Locality, Regeneration & Divers[c]ities

Sarah Bennett, John Butler

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2000
• ISBN:
  9781841508276
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

As British cities lose the cultural connections with their industrial past, many seek to build new postindustrial futures through urban regeneration. Art projects play a key role in policymaking that aims to regenerate neglected neighbourhoods. This study focuses particularly on the ways in which newlydeveloped cultural institutions tend to be flagships for regeneration the Tate Modern in Southwark is one such example.

	Jesús Pedro Lorente Art Neighbourhoods, Ports of Vitality

Introduction

Port cities have a special cosmopolitan charm which makes them particularly attractive to artists and – no less interesting for researchers in urban studies – most prominently those studying urban decline and redevelopment. This is because many traditional port cities are suffering heavy unemployment since the introduction in the 1970s of containerisation, which required new deep-water ports. What happened in Montmartre and Montparnasse in the Paris of the Belle Époque, can happen again in a derelict port area, as it occurred in the SoHo district of New York in the 1970s or the Temple Bar area of Dublin in the 1980s. Yet the special contribution of the arts to urban development is usually analysed as a matter of heritage. At most, certain publications have paid tribute to the role of new cultural venues as ‘flagships’ of image-management and urban regeneration. My aim is to point out that the birth of art districts is not merely the consequence of a renewal process but also a catalyst for the further re-use of other nearby derelict buildings for art purposes and, in general, for the boosting of standards of living. This is not another study of the trickle-down economic benefits created by cultural policies in distressed areas, but a plea for art investments to be wisely devised, aiming to produce knock-on effects in cultural targets. In order to emphasise this perspective the title chosen for this essay avoids the term ‘urban renewal’ usually linked to physical change, preferring instead ‘urban regeneration’ – the revitalising not just of dilapidated buildings but also a deteriorated quality of life.

Previous work on this topic has shown very interesting examples in districts of New York, Baltimore, Paris, Dublin, Barcelona, Berlin and London. But obviously in such rich and burgeoning cities urban revitalisation has been boosted by an array of vested interests, among which the arts sector was just one – and not necessarily the most consequential. No matter the size and history of the arts presence in particular districts, it seems that any derelict area in the heart of a prosperous city is bound to be revitalised by urban developers anyway. However, the prospects of redevelopment are less likely when dereliction lies in the middle of a declining city facing economic recession, unemployment, depopulation, social/ethnic unrest, and physical decay. If we can show that even in such adverse circumstances, arts-led regeneration can prosper, then we would have demonstrated its deeds beyond doubt. Liverpool and Marseilles are such cases: in the last decades everything seems to have gone wrong there, except the arts, which constitute the most world-renown winning asset of both cities’ limited resources. Indeed, it is their cultural glamour that makes Liverpool and Marseilles especially interesting amongst many other cases of recent urban decay. As if to compensate for their decline in economic status and political context, both cities rank very high in the arts. Thetwo cities have become famous in modern times for performing arts and popular music, which has no doubt played a part in encouraging people to take a pride in their local life, and both cities passionately support the high profile of their football teams. Less celebrated is perhaps another common cultural characteristic, Liverpool has the most notable network of museums in England after London, whilst in France, Marseilles is second only to Paris. Moreover, the density of studios in Marseilles makes it the second highest artist population in France whilst Liverpool has more artists per head of its multicultural population than anywhere else in the country.

Arts in derelict quarters:

Historical precedents and recent trends

In what used to be East Berlin two former breweries of the Prenzlauerberg district are now very popular drinking, shopping and art places for the urban flâneurs and night socialites. Every year, new examples of these kind of grassroots initiatives are mushrooming all over Europe. But the installation of artists in forlorn urban spaces is by no means a new phenomenon peculiar of our time. Ancien Régime courts used to accommodate scholars and artists in the rooms of aristocratic palaces, or in disused buildings. For example, when Versailles became the official dwelling of the French Court, two Parisian palaces deserted by the royal family were gradually handed over to artists and craftspeople. A number of studio apartments for artists were allowed between 1608 and 1806 in the Louvre, some of them near the stables, others above the Grande Galérie, while part of the abandoned Luxembourg Palace was offered to the painter Charles Parrocel in 1745. This practice became an established policy after the French Revolution. The Church of Cluny, the Chapel of the Sorbonne, the Convents of the Petits-Augustins, Carmes and Capucins, the Louvre and many empty palaces abandoned by the enemies of the Republic, were partly given to artists. One hundred years later the Bolshevik Revolution did the same in Russia. As much as this cultural practice was grounded on what Aloïs Riegl called the monument-value of some architectural heritage, this was perhaps a corollary of the fact that such buildings were in many cases the only sites available. Similarly, the re-use of abandoned buildings for museums has been a key cultural policy since the French Revolution, when many deserted aristocratic palaces and deconsecrated churches and monasteries were turned into art galleries. Of course, that was mainly a political move, by which spaces hitherto closed to the general public were opened to the citizens. Nevertheless, it is clear that such a policy contributed to the conservation of historic buildings threatened by ruin and disrepair. Such was the case of Alexandre Lenoir’s Musée des Monuments Français at the Petits-Augustins, and also of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers at the Abbey of St. Martin-des-Champs. This was soon emulated in the provinces in the locating of other well-known art museums. For example in Strasbourg the palace of the prince- bishops, in Dijon the palace of the earls of Bourgogne, in Lille the Recollets convent, in Toulouse the Augustins, in Reims the Abbey of St. Denis, in Arras that of St. Waast, in Lyon the Abbey St. Pierre and in Aix the Hospitaliers Priory. In nineteenth century France alone the list seems inexhaustible! But soon neighbouring countries followed suit, installing some of their most prestigious art museums in former palaces – like theFine Arts Museum of Brussels at the Ancienne Cour or the National Museum of Sculpture at the Barghello in Florence – or in ex-religious buildings – e.g. the Museo Nacional de la Trinidad in Madrid and the Germanisches Museum of Nüremberg.

Tacheles Cultural Centre in East Berlin: ruins of a bombed shopping mall now used by artists – photo: Jesús Pedro Lorente

Nevertheless, interesting as the above examples might be as historic precedents, it seems that the present vogue of bringing the arts into disused buildings is a new trend that started with the economic restructuring which took place after World War II. Entire inner-city industrial quarters born on the wake of early capitalism became obsolete and redundant, but their brick and cast iron buildings infested with rats, revealed themselves to be attractive to artists because the rent was cheap. Converted factories, workhouses, slaughterhouses, hangars, silos and warehouses allowed a modern return to the role of the artist as host of meetings, parties, debates and artistic ‘happenings’. These vast spaces made possible the creation of large-scale artworks, so typical of the artists of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and Minimalism. These pioneers in the reoccupation, legal or not, of such buildings during the 1950s and early 1960s New York, then emerging as world artistic Mecca, produced the most influential examples, like Andy Warhol’s Factory or the co-operatives of artists living in SoHo lofts promoted by George Maciunas and the Fluxus movement (Zukin, 1982; Simpson, 1981; Broner, 1986; Crane, 1987).

Thus, thanks to the initiative and vision of some social outcasts, jewels of a then devalued heritage of ‘industrial archaeology’ escaped destruction. The agitated new life of these places embodied the alternative culture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In Europe, as in the USA, former commercial/industrial capitals hosted famous examples of this urban fashion for art venues in alternative places: London (Albany Empire,Arts Lab, Middle Earth, Oval House, Round House), Amsterdam (Melkweg, Paradiso, Kosmos), Hamburg (Die Fabrik), Copenhagen (Huset) and Brussels (Ferme V). When a 19th-century hospital in Berlin was transformed in 1973-76 into Künstlerhaus Bethanien, a cultural centre and studios for artists, the re-use of warehouses and similar industrial edifices for artists’ studios had become a common policy. This was especially true of London, allegedly the city with the largest population of artists in Europe, where during the last twenty years hundreds of buildings have been converted by developers, artists’ co-operatives, and artists’ associations like SPACE, created in 1968, or ACME, established in 1972, (Williams, 1993; Jones, 1995). It has been primarily thanks to such well-established initiatives that ‘industrial archaeology’ sites with their huge brick-made vaults have become so much in vogue as a setting for artists.

Most interestingly, modern artists and art critics love these new kind of spaces, considering them as challenges to contemporary creation. Since 1983 there has existed a European network Trans Europe Halles, linking independent art centres installed in warehouses, market-halls, factories, etc. Membership now stands with around twenty or so members: Bloom (Mezzago, near Milan), City Arts Centre (Dublin), Confort Moderne (Poitiers), Halles de Schaerbeek (Brussels), Huset (Aarhus), Kaapelitehdas (Helsinki), Kultur Fabrik (Luxembourg), Kultur Fabrik (Koblenz), Kulturhuset (Bergen), L’Usine (Geneve), Mejeriet (Lund), Melkweg (Amsterdam), Moritzbastei (Leipzig), Retina (Ljubljana), Rote Fabrik (Zürich), The Junction (Cambridge), Ufa-Fabrik (Berlin), Vooruit (Gent), Waterfront (Norwich), W.U.K. (Vienna). A number of associated-members complement this register: Hôpital Ephemére(Paris), La Friche Belle de Mai (Marseilles), Ileana Tounta Art Center (Athens), Kulturhuset USF (Bergen), Mylos (Tessalonica), Multihus Tobaksfabrikken (Esbjerg), Noorderligt (Tilburg), Petöfi Csarnok (Budapest), Retina-Metelkova (Ljubljana), Tramway (Glasgow).

Richmond House in Hackney, London: a former garage now headquarters of MOMART and reused by the association SPACE for artists’ studios – photo: Jesús Pedro Lorente

Now we see the emergence of another European network, younger and with no name, rules or definition, linking artist-run organisations. Many of the groups and spaces belonging to it are situated in urban regeneration quarters – for example BBB in Toulouse, B16 in Birmingham, Catalyst Arts in Belfast, Cubitt in London, Peripherie in Tübingen, Purgatori in Valencia, Raum für Kunst in Graz, or Konstakuten in Stockholm.

A tale of two cities: Liverpool and Marseilles

The urban fabric of Liverpool and Marseilles is different from that of most European metropolises. A geographer consulting modern maps will find they are the capitals of two densely urbanised regions called Merseyside and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, but these correspond to the new administrative boundaries put into effect in Britain and France since the 1970s. In fact, neither Liverpool nor Marseilles had, historically, a subordinated hinterland, for one was part of Lancashire and the other used to depend on Aix. Similarly, a traveller approaching them by land or by sea will be misled by the typical silhouettes towering over their cityscapes, the Anglican and the Catholic cathedrals in one case, the Major cathedral and the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde in the other: actually, these are quite recent monuments. Liverpool received a charter as early as 1207 and Marseilles, established in 600 BC, can boast to be the oldest city in France, but neither of the two was an historic cathedral-city. Only in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did they become booming and massive cities. Subsequently, at the peak of British and French colonialism, they became the main ports for those embarking for the colonies, for the importation of raw materials from these colonies, and for the exportation of manufactured goods to them. Liverpool was designated, during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, with the sobriquet ‘Gateway to Empire’ and Marseilles was then nicknamed ‘Porte de l’Orient’. Accordingly, their most characteristic urban landmarks are the stone façades lavishly built on the main waterfront to accommodate the central headquarters of the navigation or insurance companies, and the functional brick-architecture of the docks and numerous warehouses which mushroomed in the vicinity of the port to keep stocks of cotton, timber, tobacco, sugar, food (Smith, 1953; Bailey & Millington, 1957; Sammarco & Morel, 1985 & 1988; Roncayolo, 1990;Aughton, 1993; Hughes, 1993).

These facilities became obsolete in the aftermath of World War II. The docks and railway goods terminals and warehouses were shut down by containerisation. Deeper waters, larger hangars and parking-sites were required instead of the old linear docks to locate bulk terminals, container ports and roll-on/roll-off methods of loading and unloading ships. Hence, in the 1960s and early 1970s, the MDHC (Mersey Docks and Harbour Company) and the DATAR (Délégation à l’Aménagement du Territoire et à l’Action Régionale) created concrete ports, gaining new access to the sea, in Seaforth and Fox-sur-Mer respectively (Hyde, 1971;Al Naib, 1991; Bonillo, 1991; Borruey, 1992; Borruey & Chaline, 1992; Brunier, 1993; Hughes, 1993; De Roo, 1994). Moreover, not only was the bulk of port-related activities transferred out of Liverpool’s and Marseilles’ city centres, but also the ownership of their merchant, industrial and food- processing business was taken over by international corporations based elsewhere. This became of great consequence for the present physical decay of both cities. The new political and economic realities in Europe did the rest. With the decolonisation process and the launching of the European Community, both cities have found themselves far from the new routes of wealth. Since Rotterdam acts as the central port of Europe, its more peripheral competitors have been condemned to languish in the backwaters and the urban effects of this are especially manifest in Liverpool and Marseilles, although this is also true in Catania, Genoa, Vigo, Bilbao, Bristol, Glasgow, Antwerp and Hamburg. Economic decline, unemployment, crime, depopulation, urban dereliction, political radicalism and social violence have been endemic in Liverpool and Marseilles since the world economic crisis of 1974, with particular virulence perhaps in the early 1980s (Cousins et al, 1980; O’Connor, 1986 & 1990; Becquart, 1994).

However, the shifting geography of macro-economics does not explain all the misfortunes of Liverpool and Marseilles. Neighbouring towns like Blackpool, Southport and Chester on the one hand, or Nice, Cannes and Arles on the other, enjoy a better fate, related to their popularity as tourist resorts and, increasingly, as retailing centres. But the counterpoint is still more striking when contrasting Liverpool and Marseilles to their great rivals, Manchester and Lyons; these traditional hubs of textile manufacturing have successfully overcome their post-industrial crisis to become fashionable for their tertiary sector. Thus, Liverpool and Marseilles are mainly suffering from a problem of poor self-image. Yet, no matter how strong the criticisms, it iscurious the level of attraction and personal attachment the two cities provoke amongst both locals and foreigners. They have a special charm; people might find them environmentally degraded, dirty, strident, dangerous, but never unattractive. There is a cultural dimension to this. Liverpool and Marseilles are vastly proletarian, cosmopolitan and multicultural cities. Their people are renowned in their respective countries for their vivacity, humour, strong clan loyalties... and for speaking a very peculiar English and French. All this is just commonplace, but is part of their glamour and cultural image (Baillon, 1989).

Recently, both cities developed a cluster of museums in areas of urban regeneration. A gallery of arts and crafts – Maison de l’Artisanat et des Métiers d’Art – was created in 1983 and located in Marseilles’ newly restored seventeenth century naval dockyard of galleys. Also in Marseilles, a new Gallery of Contemporary Art opened in 1993 in a modern building aping industrial architecture, while in Liverpool the former Midland Railways Goods Depot has been restored to house the Conservation Centre of the National Museums and Galleries of Merseyside. But I want to con...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Introduction
• Foreword
• General Introduction
• Contributors
• Section One - Women in Space
• Public Art: Between Public and Private
• Memory and Identity in the Urban Landscape:
• Regeneration or Reparation: Death, Loss and Absence
• Section Two - Divers[c]ities
• Tracing Gazes:Three Aspects of Paris
• Vistas of the Post-Industrial City
• Kidnapping the Bijlmer
• Art Neighbourhoods, Ports of Vitality
• The Snowflake in Hell andThe Baked Alaska:
• Section Three - On the Ground
• Window Sills: Art of Locality
• Colour Matching the Chameleon
• The Barry Job: Art, Sentiment and Commercialism
• Civic ParticipationWorkshops in Sant Adrià deBesòs: