I hope those of you who came on the walk yesterday enjoyed it- despite the cold- and learned a lot about Victorian London. One of the most interesting aspects, I think, is that the 'past city' we toured is still very much 'present', many buildings remain (even if they have been turned into luxury apartments) and the ghosts of the Victorain city remain just around every corner. On the topic of ghosts and the dead, if any of you are interested in the crossbones cemetary, the paupers grave that we visited in Red Cross Street, please see the link below:
http://www.crossbones.org.uk/
Sorry I had to dash off halfway through the walk. I had to make it to University of Surrey at Guildford where I was giving a seminar on my research in the Parisian banlieues (housing estates), with my colleague Dr David Garbin. My research on this topic links very clearly with our next topic on urban outcasts. As such, I provide some history of La Courneuve and the 'Cite des 4000' where we carried out our research. This is taken from the seminar that we gave yesterday. It will give you a flavour of what is to come on monday. And of course, it's also relevant because we will be watching a French film- La Haine. See link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Haine
From our seminar:
"La Courneuve is a banlieue (suburb) situated on the northeastern periphery of Paris in the Seine-Saint-Denis département (‘le 93’). It is part of what is known as the ‘red belt’ of Parisian suburbs because of their historical association with the communist party, due in no small part to the concentration of industry in this region. In fact, despite high rates of unemployment in La Courneuve, the town still has a communist mayor to this day.
Why was it built? During the post-war period nearby Paris struggled to meet the housing demands of its rapidly rising workforce. The housing shortage was exacerbated by the arrival of around a million ‘pieds noirs’ (returning French settlers from Algeria) in 1962. Consequently, La Courneuve like other suburbs of the city that at the time resembled a slum or shantytown was designated a ‘Zone à Urbaniser en Priorité’ (ZUP), an ‘area to be urbanised quickly’.
Industrial techniques that maximised size, speed and density for minimum cost were used to build large, dense housing estates on the peripheries of Paris. Designs were utilitarian and inspired by Le Corbusier’s pronouncement that houses were mere ‘machines for living in’ (machines à vivre). This rather prescriptive view fitted with the tradition of the paternalistic and also hygienist French state. This belief in the urban solution encouraged the mechanised construction of repetitive and monotonous estates that almost made architectural input redundant.
The largest of these housing projects, including les 4000 became known as the grands ensembles. The quatre mille in La Courneuve, so-called because it contains 4000 housing units, is one of the grands ensembles. Finally, by 1975 France had built enough dwellings to be in balance with the number of households-some achievement. Yet these quantifiable housing ‘successes’ would cause huge social strains in the 1980s and beyond."
Later this week, I'll post something about the banlieues riots of 2005. The picture above is of the CRS (riot police) outside one of the buildings in the estate that we based our research.
Why was it built? During the post-war period nearby Paris struggled to meet the housing demands of its rapidly rising workforce. The housing shortage was exacerbated by the arrival of around a million ‘pieds noirs’ (returning French settlers from Algeria) in 1962. Consequently, La Courneuve like other suburbs of the city that at the time resembled a slum or shantytown was designated a ‘Zone à Urbaniser en Priorité’ (ZUP), an ‘area to be urbanised quickly’.
Industrial techniques that maximised size, speed and density for minimum cost were used to build large, dense housing estates on the peripheries of Paris. Designs were utilitarian and inspired by Le Corbusier’s pronouncement that houses were mere ‘machines for living in’ (machines à vivre). This rather prescriptive view fitted with the tradition of the paternalistic and also hygienist French state. This belief in the urban solution encouraged the mechanised construction of repetitive and monotonous estates that almost made architectural input redundant.
The largest of these housing projects, including les 4000 became known as the grands ensembles. The quatre mille in La Courneuve, so-called because it contains 4000 housing units, is one of the grands ensembles. Finally, by 1975 France had built enough dwellings to be in balance with the number of households-some achievement. Yet these quantifiable housing ‘successes’ would cause huge social strains in the 1980s and beyond."
Later this week, I'll post something about the banlieues riots of 2005. The picture above is of the CRS (riot police) outside one of the buildings in the estate that we based our research.
If anyone's interested in the Victorian slums that we learned about today (and the first lecture) I really recommend a book called 'The People Of The Abyss' by Jack London. It's quite short... the author basically lived in the East End slums posing as a poor person in 1902, and saw some quite shocking things! He talks about crime displacement, and how the slums breed criminality etc. And reading it's kind of like spying. Anyway really recommend it.
ReplyDeleteAlso if anyone's interested there's a documentary on channel 4 ('Tower Block Of Commons) where 4 MPs try to survive living on council estates. They're quite pathetic. Anyway you can watch the first ep here http://www.channel4.com/programmes/tower-block-of-commons/4od#series-1
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