James Stirling and the Tate Gallery Project in Albert Dock, Liverpool, 1982-88

El proyecto de James Stirling para adecuar el viejo almacén de Albert Dock para la Tate Gallery en Liverpool contenía dos niveles de intervención. El primero afectó a la intervención en su interior, que el arquitecto pudo desarrollar, coincidiendo en el tiempo con un momento de madurez personal y con el final de algunas obras claves de su trayectoria. Analizaremos las estrategias que Stirling utilizó para organizar el programa museístico, poner en valor la herencia estructural del proyecto de Jesse Hartley, sin renunciar a las mejores condiciones expositivas que la experiencia en el diseño de instalaciones similares le había permitido alcanzar. El segundo nivel de intervención, cuya propuesta fue rechazada y no pudo realizar, contemplaba el proyecto de nuevos accesos y conexiones con el viejo edificio. Fue una época en la que las autoridades estaban apostando por la readecuación y rehabilitación de toda la zona de los docks, de la que Albert Dock era y es la joya de la corona. Analizaremos los contenidos gráficos y escritos del irrealizado croquis de 1982 y veremos la aspiración de Stirling de vincular la visibilidad del museo con la propia historia de la ciudad y la arqueología vital de su propia memoria, planteando estrategias formales que, aun estando presentes en parte en otras obras, muestran una innovación que surge del diálogo con las arquitecturas y los paisajes preexistentes que sirven de soporte al proyecto.James Stirling’s project to adapt the abandoned Albert Dock warehouse for the Tate Gallery in Liverpool involved two levels of action. The first affected the inside of the building, a task that the architect was able to complete, coinciding in time with his personal maturity and with the completion of some key works in his career. We analyse the strategies Stirling used to organise the museum project, showcasing the structural legacy of Jesse Hartley’s project without renouncing the best exhibition conditions that his experience in designing similar premises had allowed him to reach. The second action level, one he could not bring to fruition because the proposal was rejected, contemplated new entrances to and connections with the old building. It was an era in which the authorities were focused on readapting and restoring the entire dock area, of which the Albert Dock was –and is– the crown jewel. We analyse the drawings and notes for the unachieved 1982 proposal, which reveal Stirling’s aspiration of linking the visibility of the museum with the city’s own history and the essential archaeology of his own memory. We can see how he formulated formal strategies that, although partially present in other works, show an innovation that arises from the dialogue with the pre–existing architectures and landscapes that anchor the project

Parkour and the city: the role of human mobility in place-making

The intention of this thesis is to frame the emerging discipline of parkour into the context of architectural research. The thesis takes into consideration a range of research methods including interviews, literature and film reviews, and filmmaking exercises. The subject of the documentary films produced for this study, are a series of tours of the city of Liverpool that are carried out by practitioners of parkour, so-called traceurs, and university architecture students. By using these tours of Liverpool as case studies, the research project provides a novel approach to understanding the multi-sensory qualities of urban spaces, and builds upon practices found within the emerging field of sensory-ethnography. These tours are used as a means to gather qualitative data that extends beyond verbal responses, as physical interactions between individuals and their surroundings are documented and analysed. The use of filmmaking techniques within this piece of research allows for it to build upon pre-existing practices found within the culture associated with parkour. By examining video filmmaking as a tool for documenting the relationship between traceurs and city spaces, this research study makes reference to the growth of the parkour movement via Internet based social networks and the proliferation of digital videos. The thesis concludes with a novel approach for understanding traceurs as an architectural figure, akin to the concept of the flâneur, which has significance for the interrogating multiple layers of meaning within contemporary urban space. The study also provides support for critically examining the development of subject knowledge and epistemological knowledge in relation to architecture and the body

Off-location film-related tourism and representations of a tourism destination’s place images, identities and history: the case of Hengdian

By the early 2000s, the concept of film-related tourism had gained momentum in the research area of tourism with the related knowledge obtained mostly from case studies (Connell 2012, 1012). The ‘impacts of film-related tourism’ is one of the major themes in this research area. However, previous research cases focus more on the natural and existing tourism sites with film-related elements or/and film-related tourism in ‘first-world countries’, such as the USA, the UK and Australia. The study of purpose-built and manufactured film-related tourism sites, i.e., off-location film-related tourism sites (Beeton 2005), in China, such as film studios and film-based theme parks, has not been fully investigated. Filling the research gap, this study sets the research focus on a Chinese film-related tourism destination — Hengdian Town, in which the world’s largest outdoor filming site and film studio theme park Hengdian World Studios is located. The overall aim of this study is to explore to what extent film-related tourism impacts a destination’s representations of its place images, identities and history. Employing the methods of ethnography, online and offline interviews, and an online questionnaire, data and information were collected from different sources. Through analysing these data and information, this thesis can provide empirical contributions to the research area of film-related tourism. Based on the case of Hengdian, the results and findings in this research suggest that film-related tourism can economically, socio-culturally, and environmentally influence a tourism destination’s place images, identities and history in both positive and negative aspects. The study demonstrates a range of existing impacts brought by film-related tourism that have appeared and acted on the destination of Hengdian. Also, it suggests a number of possible opportunities and risks that Hengdian may meet in future if it constantly develops its film-related tourism. The major contributions of this study are shown in five aspects. Firstly, this research develops an understanding of film-related tourism in China and the impacts of film-related tourism on a Chinese tourism destination through looking at different research themes in this study area. Secondly, this research demonstrates the contents and characteristics of off-location film-related tourism in China. Thirdly, it also indicates the similarities and differences between on-location and off-location film-related tourism and highlights how special Hengdian’s off-location film-related tourism is in this study area. Fourthly, this research indicates the value and significance of applying the term ‘film-related tourism’ to define and describe tourists’ journeys to film-related tourism destinations. Finally, beyond the case study, this research contributes to the understanding of film-related tourism on a broader level and sense

Remaking the Voyage

‘Who ever thought they would one day be able to read Malcolm Lowry’s fabled novel of the 1930s and 40s, In Ballast to the White Sea? Lord knows, I didn’t’ – Michael Hofmann, TLS This book breaks new ground in studies of the British novelist Malcolm Lowry (1909–57), as the first collection of new essays produced in response to the publication in 2014 of a scholarly edition of Lowry’s ‘lost’ novel, In Ballast to the White Sea. In their introduction, editors Helen Tookey and Bryan Biggs show how the publication of In Ballast sheds new light on Lowry as both a highly political writer and one deeply influenced by his native Merseyside, as his protagonist Sigbjørn Hansen-Tarnmoor walks the streets of Liverpool, wrestling with his own conscience and with pressing questions of class, identity and social reform. In the chapters that follow, renowned Lowry scholars and newer voices explore key aspects of the novel and its relation to the wider contexts of Lowry’s work. These include his complex relation to socialism and communism, the symbolic value of Norway, and the significance of tropes of loss, hauntings and doublings. The book draws on the unexpected opportunity offered by the rediscovery of In Ballast to look afresh at Lowry’s oeuvre, to ‘remake the voyage’

The Boggart Sourcebook

Comprising three parts, this book is a companion volume to The Boggart: Folklore, History, Place-Names and Dialect. Part one, ‘Boggart Ephemera’, is a selection of about 40,000 words of nineteenth-century boggart writing (particularly material that is difficult to find in libraries). Part two presents a catalogue of ‘Boggart Names’ (place-names and personal names, totalling over 10,000 words). Finally, part three contains the entire ‘Boggart Census’ – a compendium of ground-breaking grassroots research. This census includes more than a thousand responses, totalling some 80,000 words, from older respondents in the north-west of England, to the question: ‘What is a boggart?’ The Boggart Sourcebook will be of interest to folklorists, historians and dialect scholars. It provides the three corpora on which the innovative monograph, The Boggart, is based

The Boggart Sourcebook

Comprising three parts, this book is a companion volume to The Boggart: Folklore, History, Place-Names and Dialect. Part one, ‘Boggart Ephemera’, is a selection of about 40,000 words of nineteenth-century boggart writing (particularly material that is difficult to find in libraries). Part two presents a catalogue of ‘Boggart Names’ (place-names and personal names, totalling over 10,000 words). Finally, part three contains the entire ‘Boggart Census’ – a compendium of ground-breaking grassroots research. This census includes more than a thousand responses, totalling some 80,000 words, from older respondents in the north-west of England, to the question: ‘What is a boggart?’ The Boggart Sourcebook will be of interest to folklorists, historians and dialect scholars. It provides the three corpora on which the innovative monograph, The Boggart, is based

The organization of repairs to roads and utility supplies damaged by bombing in England during the Second World War

The ‘home front’ in Britain during the Second World War holds an enduring place in the cultural life of this country. It has been widely studied in both popular and academic histories. One aspect that has received particular attention is the Blitz, when Britain’s towns and cities were subjected to sustained aerial bombing from late 1940. The way in which the country’s response to the Blitz has been understood has shifted over the years, moving from a homogenous view that citizens all pulled together and stoically carried on to a more nuanced view that takes account of differences such as geography, gender, or class. Studies of the Blitz tend to emphasise certain iconic elements, including ARP wardens, fire-fighters, and the evacuation of children. One aspect of the Blitz not widely covered is repairs to roads and utility supplies (water, gas, electricity, telecommunications) damaged in air raids. The aim of this study is to address this gap by looking to understand how repairs were carried out and the organisations that were involved. To do so, a case study approach was adopted to examine repairs in three cities: London, Coventry, and Liverpool. Research was carried out in city archives, focussed on the records of chief engineer departments and council emergency committees, supplemented with press reporting and existing oral history recordings, and using records from Government ministries and from the wartime civil defence regions.This study places repair work within the context of wider civil defence, concluding that repairs had been part of ARP arrangements from the outset, arguing that they have been overlooked because repairs were part of life before and after the war, rather than being wartime-only arrangements. The research findings for this study suggest that what happened after bombs had dropped in terms of repair organisations and procedures was intimately connected to central/local government relations

Railways, land-use planning and urban development : 1948-94.

The aim of this thesis was to bridge a gap in the research literature with regard to commentary on and evaluation of the relationship between British land-use planning and the management and development of the railway network in the years between 1948-94 when British railways were in public ownership. Although the research was focused on the nationalised main line system, it reviewed other rail systems where this was helpful to the analysis.The research utilised a review of the relationship between the railway network and urban form in the years to 1947 to derive analytical criteria and to serve as a point of departure for the core of the thesis. The overall relationship between the two sectors post-1948 was explored, at a broad geographical scale, with regard to institutional relationships, policy, and outcomes with regard to the spatial relationships between the railway network and patterns of urban form. The results of this research were used to derive hypotheses about the relationships which were then tested in a case study of the Manchester conurbation.The main conclusions are that there were few periods between 1948-94 when the ideological, institutional and policy frameworks necessary for a close and positive relationship between the planning and railway sectors were in place simultaneously. The contexts which were most favourable were with regard to: the location of new towns and town expansion projects in the South East in 1950s and 1960s; the improvement of railway networks in the PTE areas between 1968-79 along with the development of strategic policies for the restriction of major trip generators to CBDs; the period between 1985-94 when a surge in the property market was accompanied by BR Sectorisation, investment in other forms of fixed track transit, and the promotion of major development projects at and around stations, especially in CBDs.The research concludes by identifying opportunities for further historical research and briefly reviewing the relevance of the findings to contemporary research