=98 [accessed 22 December 2010]. Tecton 1939 Planned A.R.P.: based on the investigation of structural protection against air attack in the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury Architectural Press, London. Till, K. E. 2005 The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place University of Minnesota Press, London.

material remains of modern conflicts, sites of memory haunted by absences such as these present a challenge, but also an extraordinary opportunity. We need not limit these questions to the recent past: surely a theory of the unbuilt historic environment will ultimately have applications in historic and even prehistoric periods? Unbuilt buildings and other socially and politically contested absences can be located in landscapes if we choose to see and represent them. References Arup, O. N. 1939 Design, cost, construction, and relative safety of trench, surface, bomb-proof and other air-raid shelters: a survey of costs and comparative protection values of air-raid shelters, ranging from trenches to multi-storey underground bomb-proof shelters, being the basis of the air-raid protection report, prepared for and adopted by the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury: Concrete Publications, London. Boulton, A. 2006 Film making and photography as record and interpretation, pp. 35-38 in J. Schofield, A. Klausmeier and L. Purbrick (eds.) Re-mapping the Field: New Approaches in Conflict Archaeology WestkreuzVerlag, Berlin. Feversham, P. and Schmidt, L. 2007 The Berlin Wall: border, fragment, world heritage?, pp 193-210 in J. Schofield and W. Cocroft (eds.) A Fearsome Heritage: Diverse Legacies of the Cold War Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek.

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