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Urban art and artifice
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UTTERWORTH El N E M A
N
N
0264-2751 (95)00063-1
Cities, Vol. 12, No. 4, p. 219, 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in Great Britain
Editorial Urban art and artifice In this issue, we have four articles that focus collectively upon the redevelopment process within different British cities. The original manuscripts were submitted independently but they display a good deal of congruence and it seemed that the different experiences of interactions between city governments, residents and developers deserved to be highlighted in this way. The p h e n o m e n o n of redevelopment - that is, bringing obsolete urban land and buildings back into the market - has received extensive review since it became noticeable in the late 1970s. Much of this commentary has revolved around gentrification, the process of investment in older properties whereby buildings change, inter alia, from industrial activity to service or residential functions. Insofar as these investments frequently involve up-market architectural forms on the interior and an exterior process of 'facadism', it is usual for rents on these buildings to increase and for tenant displacement to occur. Commentators such as Neil Smith and David Harvey have provided detailed analyses of the property market a s it has operated in European and American cities and have linked this to a postmodern style (see for example Harvey's 1989 volume,
argues for residents to view art galleries as the new cathedrals of their cities, the foci of wonder and astonishment within an urban landscape that contains disparate architectural symbols that are tied into capitalist development but not civic pride. And there is - coincidentally or not - a move within art itself to confront the existence of ubiquitous design trends with local, quotidian practices. A recent exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute, for instance, offered an exhibit titled 'About Place', in which artists 'fashion places from personal and individual, communal, social, natural and metaphorical strains and . . . lend dignity to conditions of uprootedness, exile and estrangement that are prevalent throughout the Americas and beyond' (1995, Art Institute of Chicago, p 2). In short, the celebration of place can be an alternative to global marketing and a formless but repetitive international style. However, as this cornmodification occurs, it threatens to trivialize the very foundations on which is it literally built. As both Hubbard and Tiesdell point out, there are real dangers of descending into historical mythology and whimsy, with the result that such development schemes appear artificial and manipulative and are ultimately unsuccessful. In an era when local styles are appropriated negligently by Disney and the like, such risks and such responses seem predictable. It is ironic that the Art Institute has concurrently chosen to mount an exhibition titled 'Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist'. In stunning paintings produced just over a century ago, Caillebotte commented on the Paris that had recently undergone a vast programme of redevelopment, by juxtaposing the public works and wide boulevards on the one hand and the diminished and alienated residents of the 'new' Paris on the other. His work is a fitting reminder of the complexities of the development process and the need to monitor its impacts continually. This issue offers insights into some of the tensions that are to be found in contemporary urban development. It is to be hoped that discussions from other cities can complement these useful papers.
The Condition of Postmodernity). With the contraction of the property market in this decade, notes Healey, attention has focused once more upon development schemes that involve public-private partnerships. All four of the papers in this issue provide insights into the mechanisms involved, and show how the search for elusive profits has caused the scale of redevelopment to increase, such that it often involves large acreages of land and/or significant numbers of properties. Of particular interest is the co-optation of culture into these schemes. In some instances, this is an explicit focus upon cultural activities as economic catalysts, as outlined by Griffiths with respect to developments in Bristol. In others, there is the more complex process of marketing a development via some aspect of local culture, which constitutes a commodification of place. Both of these trends are particularly interesting and are in many ways intertwined. A recent newspaper editorial by Richard Rodriguez, for example,
Andrew Kirby 219
UTTERWORTH El N E M A
N
N
0264-2751 (95)00063-1
Cities, Vol. 12, No. 4, p. 219, 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in Great Britain
Editorial Urban art and artifice In this issue, we have four articles that focus collectively upon the redevelopment process within different British cities. The original manuscripts were submitted independently but they display a good deal of congruence and it seemed that the different experiences of interactions between city governments, residents and developers deserved to be highlighted in this way. The p h e n o m e n o n of redevelopment - that is, bringing obsolete urban land and buildings back into the market - has received extensive review since it became noticeable in the late 1970s. Much of this commentary has revolved around gentrification, the process of investment in older properties whereby buildings change, inter alia, from industrial activity to service or residential functions. Insofar as these investments frequently involve up-market architectural forms on the interior and an exterior process of 'facadism', it is usual for rents on these buildings to increase and for tenant displacement to occur. Commentators such as Neil Smith and David Harvey have provided detailed analyses of the property market a s it has operated in European and American cities and have linked this to a postmodern style (see for example Harvey's 1989 volume,
argues for residents to view art galleries as the new cathedrals of their cities, the foci of wonder and astonishment within an urban landscape that contains disparate architectural symbols that are tied into capitalist development but not civic pride. And there is - coincidentally or not - a move within art itself to confront the existence of ubiquitous design trends with local, quotidian practices. A recent exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute, for instance, offered an exhibit titled 'About Place', in which artists 'fashion places from personal and individual, communal, social, natural and metaphorical strains and . . . lend dignity to conditions of uprootedness, exile and estrangement that are prevalent throughout the Americas and beyond' (1995, Art Institute of Chicago, p 2). In short, the celebration of place can be an alternative to global marketing and a formless but repetitive international style. However, as this cornmodification occurs, it threatens to trivialize the very foundations on which is it literally built. As both Hubbard and Tiesdell point out, there are real dangers of descending into historical mythology and whimsy, with the result that such development schemes appear artificial and manipulative and are ultimately unsuccessful. In an era when local styles are appropriated negligently by Disney and the like, such risks and such responses seem predictable. It is ironic that the Art Institute has concurrently chosen to mount an exhibition titled 'Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist'. In stunning paintings produced just over a century ago, Caillebotte commented on the Paris that had recently undergone a vast programme of redevelopment, by juxtaposing the public works and wide boulevards on the one hand and the diminished and alienated residents of the 'new' Paris on the other. His work is a fitting reminder of the complexities of the development process and the need to monitor its impacts continually. This issue offers insights into some of the tensions that are to be found in contemporary urban development. It is to be hoped that discussions from other cities can complement these useful papers.
The Condition of Postmodernity). With the contraction of the property market in this decade, notes Healey, attention has focused once more upon development schemes that involve public-private partnerships. All four of the papers in this issue provide insights into the mechanisms involved, and show how the search for elusive profits has caused the scale of redevelopment to increase, such that it often involves large acreages of land and/or significant numbers of properties. Of particular interest is the co-optation of culture into these schemes. In some instances, this is an explicit focus upon cultural activities as economic catalysts, as outlined by Griffiths with respect to developments in Bristol. In others, there is the more complex process of marketing a development via some aspect of local culture, which constitutes a commodification of place. Both of these trends are particularly interesting and are in many ways intertwined. A recent newspaper editorial by Richard Rodriguez, for example,
Andrew Kirby 219