Historic Scotland have recently produced a series of self-guide walking tours covering public art in Glenrothes, much of which was the work of David Harding who was appointed Town Artist in 1968.  The tours, along with other information about the Glenrothes public art project can be downloaded here.  Reflections of David Harding on his time as Town Artist can be found on the blog of artists Neville Rae and Scott Laverie.

The Historic Scotland website explains:

Glenrothes has a distinctive and diverse collection of art works set within a carefully planned urban landscape, dating from 1965 to the present. Often taking the history of the area as its inspiration, the art defines the identity of the town. The study has highlighted the importance of Glenrothes in the story of Scotland’s public art and also tells us much about the development of our five New Towns. The works are unique, but can also be appreciated as a collective whole, and a small number were recently recognised as listed buildings.

Go to Glenrothes and see the Thirsty Hippos and Giant Mushrooms!

- Hannah

Session

• Ambivalent spaces: women’s expeditionary work 1913-c.1950. (Sarah Evans, UWE)

The paper will draw upon my ongoing PhD research into women’s involvement with Royal Geographical Society-affiliated expeditions during the twentieth century, presenting material from my preliminary data collection and findings.  Women’s expeditionary work during this period, in common with women’s geographical work more broadly (Maddrell 2009), has until recently been overlooked in histories of the discipline and in studies of expeditionary fieldwork practices (Rose 1993; Bracken and Mawdsley 2004).  The paper will suggest that many of these women occupied an ambivalent position with regard to the largely ‘traditional’ forms of expeditionary fieldwork that they were engaged in, due to their marginal position both in the contemporary academy and in histories of geography.  Whilst some of these women, such as Freya Stark, are already fairly well-known, if within popular and literary discourses, analysing the practices of other more forgotten figures helps to contribute to the ongoing project of (re)telling smaller, and gendered, stories of geographical thought and practice (Lorimer 2005; Lorimer and Spedding 2003; Maddrell, 2009).  Through discussion of particular expeditions, the paper will discuss some of these women’s emotional, embodied/material and discursive experiences, outlining their frequent enjoyment of their expeditionary fieldwork, alongside their more hesitant and unenthusiastic responses.

• ‘Sharing horizons that are new to us’: planning, freedom and growing up on a 1960s English council estate. (Ian Waites, Lincoln)

English council estates are commonly viewed as problematic and singularly unprepossessing places to live. It might therefore be difficult to imagine someone speaking of the joys of living on a 1960s council estate, but this paper will do exactly that. In May 1964, when I was three years old, my family and I moved into a new house on the just completed Middlefield Lane estate in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. This is where I spent my formative years during the 60s and 70s, living, playing, hanging around, and growing up. This paper will argue that the ‘form’ of the estate – its situation and layout – ‘functioned’ as a crucial influence on my development, giving me an enduring sense of space, freedom and well being. From there, the paper will consider a more challenging and distinctive line of enquiry – of ‘feeling’, of what the estate felt like for a child at that time. As such, the paper will be unashamedly and enthusiastically autobiographical and lyrical in character, but it will also be underpinned by theories on autobiographical memory and child development in the hope that such approaches can give us a deeper and more nuanced understanding of these estates and their original intentions.

• Strangely familiar: Parkour, Freerunning and extremes of mundanity. (Kate Evans, Swansea)

Since 2002, the related practices of Parkour and freerunning have become a familiar feature of many British cities, and indeed worldwide.  Cinematic, media, and online depictions of the practices often portray thrilling and spectacular acts of daring and physicality.  Yet for many traceurs (as those who practise parkour are known), the reality of parkour is an intimate and subtle process of embodied and emotional exploration of their bodies and the architectural landscape, where undramatic acts and minutiae are practised with almost tedious repetition.  Whilst the process of repetition itself may be experienced as mundane and/or meditative, each repetition is also a microcosm of diverse, and at times profound, emotional and physical sensations.  This paper considers the extremes of embodied and emotional sensitivity that are interwoven into the more subtle and enduring aspects of parkour as an intimate engagement with space and place, and considers how, through the drilling of mundane acts, traceurs gain embodied understanding if themselves, whilst coming to know and care for the everyday spaces and terrains with which they engage.

• ‘Greetings from’: postcards from the field. (Ceri Price, Bristol)

Civic pride is easily detectable in official representations. Less accessible are the everyday emotional attachments of local enthusiasts who manifest often unremarked pride in the places in which they live.  A new Bristol museum challenged residents in ten neighbourhoods to produce ‘Greetings from’ picture postcards to showcase what they believed to be special about their locality.  Some local groups, many of whose members are highly knowledgeable about their communities, produced postcards which confirmed perceived expectations; others deliberately challenged them; all were passionate about their home spaces. Yet, as most groups held firm views on what was considered to be appropriate postcard subject matter, the resulting postcards actually highlighted broad similarities between areas, rather than distinctions.  I demonstrate how groups created what they believed to be ‘true’ portraits of their neighbourhoods, but how what actually resulted were idealized, other-directed, images, bearing little resemblance to the specificities of the locales’ everyday geographies.  I examine the seeming paradox of embedded enthusiasts producing unrepresentative representations and, through this fieldwork, address questions of place, placelessness, and non-place in the context of amateur knowledges and productions, noting that notwithstanding the creativity of such projects, everyday enthusiast knowledges often remain configured by dominant representational strategies.

• Cultures of Architectural Enthusiasm: Fieldwork and exploration with The Twentieth Century Society. (Hilary Geoghegan, Exeter; Hannah Neate, UCLAN; Ruth Craggs, SMUC)

This paper introduces a new research project that investigates the cultures of enthusiasm surrounding 20th century architectural heritage in the UK. Focusing on The Twentieth Century Society (who work to safeguard Britain’s post-1914 architectural heritage), we highlight the important yet underexplored role played by their volunteer guides in articulating, experiencing and interpreting 20th century architecture, specifically focusing on walking tours. Revising and extending work by geographers, historians and contemporary archeologists, this paper attends to the conceptual intricacies of enthusiasm, fieldwork and exploration in relation to buildings.

Walking Tour: Modernist Edinburgh To complement the session “Geographies of Enthusiasm: Exploration and Fieldwork” the convenors invite you to join them on a walking tour that will focus on Edinburgh’s twentieth century architecture.  The tour will commence at the conference venue.  It will begin by looking at University of Edinburgh buildings around George Square (focusing on 1960s expansion: Sir Basil Spence, Glover and Ferguson’s library, Robert Matthew’s Hume Tower, and Alan Reiach, Eric Hall & Partners Appleton Tower).  It will then proceed to take in other twentieth century sites within short walking distance.

- Hilary

Geographies of Enthusiasm: Exploration and Fieldwork

RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2012, Edinburgh
Sponsored by the Historical Geography Research Group
Organisers: Hilary Geoghegan (Exeter); Hannah Neate (UcLan); and Ruth Craggs (SMUC).

Exploration is a well-established field of research, with geographers examining the contested histories of colonial exploration (Driver, Heffernan, Livingstone); spaces and cultures of modern exploration (MacDonald, Matless, Naylor and Ryan); and, more recently, practices of urban exploration (Bennett, Edensor, Garrett). Associated concepts of the ‘field’ and ‘fieldwork’ have been the subject of sustained focus in relation to teaching practice (Hall et al., Maguire), researcher positionality (Kobayashi, Dewsbury and Naylor) and lived experience (Lorimer). This session extends these debates by examining notions of exploration and fieldwork in other registers.

Hidden and local histories, enthusiast knowledges, as well as popular and professional practices have emerged as themes worthy of further study in relation to exploration and fieldwork. This session is interested in people, places and cultures that have for various reasons been overlooked, regarded as old-fashioned or too readily classed as mundane, non-spectacular, even ‘amateur’. Papers will discuss a culture of exploration that involves romance, revery, memory, as well as political purpose and physical endeavour, and incorporates fieldwork carried out at weekends, on the off-chance or as part of daily life. Focusing on landscapes of exploration in the city, suburbia, and/or the rural, places that are inhabited, cared for and preserved, practices and techniques based upon archaeology, local history and architectural significance, this session offers an opportunity to challenge how geographers have examined people’s understandings of the world, their place within it, and their fascination for it.

We welcome papers on:
* spaces of exploration and fieldwork both historical and contemporary;
* everyday, mundane and undramatic forms of exploration;
* special interest groups, amenity societies and volunteers;
* the role of experts and amateurs in exploring, knowing and caring for places;
* connections between fieldwork, learning and knowing in exploratory landscapes.

Papers on other related topics are also welcome. Please also circulate this CFP to other interested parties.

Please send titles, abstracts of no more than 200 words, names and email addresses of any co-authors, as well as any special a/v requests to Hilary at h.geoghegan@exeter.ac.uk by Friday, 20th January 2012.

Please note: 1) A walking tour will accompany this session – putting discussions of exploration and fieldwork into practice. If you’re interested in hearing more about the walking tour please send an expression of interest to the email above. This sessions forms an important part of the organisers’ British Academy research project ‘cultures of architectural enthusiasm’ – please visit this site for more information: http://conservingc20.wordpress.com/ 2) We would like to draw your attention to the following presenter guidelines outlined by the RGS: An individual may not normally make more than two substantive contributions to the conference programme. A substantive contribution includes: paper or poster presentation (of any length); panel member; discussant or any session contribution of another kind.

- Hannah

At 11am on a Saturday morning Ruth  met up with  Dave and I for a walking tour we’d booked ourselves on around the Barbican Estate.  I discovered the tours ran back in the summer but hadn’t had the chance to go along, but it proved to be a nice stop off on our way to Kings Cross before catching a train back to Edinburgh.  We set off with our guide -  Barbican employee Thomas -  and one other tour member for a walk around the 35 acre site.  Usually the guides expect around 15 people per tour, but it appears only super-keen individuals turn up for the first tour on a Saturday.

The tour was led at a quite relaxed pace, although it was only after the tour had finished that I realised we’d actually walked quite a big circuit around a lot of the Estate.  Our guide pitched his commentary well, with a good mixture of historical detail and architectural interpretation.  Having been to the Barbican quite a few times before I was really taken by what I now understand is a truly exceptional housing estate.  Perhaps an indication of my broader interests in, and assumptions about, post-war mass housing, I have to admit that until I’d been on the tour I was completely oblivious to the fact that the Corporation of London’s decision to build a new high-spec housing estate to house 4,000 residents in the City of London (in the 60s and 70s) was in essence an example of the marketisation of the post-war social housing model.  I had always assumed that some of the housing in the Barbican had (until Right to Buy came into force) been social.  Behind the façade of modern standardised form lies many different types of housing from 1 bed flats to 3 bedroom penthouses.   Take a look here for an indication of the prices these go for.

It was no wonder that the architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon were heavily criticised for abandoning the principles of modernism.  Their approach is particularly ambiguous when comparing the Barbican with the adjacent Golden Lane Estate, designed by the same architects, and completed in 1962 as a social housing project.  Both the Barbican and Golden Lane Estates have been designated, Grade II and Grade II* respectively.

Aside from the socio-political peculiarities of a large housing estate smack bang in the heart of the nation’s financial sector we were also given plenty of insights into the design of the estate itself.  Motifs that gesture towards the site’s long and complex history are difficult to ignore once they are pointed out (crenallated Medieval features appear everywhere, as do curved images taken from Victorian railway arches).  Thomas’ thesis is that this speaks of ‘hidden violence’ that has echoed throughout the site’s past.  This is visible today in remnants of the London Wall and other medieval relics that were incorporated into the layout of the estate.

It was strange to be walking around for most of the tour on high-walkways removed from the noise of traffic, yet to encounter hardly any other people.  On occasion it almost felt as if we were the only people on the entire estate.  We all made our own comments about why we thought this was: “It’s like a gated community without it actually being gated”; ‘Because I’m not from round here I just assumed that it was mostly private space”; “Did the architects even care that it wasn’t easy to navigate around the site?”

If you’ve never been to the Barbican before I encourage you to go on one of their tours, there are several guides and each gives a different take on the site, but I’m sure if they are as engaging and willing to answer random questions as Thomas was you’ll think it was a good 90 minutes spent (£8 full price, £6 concessions).   Though I’m not sure I got a complete answer to my one about the ubiquitous geraniums!  Even if you don’t fancy going on a tour it is well worth being far bolder than I’ve been in the past and following some of the walkways around the site.  The reward will be a far better understanding about the estate as a whole, something that is often overlooked if you just head straight to the Arts Centre.

– Hannah

Cumbernauld Library in the Town Centre

I was  lucky to be accompanied by Diane Watters from The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) and Neville Rae, an artist who has done some fantastic work on the forgotten public art of Cumbernauld.  Both provided  interesting insights into the town’s history, architecture as well as more personal reflections on what it was like to grow up there.

Carpark underneath the Town Centre

I like to take my students to Cumbernauld because it’s a fantastic place to think about post-war idealism, modern architecture and the challenges of planning new urban environments.  Cumbernauld is commonly dismissed today as a ‘Crap Town‘ (second only to Hull) and the impression of it being a run-down concrete monstrosity is underlined by its status as a multiple recipient of the ‘Plook on the Plinth‘ award.  These kind of observations mainly reflect the failing brutalist megastructure that is Cumbernauld Town Centre.

Cumbernauld Town Centre

On the walking tours we took around the Kildrum and Carbrain housing areas it’s clear there is more to Cumbernauld than the much maligned Town Centre (which despite it’s international renown has no statutory protection, which serves to further undermine the original vision behind this behemoth of a structure). In contrast, each housing area has a distinct  feel, reflecting how different architects were commissioned to work in separate areas.  From the modern, flat-roofed flats in Carbrain to the more vernacular and sensitively landscaped housing in Kildrum.

Street running through terrace housing in Kildrum

Heritage status (or general lack of it) in Cumbernauld is proving to be an important issue.  Now over 50 years old this ‘Town for Tomorrow’ does appear tired around the edges, but it is only ‘status’ buildings designed by ‘prestige’ architects that are being listed for future conservation.  A great example of this, and one I was very pleased to be able to get into, is the Sacred Heart RC Church (thanks to Neville for arranging that!)  A 1964 example of work by Gillespie, Kidd and Coia it certainly has an atmospheric feel inside, emphasised by the low level lighting, and the dramatic stained-glass windows (although I’m less keen on its recent exterior paint job).

Inside the Sacred Heart RC Church

Spending time walking around the many pedestrian footpaths, underpasses and bridges,  and looking at the Cumbernauld Development Corporation (CDC) Archives, prompted the question: is the town getting a raw deal with the application of heritage logic that makes it easier to list individual buildings like the Sacred Heart rather than take a step back and appreciate the scale and imagination behind Cumbernauld as a whole?  Is there a place for a broader appreciation of the town or is it destined to retain its

notorious reputation as one of Britain’s most reviled products of postwar modern movement architecture and planning (Watters and Taylor 2009).

This in many ways echoes comments that arose back in the summer at the Post War Housing Estates Symposium in Lincoln.  It seems there isn’t a way to acknowledge the team work of the CDC planners, architects, and artists, who may not have been ‘famous’ but nonetheless contributed in a very real way to the post war new town movement.  Neville’s work on the late Brian  Miller, Cumbernauld’s very own new town artist, is a great way of reminding ourselves (and younger generations) about this.

Example of mural in underpass in Abronhill area of the town. The underpass was designed and repainted by Neville Rae and children from a local primary school. The images reflect how the schoolchildren imagine their Cumbernauld 'Town for Tomorrow'.

- Hannah

Event Details

Event name:Harrow & Wealdstone
Event code:[11/50]
Venue:Various – see details
Date(s):29/10/2011
Harrow is an ancient hilltop town but in the 19th and 20th centuries it expanded to the north of the hill, in the process absorbing an area named Greenhill and the nearby village of Wealdstone. Greenhill has developed as a major retail centre while Wealdstone became an industrial area; most of the large industry has gone, though some smaller enterprises remain. In 1972 the Council built a new Civic Centre between Harrow and Wealdstone, and developments continue with shopping malls and a leisure centre. The walk, led by John Goodier, will see several churches and chapels, a cinema or two, a variety of shop fronts and more.

Cost: Members only £12

Meet: Harrow on the Hill underground station 10.00 am. The walk will end near Harrow and Wealdstone underground station.

I went on this walk on Saturday. Check out our Flickr account and the section above on Fieldwork, look for Walk 2.

If you are a fan of twentieth century architecture we would love to hear from you.

Event Details: Post-War Paddington

Following the recent listing of the Hallfield Estate, Suzanne Waters will lead a repeat of this walk from July 2011. We shall be exploring the south Paddington area, looking mainly at the Hallfield Estate by Drake and Lasdun and other housing developments nearby. We hope to visit Hallfield School, also by Lasdun (exteriors only). We will be concentrating on the post war architecture of this area, with the exception of course of Lasduns own pre-war house, 32 Newton Grove.

Cost: Members only £12

Meet: Outside Paddington Station on the corner of Praed Street and Eastbourne Terrace at 2.00-4.30pm.

On Monday we followed up the walk with discussions about our project with Society trustees, guides and the director. It was great to hear how our research plans would become a reality: attending events, contributing to the newsletter and website, as well as interviewing members.

See our Flickr account for images and click here further details of the walk.

- Hilary