THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUES I — II — III — IV
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Designed by Designed by Osman & Stephen Osman Andrew www.andrewosman.co.uk www.stephenosman.co.uk Published by Published by Made That We www.wemadethat.co.uk Many thanks to all our contributors Many thanks to all our contributors work their hard for THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 2 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 3
is to record and explore the familiar, the transitory nature of the area for the High Street 2012 Historic Buildings Officer and to celebrate and speculate on the present day commuter. for Tower Hamlets Council, also gives possibilities that lie in its future. Expanding outwards from this critical us his personal perspective on some of In our first issue, ‘Survey’, we focus on highway, articles from Ruth Beale and the restoration works that form part the existing nature of the High Street. Clare Cumberlidge reveal the tight mesh of the wider heritage remit of the High Olympic Park Our contributors have been invited from of social, cultural, ethnic and economic Street 2012 initiative. Whitechapel Market a wide range of disciplines: they have fabric that surrounds the High Street in may hold new delights for you once you Holly Lewis, We Made That watched, read, analysed, photographed Aldgate and Wentworth Street. Such have imagined the stallholders as part of and illustrated the High Street to bring to hidden links and ties are further elaborated a life-sized ‘Happy Families’ card game, Stratford Welcome to Issue I of The Unlimited you a collection of articles as varied, by Esme Fieldhouse and Stephen Mackie, as Hattie Haseler has done, or considered Ω Ω Edition. Welcome to the A11, to Aldgate, detailed and enjoyable as the area itself. who weave a mysterious fiction involving a locally guided bus tour. Whitechapel High Street, Whitechapel Historian, Derek Morris, describes two characters both intertwined and As with any survey, something is Road, Mile End Road, Bow Road and to for us the scene that would have awaited fundamentally separated by the fabric bound to be missed: the photo you just Stratford High Street. Welcome to High an eighteenth century traveller arriving of the High Street. didn’t take, a dimension you didn’t realise Ω Stratford High Street Street 2012. to the area. Some aspects are still With this paper we hope to draw your you would need. We can not hope to This stretch of road is an arterial familiar – The Grave Maurice pub having attention to aspects of the High Street accurately map the High Street, but we Victoria Park route for many Londoners and visitors. kept its name for over 250 years. Others, that you might otherwise have missed. do hope that this issue of The Unlimited STRATFORD Millions travel along it, and for over 300 such as a local 40 acre fruit nursery that Artmusic have provided us with just such Edition will represent a fragment of the Pudding Mill Lane Ω HIGH STREET years it has been an important route to was supplier to King Charles II, are more a diversion, a survey of local bells, whose diversity of this vibrant route. We hope and from the capital. The Unlimited Edition surprising. Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad’s pervasive nature might cause you to think you will agree that it is a worthy subject is a super-local newspaper focused purely fascinating part-documentary, part-fiction twice next time you pass the renowned for your attention, and deserves more on this strand of London. The intention image on page 8, updates depictions of Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Ben Pearce, consideration than a just fleeting visit. Three Mills Green
Ω Bow Church Ω Bow Road Bromley-by-Bow Ω Mile End that used to be a manufacturer Ω Mile End of plastics; the pound-store in Whitechapel
BOW ROAD that used to be a boys club and a lecture hall; the corner building in Aldgate many Stepney Green Ω assumed was always white-rendered was MILE END ROAD revealed to be bright red brick underneath; the ‘historic edge of a common’ that Whitechapel Ω was actually an ornamental garden; the department store that was once the Royal London Mile End Aldgate Hospital Park ‘Selfridges of the East’… East Ben Pearce, Historic Buildings Officer, Many small shops tell me they face a Ω WHITECHAPEL ROAD Tower Hamlets Council fight for survival. It is quite understandable sometimes that business owners say that WHITECHAPEL High streets are real places – resilient, the historic nature of their building is a HIGH STREET adaptable, and a living story of the different burden that they can ill afford to keep up. communities that live there, trade there Their buildings and shops have been and shop there. Buildings that were once purchased as places of commerce, and ALDGATE loved are now dilapidated and have lost though individuals might be interested in ‘Proposition’ respectively. The papers their sense of identity; but sometimes local history from a personal perspective, are intended to reveal surprising aspects buildings that spent years being bland the fact that they are old buildings of the existing and explore enjoyable and unnoticed have been restored to their remains a drawback. opportunities for the high street. A former glory; as businesses have come final issue in June 2012, ‘Collation’ will and gone. combine the previous papers into a I believe unravelling the history of “The history and set that together will form a unique the high street is key to its future success. documentation of the local area. Why do people go to the high street any heritage of This newspaper, The Unlimited Edition, is We have invited a wide range of more? Is it still that convenient? Isn’t it our high street part of the High Street 2012 Initiative. High guest writers, artists, urban designers better to go a mall, get it all in one place, Street 2012 is an ambitious programme and community members to contribute convenient and sheltered? I don’t believe should be its to enhance and celebrate the ribbon of creative snapshots to these papers. it is – and I believe that the historical biggest asset” London life that connects the City at Through this open and collaborative nature of our high streets is the integral Aldgate to the Olympic Park at Stratford. method of content collection, The reason people want to go there. The project combines a series of area- Unlimited Edition encourages you to look The A11 is a series of historic town based initiatives that respond to specific again at the familiar, at a route that is so centre high streets that have gradually Even with the offer of building grants, places along the route with street often travelled and so rarely celebrated. become one – bringing together a wide some people will not want to take part. actions that cover the whole stretch to The Unlimited Edition is curated range of commerce on a key trading route Indeed many owners see any works to create a coherent thread that unites the by We Made That. All three initial issues between the city and the east, the central their buildings as a potential disruption to intersecting high streets. of the paper will be distributed for free and the docks. their trade and therefore a potential Over the summer months of 2011 we on High Street 2012 in late summer 2011. As industries have become obsolete, cost to themselves. The Historic Buildings are publishing three issues of this paper Full sets of all four issues: ‘Survey’, demand has changed, old communities Conservation Scheme, as part of High specifically dedicated to High Street 2012. ‘Speculation’, ‘Proposition’ and ‘Collation’ moved on and new ones taken their place, Street 2012, aims to change this view. © All rights reserved. No part of this publication Each issue is focused around one of will also be available to order from these high street hubs have been adapted The benefit of looking after historic may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or the themes ‘Survey’, ‘Speculation’ and June 2012 at www.wemadethat.co.uk a huge number of times, sometimes well, high streets ‘I think’ needs to be seen in the by any means without prior permission in writing from the editors. Every possible effort has been sometimes badly. With the emphasis on long term and not the short term – every made to locate and credit copyright holders of successful trading original shop-fronts, small contribution and bit of care to the the material reproduced in this publication. architectural features and nuances have high street helps it stay robust in the face The editors apologise for any omissions or errors, been lost over time. We now have a of increased competition from out of town which can be corrected in future issues. The views unique chance to put some of these back. malls and internet shopping. The history expressed in this paper are those of the individual authors and do not represent opinions of the Care and repair of buildings reveals and heritage of our high streets should be editors or funders of this project. Whitechapel High Street, © Tower Hamlets Local History & Archive Library many hidden stories. The grocery store in its biggest asset not its biggest hindrance. 4 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 5
Helen Ottaway, introduces the project we use it for prayer, for celebration, for been out on the High Street checking out and tells us what to expect in the coming mourning – and bells make music. some of the bells that are visible from the months leading up to June 2012. Ring Ring Bell is an exploration of street. The Ring Ring Bell music and the Church bells – bicycle bells – door bells along the High Street documenting ring tone will be available in May 2012 and bells – bus bells – hand bells – shop bells – and recording their sounds and their uses, the project will culminate in a procession Helen Ottaway, Artmusic telephone bells – finger bells – ankle bells their stories and histories. Bells of all sizes of bells in June 2012. – boxing ring bells – school bells – the bell and from different cultures will combine There will be many ways for people to The Ring Ring Bell project by Artmusic is everywhere and has many functions and together in a new audio work and a ring get involved in the project from sharing forms part of of the High Street 2012 meanings: it punctuates our daily life tone to be created. a bell story or contributing a bell sound, Heritage, Culture and Community Grants announcing beginnings and ends; it is used The project will start in earnest in to taking part in the final performance or programme. In this article lead artist, to attract attention or sound a warning; January 2012 but the company have already simply by using the ring tone.
Thomas Rowlandson, ‘Entrance from Mile End or Whitechapel Turnpike’, 1798
trying to make their way into London, and reap the Fruit of your own Folly for going shop keepers whose yard entrances were to such wicked Places.’ blocked up by intransigent waggoners. Modern tourist guides like to emphasise A young labourer from Essex on his the association of Whitechapel with the first visit to London would have been famous highwayman Dick Turpin but amazed at the variety of entertainment never mention the millionaire merchants, and found himself subject to a variety knights of the realm and Fellows of the of pressures in Whitechapel. There were Royal Society that lived in Whitechapel. theatres and bowling greens, brothels There were wealthy Scandinavian merchants importing timber, tar and hemp The shops catered for every need from from the Baltic and brewers and sail cloth Derek Morris, Historian clothing to food and the supply of luxury “For a glass of merchants supplying the Royal Navy. goods such as gold watches and silver So Whitechapel High Street has three A thirsty traveller from Stratford, Southend cups and candlesticks and catered for beer, a tot of gin hundred years of history to celebrate or Harwich arriving at Mile End in 1800 the increasingly fashionable tea drinking or a glass of starting with the royal gardener to entered a four-mile long area of retail rituals of the middle class. King Charles II. In his 40 acre nursery in therapy that stretched along Whitechapel Dominating the High Street was Spanish wine there Whitechapel Nicholas Gurle supplied High Street through Aldgate to Cheapside, the largest hay market in England that were over one the king, Samuel Pepys and other gentry St Paul’s Cathedral and the Strand. On each survived until the 1920s. with twelve varieties of peach, two of side of the High Street soared three and By the 1750s the Whitechapel hay hundred taverns nectarine, eight of plum, eight of pear, four-storeyed houses, shops and taverns, market had spread along the south side of to choose from” three of cherry, three of apple, two a mighty contrast to the low houses and the High Street, from the northern end of apricot and one quince. Not bad for a hovels in Essex and Suffolk. Also impressive of Leman Street, to the eastern boundary supposedly smoky suburb downwind from were the London Hospital, Davenant’s of the City of London, a distance of the City of London. School and the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. several hundred yards. The market was and the haunts of homosexuals. At night As most travellers arrived by horse open three days a week. In the spring and there were many cases of men being the immediate need for stabling was met summer the market was open from 7am robbed whilst ‘cherry merry’ in Whitechapel Derek Morris is a noted historian and speaker of London’s eastern parishes in the eighteenth in the fields near The Hayfield tavern and until 3pm, but closed an hour earlier in High Street. Typically young women century. His latest book ‘Whitechapel, 1600 – 1800; the White Horse in Mile End. For a glass the winter months. would invite young men ‘into a house, A Social History’, will be published later this year of beer, a tot of gin or a glass of Spanish Probably over 100 hay waggons would offer them a drink and ask them to stay by the East London History Society. His earlier and wine there were over one hundred taverns have rumbled through the night from the night.’ As the victims could seldom very popular books include ‘Wapping 1600 – 1800, to choose from in Whitechapel and Essex and Hertfordshire in order to claim remember in the morning what had A Social History’, written with Ken Cozens, which was published in 2009 and ‘Mile End Old Town, amongst those whose names have survived a prime position in the middle of the been stolen the courts were not very 1740 – 1780; A Social History’, which was published for over 250 years is The Grave Maurice High Street. Inevitably this led to parking sympathetic; and would tell the victims in 2007. All his books have been published by The Bells from the High Street. Images: Frances Ottaway near the Royal London Hospital. problems and conflicts with travellers ‘If you have no other evidence you must East London History Society. 6 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 7
country. The demographic profile of the Key MAPPING OF area is young. There is a low provision of WEEKDAY EVENING USES open space per head of population, and Site Boundary Spitalfields relatively little targeted for young people. ALQ"19DD Whitechapel The evening / night-time economy is Market These contrasts amount in places to GEE=J;A9D Liverpool Street represented largely by pubs, bars and stark separation with little sign of com- Residential Station restaurants, within the City, and in mon ground. Differences between the Healthcare particular in Brick Lane. The Whitechapel two areas have been exaggerated by the Education and Toynbee Studios are both active in The area around Aldgate is character- disruption caused by the gyratory, to the Markets the evening (the former once a week, as a ised by employment use to the west and extent that they have come to be seen as JLK" " MDLMJ= part of the ‘First Thursdays’ late opening residential uses to the east. This forms two totally disparate and distinct areas. Retail programme), but with little else open in the basis for marked contrast across the However, the reality of Aldgate’s Wholesale the immediate vicinity to serve (or benefit area, although the reality of how people social dynamics is less clear-cut and more GEEMFALQ from) these institutions’ visitors. live and work here is more nuanced. The interdependent than might be assumed. Leisure The streets animated by the detail of these use patterns has been A number of the workers and residents 9AL@ Petticoat Lane street market in the day carefully explored in the Aldgate Public cross this ‘border’ on a daily basis: Hotels / Bars / Restaurants are quiet, and do not support evening Realm Strategy, which reveals hidden n" ALQ"OGJC=JK""J=KA<=FLK">JGE"L@=" Transport Stations uses at present (unlike e.g. Chapel Street links between these apparently divided Portsoken Ward using local Tower Hamlets’ Market in Islington). The routes from the areas of London. An excerpt of the study retail, ameneties and the East London north vary in the degree of activity they has been included here. Mosque and madrassas in the east. support, and consequently in terms of .@=" ALQ"G>"&GF
'**#( ") " MAPPING OF WEEKDAY DAYTIME USES SUNDAY USES Spitalfields Spitalfields Whitechapel Whitechapel Market Market Liverpool Street )F"9"O==C<9Q "L@=" ALQ" JAF?=":=LO==F" Liverpool Street With the City quiet at weekends, street Station Bishopsgate and Whitechapel High Street Station markets animate the City Fringe on is both active and diverse. The major Sundays, stretching from Petticoat Lane institutions of London Metropolitan to Broadway Market, via Brick Lane and University, the Whitechapel, and Toynbee Columbia Road (although the street market Hall / Studios are all open, the street market at Whitechapel is closed). Spitalfields at Petticoat Lane (Wentworth Street) is Market and the Truman Brewery have active. The connections northwards successfully inserted themselves into this to Liverpool Street, Spitalfields Market Sunday network. Petticoat Lane takes and Brick Lane are well-peopled and over much of Middlesex Street on Sundays, appear safe. but market activity stops short of the There is a noticeable drop-off in Aldgate / Whitechapel High Street. secondary diversity south of Aldgate / The market activity supports some 1@AL=;@9H=D"!A?@"-LJ==L"9F<" GEE=J;A9D" retail opening and cafes / restaurants. Road, with the Tower of London’s 1.9 Toynbee Studios and the Whitechapel are million visitors per year having little visible open, and have a high footfall. AEH9;L"GF"K=JNA;=K"AF"L@="9J=9 " GF;=JF" was expressed by residents in consultation for the Aldgate Masterplan over the lack of retail diversity; however the retail provision along Whitechapel Road, to This study is taken from the Aldgate Public Realm the east of Osborn Street, appears to be Stragegy, authored by General Public Agency slowly becoming more diverse. and Witherford Watson Mann and completed in 2009. It was funded by Exemplar Properties and the lead public sector client was Design for London. Tower of Tower of London London The larger client group comprised of London Borough Tower Hamlets, Corporation of London, London Metropolitan University, Transport for London and Whitechapel Art Gallery. General Public Agency was run by Clare Cumberlidge and Lucy Musgrave, now of Clare Cumberlidge & Co and Publica respectively. © General Public Agency and Witherford Watson Mann 8 THE UNLIMITED EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY THE UNLIMITED EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY 9
Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, ‘Orderly Conduct London: (Untitled)’, 2010 10 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 11
in the regeneration propagated by High political events, historic character and Street 2012, and in the current moment recent cultural changes; identification “The surveys of thinking in urbanism which values of landmarks, character and desire lines. existing strengths, addresses need, and We also include creative approaches and always throw Ruth Beale, Publica celebrates character rather than trying to have engaged artists to organise walking up surprises” replace it. tours with local residents and recently ”The main characteristic of the area is At Publica we run a Community added a filmmaker to our team in order to its mixture … Its component parts are Interest Company and consultancy through create video portraits of surveyed areas. scattered widely, yet the area is compact. which we conduct detailed surveys to We conduct interviews and walks daily west-east to attend prayer at the When looked at closely it is rather like a attempt to understand the physical, social, with local people in order to understand East London Mosque. For a wider-area newspaper photograph, all random dots cultural and symbolic landscape of their ideas, aspirations and frustrations survey around a site on the border of and seemingly without reason … Land places, often where change is anticipated with the area. We also look at nearby Spitalfields and Aldgate the Publica team tenure is mixed with freehold, long and or planned. Our team of architects, urban streets and public spaces, and research documented the extent of privately short leasehold and tenancies all jumbled designers, planners, researchers and artists relevant case studies in order to highlight controlled ‘public space’. During a survey together. There are no single areas of gather and analyse extensive information appropriate and successful public spaces. of Aldgate for London Metropolitan consolidated land ownership. Much about a given area, from the physical These approaches, whilst continually University we identified a super-local investment has taken place in new building to the personal to the statistical. Our evolving, initially grew out of the ‘Social condition where some residents live, work in the past twenty years and this too has combination of design advice, engagement, and Cultural Survey’ methodology devel- and shop in a very confined area – with been piecemeal, cheek-by-jowl with older research and strategising is an unusual oped by Lucy Musgrave (Publica Director) differing social, cultural economic and worn out property.” — Michael Theis service, but we pride ourselves on retaining and Clare Cumberlidge whilst co-directors health implications. the same integrity of approach for of General Public Agency (see work on Change is inevitable in any city and This is a quote is from a 1971 Redevelopment each client, whether developers, local pages 6 and 14). A Social and Cultural in the neighbourhoods along High Street Study of nearby South Shoreditch, which authorities, third sector organisations or Survey of Aldgate was the basis for 2012, but the challenge is for development concluded that the existing buildings should community members. General Public Agency’s Aldgate Public to be respectful and contribute positively. not be pulled down (as planned) but that Our survey methods range from Realm Strategy on page 6, which in turn It’s right that developers now have to it was sufficient, characterful and wholly ‘fine grain’ analysis of roads, paving, informed Design for London’s brief for deliver regeneration as well as develop- adaptable. Instead what was needed was architecture and character; information- High Street 2012. ment, but with that comes a responsibility ‘to improve the amenity, convenience and gathering about how and how much a The surveys always throw up surprises. to respect existing neighbourhoods. So efficiency of these areas of employment place is used at different times of the day; In Aldgate, General Public Agency if a survey can be a starting point of a and thus foster and enhance the prosperity mapping of cultural, retail and community discovered that despite a historic ‘cliff- conversation about a place before change of the many businesses and their work provision; research into the history of edge’ condition dividing the City and is even considered, then it can help the people’. A resurgence of spirit is reflected the area such as demographic fluctuations, Tower Hamlets, thousands of people travel neighbourhood to come first.
exactly who they are. Taka is right in Years spent in pursuit of splaying paths, skyscrapers, which gushes blue-brown the thick of it. He cocoons himself within burying the shared blood and naive through the streets of Dhaka. Travelling the comfort of a tight knit community experiences beyond view. Lives were once on two wheels from the City of Mosques so that he might be everyone’s friend. piled atop one and other, now they tilt to The City mosque, and back again. The tip of Brick Lane, leading to a strip at either end of a see-saw. A blur of moving blue lights interrupts of professional welcomes. Whereas Taka and Poisha happen to be money the quiet pause just after the small hours, Poisha is out on a limb, consciously so, exchange shops. Seemingly banal office just before early workers. All awake at a Esme Fieldhouse & for just enough space to be allowed the types - desks, chairs, filing cabinets, tower composed of blue rectangles in the Stephen Mackie opportunity to be introspective. Giving wall calendars - yet filled with tales of middle of the road, where either end is little away with tunnel vision towards the adventures, and part of a topography brought together. Taka is ill, a devastating Tonight, there is an encounter between family. Whitechapel where it starts to that stretches to the other side of the tear in the routine of normality. The two unlikely characters. Or rather, two change its mind. world. Trade is embedded in the tarmac reason is not a lifetime of self-indulgence characters who do not like each other Taka and Poisha use the street as a here, which unfolds and wraps itself or reckless attitude to health. Instead, much. There was a family feud some time tool to remain a world apart. But a larger around the tea leaves of north-eastern it is something that was there all along, ago. Though it was not quite so dramatic, force binds them together, tugging at the Bangladesh. The exchange of money runs squeezing ever-tightly. more a slow gathering of absence that invisible wires that pull the traffic through. along a streak of blue paint between Taka needs a piece of strength from We are seeking articles for future issues Proposals may be informative, revealing, quietly stacked up. So high, it formed While Taka gazes upwards to minarets another body to survive. It must be of The Unlimited Edition. The newspapers outlandish, or hopefully all of these. a barrier between Taka and Poisha. An among the silk weavers, Poisha curls up someone with an ingrained bond; Poisha occasion missed here or there because beneath the cross. A call for Taka to join “Part of a topography knows it must be him. He does not feel will include speculation about the High of a lack of anticipation and then at one like-minded others at the meeting place. the family connection anymore, he has Street and proposals for its future. Please send article proposals to: point, it just tipped. The history became One curious offspring of Poisha occasionally that stretches to the carved himself a sense of belonging arbitrary. Enough distance for some peers over to this exotic character, other side of the world. where he is happy; he still knows it must [email protected] abstract resentment to be convincing. immersed in the centre of activity. be him. Through bleary eyes, he sees Taka and Poisha are not geographically The disparate pair is tied by more Trade is embedded in with great clarity a character that lives distant. They live on the same street in than this road, for they are relatives. This the tarmac here” on the same street. And for this reason fact – at either end of Whitechapel Road. would be difficult to spot of course, their alone, the interests of Taka are not foreign The exact point where each lives defines personalities are laughably in opposition. to Poisha’s own concern. 12 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 13
heroin in the UK. There were massive whole area has really been subjected to that has a dedication to King Leopold II of is just up there next to the canal, and gangs on this estate, and people that the most ruthless regeneration schemes. Belgium – which is not nice. that was one of the first galleries to move I knew that were squatting it found it And there’s a number of late 20th to the east end and really started up a really difficult to do anything there DM: I would just agree with what Laura Century student halls of residence by community of small run gallery spaces because there were security guards says. Stylistically the Ocean Estate is various workhorses of the British archi- including Interim, on Beck Road, who going round with dogs everyday, and quite remarkable for being possibly the tecture scene. And a few spots of flam- started off on Martello Street in Hackney there were gangs attacking the squats. widest selection of architecture, housing boyant 21st century digital architecture but has now moved over here. My friends had to argue with some of architecture, in 20th Century history, as well, which are not particularly great the indigenous Sylheti population that as Laura says, from the 1930s through to but show a wide variety. DM: Is the green bridge considered a good actually the early Sylheti settlers were contemporary stuff. Not much stuff that thing? It’s frequently considered a ‘good squatting those areas around Parfett you’d be proud of as an architect to be DM: The People’s Palace used to be on thing’, in inverted commas. The brief was Street and Myrdle Street too. So there honest – but there you go. the left, but it was demolished in the mid originally just for a bridge but the project was a kind of lineage and history of 20th century. This yellow bridge we’re developed into a much more interesting radical direct action. DM: This was once the site of Walter approaching was designed by the architect park with shops and so on. Overall there’s A lot of residents of the Ocean Besant’s ‘People’s Palace’, which was an Piers Gough in the late 1990s, which is very little you can fault with it – it’s not Estate were, to use that horrible word, iron and glass building which was built by part of a linear park that joins up Mile End really done anyone any harm. ‘decanted’ to areas like Barking and Walter Besant for the people of Mile End. park with the Limehouse cut and other However this neighbourhood, Mile End Dagenham. There were compulsory He was a writer – a Victorian writer, who such locations. in particular, has changed a lot. There’s purchase orders as well, where people drew attention to the plight of the urban been an influx of various middle class were given very low value for the flats. poor in the east end. A very classic 19th LOF: It’s meant to form the link in the people who don’t want to live in Hackney So essentially to get the same size century type character! ‘green chain’, but it’s never really been used. or Dalston. There’s a lot of students and property they’d have to move up north, And then there’s also the Octagon This area is one the first areas to take up post-grads, and young white professionals to Manchester and Sheffield. So this library, which I’ve recently been informed art as urban regeneration. Matt’s Gallery as well, that have moved in over the years.
Hattie Haseler
The Whitechapel Happy Families card game was created as a playful method for uncovering and understanding relationships between language use, trade, social hierarchy and religion within Whitechapel Wickhams department store, Mile End Road Market. A selection of workers from the market are expressed as characters on 28 playing cards and divided into ‘families’ Douglas Murphy: Thank you very much. DM: On the left here is the best visual joke according to their trade. The allocation of As Andrew says I’m an architectural in London, which is the small house that trades as ‘families’ likens the market writer so I’ll probably be attempting to breaks up the Wickhams department workers to local tradesmen seen in the provide some kind of critical framework store. Basically in the early 20th Century original version of the game, emphasising for Laura’s subjective rants. developers wanted Mile End to be the the personable face of the market as a Oxford Street of east London and a whole. The shuffling of the cards during the LOF: Just going past the mosque now. developer tried to build a massive depart- game encourages the random reordering There were plans to have a massive mega- ment store there and one little shopkeeper of the typical trade hierarchies and Laura Oldfield Ford: Hello, thank you mosque in east London very near the wouldn’t sell up! So they had to build this reassembles the market with an alternative Laura Oldfield Ford for coming. The first thing I should say Olympic site. There was a very small massive Oxford Street style, 6-storey social structure. & Douglas Murphy is that I’m not really a tour guide as mosque just next to the Olympic site just department store with a tiny little 3 storey In creating the game, the research such, I’m an artist, so what I’m going to near the Greenway Northern Outfall which house and shop in the middle, so broken in incorporated a collection of simple The following excerpt is transcribed offer you on the course of this journey was branded the ‘mega-mosque’ like the two basically. information sets for each of the characters directly from an open-top bus tour of East through east London are my impressions mosque we’ve just passed here, which has which were then combined with information London that took place on Saturday 30 July. of the area, recollections, observations expanded massively in the last few years. LOF: We’re just approaching the Ocean on stall location and occupation to create The tour was organised by UCL Urban that have been made through walking There’s an Islamic learning centre, Islamic estate just a bit further along here. I think social maps of the market. This mapping Laboratory, and connected to the Creative around this area over the last 15 years apartments where the old Atlantis building we’re probably going to stop and have a process revealed language use as a highly City Limits network. The portion selected I suppose. was – a massive development there. walk around it. influential factor across market activities covers the route from Aldgate to Mile End. My work’s really been about The Ocean Estate is quite a notorious in relation to the built environment, chronicling the changes in this area, estate. When we go there now you’ll see social networks and economic situation. Dr Andrew Harris: I’m very delighted to changes that I would say have not been “The best visual joke it’s mostly a building site – mostly ruins. The investigation provoked a community have two esteemed tour guides for beneficial or positive to the area, and But I used to be involved with quite a large based design response which integrated this afternoon. We have the artist, Laura also observations about the regeneration in London, the small squatting scene on that estate about 4 social spaces into the urban environment Oldfield Ford, joining us all the way from schemes, property developing around house that breaks or 5 years ago. The estate’s absolutely through everyday market routines. Dalston and the architect and writer, here, culminating in the 2012 Olympics. massive, it was developed piecemeal after Douglas Murphy, all the way from Barbican. So we’re just going to chat as we up the Wickhams the second world war so it’s in different The study was made as part of a series of games played by Diploma Unit 12 at the School of They’re going to lead us on the tour today – go along about the areas around. I’m just phases; 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s even up to department store” Architecture at London Metropolitan University, the destination is Stratford at 5 o’clock, going to pass you over to Douglas 80s and 90s developments. But 10 years devised to investigate and create briefs for projects so over to them. Murphy now. ago it was the cheapest place to buy in and around the High Street 2012 route. 14 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011 15
Q Asian Production
European Production Indonesia F European Production O
THEN D
B Petticoat Lane Market, one of Britain’s oldest surviving street markets (since 1608) opens on Wentworth Street G Wentworth St H E every Monday – Friday, extending around the corner into Middlesex Street on N Sundays. A famous East End tourist attraction it performs a daily pageantry of Wentworth St C raw market dynamism at the edge of the
City of London – a leading centre of global K M finance. While the market’s location underwrites its iconic status, the goods Revenue formerly destined themselves are generic: cheap clothes, for Manchester rolling luggage and mass-manufactured ephemera of mainly unmarked origin – B most likely made in China, Romania, P L Eastern Europe, England or India, according to the stallholders who sell their wares to a non-specific customer base of locals, African Londoners and foreign tourists. The original African Consumers Consumers Petticoat Lane was renamed Middlesex Street in 1846. Despite this, the London A – Z lists Petticoat Lane in its index and marks it in italicised letters on the map. This exceptional treatment – “our current J depiction of Petticoat Lane is an anomaly I and the only one we are aware of in our London publications” – is maintained by the A – Z “in order to assist customers who London KEY London Consumers wish to locate the market”. In an unrelated Consumers sign of institutional intervention, the Dutch wax factories London Assembly in 2008 proposed to Brocade factories the Mayor the redrawing of the boundary Voile factories of the London Congestion Zone, which currently runs along Commercial Street to exclude Wentworth Street and protect its Wentworth Street: Then Wentworth Street: Now vendors from falling revenues attributed to the London Congestion Charge. NOW
C There are 27 African textile shops on facilities are located in the factory town influence is of paramount importance Cottage, Kilburn and Peckham. The largest L While the trade of goods manufactured of Asian goods, and are raising product to Akosombo, Ghana – a multi-million the three blocks of Wentworth Street of Helmond, Holland. The design team but the design is created exclusively in wave of immigration of Nigerians to in Europe and destined exclusively for standards accordingly. Royal Crown brand pound manoeuvre. Cha Group has 20,000 between Commercial and Middlesex is almost all Dutch, with not one African the UK. London began in the late 1960s. Africa is possibly unique, the relationship in Yunnan province for example, employs employees, mainly in Africa, and also owns Streets. Unlike the swiftly changing designer. Vlisco is regularly cited as a might soon be obsolete. senior technicians from Holland to United Nigerian Textiles Plc. in Lagos, fashions of the street market, the textile manufacturing anomaly – the rare case G Lustenau, Austria is a small town on J Export sales to Africa – in particular supervise its Dutch Wax print manufacture. producing Dutch Wax prints there. Vertical shops adhere to a strict menu of of European industry producing consumer the border of Switzerland and the the former British territories of Nigeria, M Ongoing economic crisis and integration of the supply chain, including specialisation and tradition: Swiss Voiles, goods exclusively for an African market. historic source of Swiss Voile textiles used Kenya and Ghana as well as Tanzania – devaluation in Africa has reduced O While Wentworth Street traders still technical liaison with the many textile Brocades, Laces, Georges, Jacquard, in Nigerian ceremonial dress. The quality of accounts for the majority of business for the competitiveness of European textiles claim to source all their fabrics from mills in West Africa and access to an Cupion, Guinea, Organza, Dutch Wax. E The logic of the African textile trade fabric – not the brand – is key to its social some of the Wentworth Street shops. on the local market. African traders Europe, peripheral traces of Asian supply extensive network of local distributors, The fabrics were originally produced in precedes contemporary globalism, distinctiveness. The Polish Cottons sold increasingly look to the Persian Gulf and seen in textile shops along the street enables the Cha Group to secure both Western Europe for an African clientele. reflecting instead a colonial world map. on Wentworth Street are also produced K The textile manufacturers also export China for more profitable products. include: large zipped delivery bag on shop material supplies and future orders, making Claims to provenance are prominently Dutch Wax trade with West Africa in Austria. their wares to Africa direct. “It’s only Attractive visa regulations in these regions floor labelled Yoon&Yoon with a Seoul the long distance mediation of European displayed in gold-detail labels on the began in 1846, when an Indonesian batik in Africa, where Real Dutch Wax carries have facilitated trade ventures with phone number; voile fabric packaging traders seem increasingly obscure / remote. packaging and printed direct into the method was copied and industrialised by H St Gallen, Switzerland established the authority of a brand like Rolls-Royce African traders travelling to China to marked Smith Dongyang Co Ltd in shop The impact of the London Congestion This project was commissioned and produced in fabric margins: ‘Real Dutch Wax’, ‘Swiss a Dutch merchant family, the Fentener its reputation for embroidery in the or Rolex, that consumers care about commission reproduction of fabric samples window; and Dutch Wax fabrics branded Charge on Wentworth Street traders may 2009 by General Public Agency, a creative Original Premium Grand’, ‘Trust Fabrics Van Vlissingens, later Vlisco. The Dutch 16th Century, the fine quality of its the difference between Vlisco quality to sell at home, thereby opening the market Phoenix-Hitarget. Hitarget Limited be relatively banal. Cha Group now holds consultancy which operated 2003 – 2010 and Holland’, ‘Genuine Hollandais’. freighters stopped in Africa enroute back needlework secured with 19th Century and cheap Asian imitations”, Vlisco’s CEO to increased competition by providing a (Qingdao) is a Chinese manufacturer with the major market share of the African wax worked in urban and rural regeneration. It was run to Indonesia, establishing a market for Swiss expertise on the embroidery explained in December 2000. While blueprint to Chinese producers. over 1000 employees, whose main export print market, formerly held by Unilever by Clare Cumberlidge and Lucy Musgrave. Clare Cumberlidge now runs Clare Cumberlidge & Co, D Vlisco is the most prestigious producer the wax prints there. When Indonesia machine. Filtex, supplier of Nigerian voile European fabrics cost substantially more markets are North America, Western (UAC), who sold their share of the market a curatorial and cultural agency producing N of the Dutch Wax fabrics sold on introduced tariff protection laws to protect laces, is one of the manufacturers than Asian-made equivalents, a common Chinese manufacturers in Shandong, Europe and Africa. to Vlisco in 1994. exhibitions, cultural strategies, programmes of the street. The Dutch Wax manufacturing their markets from imports in 1900, Afri- headquartered here. perception in Africa is that European- Yunnan, Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu, commissions and events in the UK and process is highly intricate, with designs can countries became the sole buyers. produced goods last, while Chinese Shandong and Zhejiang provinces now P In 2005, ABC Wax was bought by Q (Manchester) Despite the migration internationally. Lucy Musgrave has launched engraved on two copper rollers which I The textiles are retailed to the West products are defective and ephemeral – dominate the low-cost production of the Cha Group of companies (head- of most of its production facilities, Publica, a Community Interest Company and consultancy providing public realm surveys print both sides of the cotton fabric with F ABC Wax, Manchester began producing African community in London, particu- similar ideas and fears to those that persist Swiss Voile and are moving into Dutch quartered Zhejiang, China) which ABC Wax products continue to be designed and strategies and detailed design advice on melted wax, before the multi-coloured wax print textiles for the African larly Nigerians, who live predominantly in Europe and the US today. Wax prints. Chinese producers have exported the main production machinery by its team in Manchester in order the integration of new development. dyes are applied. Vlisco’s production market in 1908. As with Vlisco, the African in and around Dalston, Hackney, Swiss adapted to perception of the low quality and copper print rollers from Manchester to maintain the look and style of ABC. © General Public Agency 16 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE I — SURVEY — AUGUST 2011
Philipp Ebeling
A selection of images from a photo essay for the Aldgate Public Realm Strategy, authored by General Public Agency and Witherford Watson Mann and completed in 2009.
The strategy was funded by Exemplar Properties and the lead public sector client was Design for London. The larger client group comprised of London Borough Tower Hamlets, Corporation of London, London Metropolitan University, Transport for London and Whitechapel Art Gallery. General Public Agency was run by Clare Cumberlidge and Lucy Musgrave, now of Clare Cumberlidge & Co and Publica respectively. Images © Philipp Ebeling
Many thanks to all our contributors for their hard work:
Ruth Beale, Clare Cumberlidge, Philipp Ebeling, Esme Fieldhouse, Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, Hattie Haseler, Stephen Mackie, Derek Morris, Douglas Murphy Laura Oldfield Ford, Helen Ottaway and Ben Pearce.
Edited by Holly Lewis & Oliver Goodhall We Made That www.wemadethat.co.uk
Designed by Andrew Osman & Stephen Osman www.andrewosman.co.uk www.stephenosman.co.uk
The Unlimited Edition is typeset in Ursus (Beta) by Andrew Osman. The design is informed by vernacular London lettering, including tiled signage from LCC housing, an alphabet from Truman’s public houses and ultimately Johnston, the London Underground font that is synonymous with the city. The two-line treatment used to set the titles is an homage to the old Royal Mail logo, the Eastern District Post Office maintaining a large presence on Whitechapel Road. THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011
attempt at distilling about eight hours of lectures into 25 minutes. I’m trying to use this background to get the conversation started over the UK riots. The riots that we have been studying specifically, the case studies for the lecture series, were all in the post-war period. The first were the riots that destroyed Detroit in ’67, then we looked at the Broadwater Farm Riot – just to take one riot from this period of rioting in the early ’80s in England. Images courtesy of the The Gentle Author and Shaun Young We looked at the Los Angeles riots, the Justice Riots, or the Rodney King Riots in ’92, and then of course we looked at the centres, their own primary schools. So it something of the coincidental to the Banlieue riots in the fall of 2005. These was this same kind of auto mutilation of trigger event. From a flash point in Wouter Vanstiphout last riots, they were the reason for even communities that you could see [as in Clichy-sous-Bois, you can see the riots starting this research. These were riots London], but this time it was ‘safely’ away spreading in the first days very quickly to The whole idea of talking about urban which happened on the ‘horizon’ of Paris, in the Banlieues. these other Grand Ensembles that have riots in relationship to architecture and way away from the centre of Paris, where Every riot has this ‘trigger event’. the same demographic make up, the urban planning was actually not an idea everything exploded, in something that Strangely enough, they are tragic events same isolated position towards the centre that came out of myself, but it was an also seemed like mindless violence. of course, but [in the case of Paris] it of Paris, the same ethnic make up, the idea that was forced upon us. Communities destroying their own – was not the first or the last time that same income… All the same kind of What I want to show you this morning not so much shops in Paris – but you could something like this happened and somehow statistical make ups, you can see very is a distillation of a lecture series that say at least as sad – they started destroying ‘this’ event was the trigger, not some similar images, and it spread very fast to I’ve been giving over the last year. It’s an their own schools, their own daycare other event, but this event. So, there’s these areas. But the most strange thing, is that not only did these areas match in terms of ethnicity, or in terms of income level or deprivation and so on, they matched in terms of architecture. And they did not just match, there was a 100% correlation
Continued on page 4 2 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 3
signature buildings” (Oliver Wainwright, grand ambitions of Wickham’s department page 7) to a place where social functions store in Mile End (The Unlimited Edition have replaced, or at least augmented, Issue 1 , page 12). And right next to Stepney retail (Ben van Bruggen and Steve Smith, Green station is Mile End Place, an page 14). But nobody offers a grand, extraordinarily cute street of terraced Olympic Park Champs-Élysées-style vision of what this houses accessed via a grim passageway series of streets might become; there are off the high street. Such spatial joy is no one-liners or ‘big’ ideas. It is as if the not the result of a predetermined plan form of the high street, its messy vitality, but of a constant renegotiation between Stratford is resistant to that kind of thing. people, a ‘give and take’ that limitlessly Ω Ω ‘High Street 2012’ is typical of London, bends property lines into new and exciting a city that never built grand boulevards shapes. Two graduating students at like Paris because of the sheer complexity Kingston, Hannah Tourell (page 6) and David Knight Shepherd’s Bush), their location on the of its land ownership and the lack of an Shaun Young (page 15), produced work Ω Stratford High Street pedestrian flow of the wider regeneration absolute ruler. What we got instead which explores this kind of complexity, and There are basically two kinds of street. area, transport modelling that takes in are streets like John Nash’s Regent have used it to suggest possible futures Victoria Park Some, like the Avenue des Champs-Élysées public transport at an international scale Street, which is nothing if not a brilliant for the high street. Such complexity is now STRATFORD in Paris, are the result of ambitious and and a finely tuned calculation of parking improvisation and which twists to avoid at odds with way global retail works, though Pudding Mill Lane Ω HIGH STREET all-consuming planning, a singular vision. spaces. The ambition and design precision the expensive land. And streets like Sam Jacob identifies some tactics – At their peak they are part of the imperial of a great avenue translated into the Whitechapel High Street, Cheapside, Mile gentrification and cannibalisation – through language of a country. They have perfect shopping experience. End Road and Kingsland Road, which have which it is overcoming that obstacle. ceremony, poise, rhythm and grandeur. As Sam Jacob points out in this issue grown out of ancient tracks and which Three Mills They drip with precise symbolism and of The Unlimited Edition (page 10), what we preserve their social complexity and their Green have an axis. Others, like Whitechapel think of as the traditional high street is intricacy of ownership. Last year, the Ω Bow Church High Street, are different. They are not merely the social and economic product School of Architecture and Landscape “Such spatial joy is Ω the product of a single intention but of of an era: “It only operates in relation to at Kingston University, where I teach, Bow Road Bromley-by-Bow Ω various endeavours spread out over time. a particular moment in the development took London’s high streets as a collective not the result of a Ω Mile End They are irregular, they communicate of urban technology, infrastructure and project. One of the key things this work predetermined plan” BOW ROAD in mixed messages and are hard to economy.” Such a high street has been yielded was that, whatever their current photograph. They are shaped not by a ‘dying’ since the first supermarkets prosperity, the high streets of London Stepney Green Ω single vision but by culture at large. They and malls arrived, spatial products that have a definite spatial character, and one MILE END ROAD behave like, and look like, a bar graph of a came about due to changes in the market, that carries lessons for the way we plan society’s economy. changes in technology, and changes in (or don’t plan) our cities. They are deep, But for a few weeks in Summer 2012, the Whitechapel Ω I write this on the second trading day society that we were (are) all a part of. But and sustain an extraordinary density of east end’s high street may yet find itself of Westfield Stratford City, one of Europe’s the streets are all still there – functioning industries, communities and social events. firmly out of the limelight and abandoned Royal London Mile End Aldgate Hospital Park largest urban shopping malls and a key and busy. They have not been erased by Their patterns of ownership bring delight by the processes of global commerce. This East component of London’s 2012 Olympic the spectacular arrival of Westfield, nor and surprise, elements which, as Rem process has been happening for a long time, Ω WHITECHAPEL ROAD project. 70% of visitors to the Games will by the rise of internet shopping. However, Koolhaas notes, have been sucked out of and intriguing models of development pass through Westfield, a 1.9 million no longer burdened by their former status the contemporary shopping experience. have grown up in the spaces left behind. WHITECHAPEL square foot centre that has changed the as the primary site of retail, they have the In Whitechapel, the anarchist Freedom The way we plan our environment, HIGH STREET shape of Stratford with the cutting of freedom to become other things. Press occupies a building on Angel Alley considered a dull story for decades, is a red ribbon and promises to alter the Many of the speculations in this issue that rubs up against the Whitechapel Art currently front page news in the light of Each issue is focused around one of form of London over the coming years. of The Unlimited Edition envisage futures Gallery’s ‘back of house’, access to which current proposals to radically reform the ALDGATE the themes ‘Survey’, ‘Speculation’ and Even more than the Champs-Élysées, that do not depend on the high street involves walking through what seems to planning system. In this light, places like the ‘Proposition’ respectively. The papers Westfield has been planned to perfection. as a corporate retail artery. They offer be part of a KFC. The rear courtyards of a high street, which derive their character are intended to reveal surprising aspects Somewhere, there is a room full of visions both optimistic and pessimistic ‘Cash and Carry’ are host to prayer rooms from the ad-hoc and the unexpected, may of the existing and explore enjoyable reports analysing the mix of retail units about this future, from a developer and gathering places. Mr Spiegelhalter’s prove to be a vital testing ground. opportunities for the high street. A (subtly different to those in its cousin in free-for-all of “endless landmarks and jewellery business famously interrupts the final issue in June 2012, ‘Collation’ will combine the previous papers into a set that together will form a unique documentation of the local area. We have invited a wide range of guest writers, artists, urban designers 250 This newspaper, The Unlimited Edition, is and community members to contribute part of the High Street 2012 Initiative. High creative snapshots to these papers. Street 2012 is an ambitious programme Through this open and collaborative to enhance and celebrate the ribbon of method of content collection, The 200 London life that connects the City at Unlimited Edition encourages you to look Aldgate to the Olympic Park at Stratford. again at the familiar, at a route that is so The project combines a series of area- often travelled and so rarely celebrated. based initiatives that respond to specific The Unlimited Edition is curated 150 places along the route with street by We Made That. All three initial issues actions that cover the whole stretch to of the paper will be distributed for free create a coherent thread that unites the on High Street 2012 in late summer 2011. intersecting high streets. Full sets of all four issues: ‘Survey’, 100 Over the summer months of 2011 we ‘Speculation’, ‘Proposition’ and ‘Collation’ © All rights reserved. No part of this publication are publishing three issues of this paper will also be available to order from may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or specifically dedicated to High Street 2012. June 2012 at: www.wemadethat.co.uk by any means without prior permission in writing from the editors. Every possible effort has been 50 made to locate and credit copyright holders of the material reproduced in this publication. The editors apologise for any omissions or errors, which can be corrected in future issues. The views 0 expressed in this paper are those of the individual authors and do not represent opinions of the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2021 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 editors or funders of this project. 4 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 5
as utopian. In the sense that it assumes can guess at is that it’s moving, to put The funny thing is, that’s another that by doing something physical, that it dramatically, this ripping apart of the correlation I found: the correlation, not Continued from page 1 you can solve the problem. city is going further. just between the fact that they were I’m not a cultural theorist, so what Another thing that I find very high rise council estates and they rioted, “What is the future between the architectural typology and I find much more interesting, and what interesting about riots, is that you can but the fact that all of them, all the ones the riots. 100% correlation meaning that may be more relevant here is the way say that it’s just ‘gangsta’ culture or rap that rioted were somehow the subject of the high all the riots happened in post-war high that riots ‘reveal’. They reveal things culture, there’s a culture of violence. But of a huge regeneration scheme, that had street? What is rise council estates designed and built in about our cities: your city, could be my if you look more carefully there’s much been either proposed or just started. the ‘modernist functionalist’ town planning city, they reveal things about the city more going on. And that there are actually Because what is the language of a the future of this model. So ‘all‘ the riots in Paris happened in that previously we may have hesitated richer and more complex stories to be regeneration scheme? It is a language high street?” these council estates. However, the other to look at, or our gaze was not focused taken from pop culture and pop music of making the community more diverse way round? Of course not. It’s not that all enough to see them. For example, what about the condition of inner cities that etc, meaning that a large part of the the high rise council estates rioted – there turned out during the riots [in Paris] is we sometimes give them credit for. The community says, ‘I see, that means that were some that did not – but all the riots that when Jacques Chirac said, ‘Well, now prophetic aspect of pop culture is also we have to go’. This is why regeneration, were in these council estates. everything is back to normal’, that just interesting. A year before the Broadwater even if we mean it fantastically well meant that the burning of cars during Farm riots broke out they were actually can be received in the opposite way and the night went down to a ‘normal’ level. predicted by Junior Delgado, a reggae can, in that sense, be one of the triggers Which meant that there are areas in singer from London, who had a song called for even violent alienation. which millions, or hundred of thousands ‘Broadwater Farm’. He was singing about I believe there is a link between YASSIM TAYYAB “What may be more of people, families, small children live, the tensions there, the hatred towards urbanism and the riots, not so much in Tayyabs Restaurant, Fieldgate Street relevant here is the way where the burning of cars every night is the police, about the fact that it will the concrete form of the things that a normal event, and that that is somehow blow up one day and that nobody is doing are being designed, but what I see behind The future of the ‘high street’ will be a that riots ‘reveal’. They acceptable. And I think that this shock anything about it. So it’s interesting or underneath these riots in London. It ASAB ALI decline in shops, definitely. The high street reveal things about our should be the shock, not the shock of that you have this predictive nature of also exists in many, many cities and Idea Store Whitechapel is dying because it is not as convenient as the riots – of course they were shocking, it. Lethal Bizzle, the London grime artist, communities: urbanism is suffering from Whitechapel Road the big shopping centres, and the internet cities: your city” terrible – but the real shock should be with ‘Babylon’s Burning the Ghetto’. It’s what you could call a democratic deficit. is also playing a big role. It’s a case of about what they reveal. the same thing, you can see. That is why I think that an enormous amount of The future of the ‘high street’ is looking supply and demand. I am not a specialist in London, but it’s very interesting to take a look at the people do not feel represented by politics very good. The whole High Street is The future of this High Street will what maps like these deprivation maps cultural context of these riots, not just a anymore, and urbanism is one of the most having a makeover and looks much more be good for small businesses. I’d say the So there was a debate that started very of London show is a completely different criminological look. visible forms of urban politics, so people attractive and welcoming. This has created market and Whitechapel High Street will soon in architectural circles, not just in image than you would have in Paris. do relate their environments to how they opportunities for new and existing be OK, because it’s not occupied by big architectural circles, but also in planning, How wealth and poverty are connected think their city is being run, and by businesses. This is also great for the local shops and major brands. Instead there government circles, journalistic circles, in London is completely different than in whom. And that – the lack of trust that community as this will create jobs and are small, convenient local businesses that immediately the arrogant functionalist Paris. In Paris you would have all the rich communities have in the intentions of offer a wider range of products and services catering for the Bangladeshi community town planning hand of the twenties, the areas in the middle and then you would “There are actually people doing urban regeneration projects, at a competitive price. Not only that, and other local communities. ‘god’ of functionalist town planning, that have lots of middle class areas, and then richer and more complex for example – that is a very underesti- there will be greater room for culture this is his legacy – burnt cars in banal within the middle class areas you would mated issue. That we could be talking to within the localities of the high street. CHRISTOPHER OKWORU and awful alienating high rise areas. And have islands of high deprivation. This is stories to be taken” them all the time, “We are building these Idea Stores provide Library, Learning Chrischem Pharmacy, Mile End Road so that the only solution for that legacy something that I am really interested in, libraries, and still they do not trust us”. and Information Services under one roof. is demolition. and I found kind of shocking when I saw I think that urbanists and urban planners All the Idea Stores are located within the The future of the ‘high street’ depends There is this idea that not only is these London maps. Of course, there is themselves should also take a long hard boundaries of a high street and are easily on your perspective. Already the internet there something about the high rise the well known story about the fractured One last thing, a funny, or kind of bitter look and see, or try to see the difference accessible. The Council conducted an is having an effect, but that has its council estates in terms of their form and nature of London and how the rich live thing with riots in cities, is that they between their intentions, and the way the extensive consultation with the residents disadvantages as well because people shape, and also their content, that leads right next to the poor, yet still have nothing often happen when the city officials are intentions are being received, because which suggested that people want to see want to see what they buy. High street to urban alienation, crime. Also the other to do with each other. But what I find absolutely convinced that everything is in the end, you know, urban planning is Libraries and Learning Services that are businesses are also dying because of the way round. This of course gives planners, especially interesting is the disappearing going well. And that they are doing the a form of real life physical politics, and integrated, next to the shopping centres, bigger enterprises, but when it comes to architects, politicians a fantastic tool of the middle ground. The middle class right things, that have all these fantastic that aspect is not talked about a lot by the markets and transportation, that are the pharmaceutical profession, when you because then they can imagine that they is completely marginalised on the plans, and they’re moving along, they’re design community. visible and a safe place to visit. Therefore are ill you want to see a professional so in just have to destroy these council estates – geographical level. And what is also investing and building and planning, and we put all these preferences together and that sense it is better to walk down to the problem solved. You could say there’s a interesting, what these deprivation maps everything is going well and they’re doing This article is an edited transcript from ‘Social located the Idea Stores on the high streets. place yourself. You can’t do better than a Media Riots and the City’, a lecture originally utopian thing behind the building of the show is that in a lot of these areas, that everything for everyone, and everybody Our drive is to become the borough’s pharmacist when it comes to the retailing given at NLA on 9th September 2011 by Wouter council estates, but my thesis here is that over the last four or five years, is that the has a place in the grand scheme and it’s Vanstiphout, Professor of Design and Politics at primary information provider where of medications, because that is what we the demolition of council estates is just poor areas have gotten poorer. So what you all going in the right direction. the Technical University of Delft. we should be the first point of call for are trained to do. We also discuss other information. Google is good and has a things: social services, various forms of vast amount of information if you know health. If you see customers as the means what you are looking for. However, if you MOHAMMED ALI of sustaining a business, you are bound to do not know how to use a computer or Bombay Jewellers, Whitechapel Road try and understand what they think of it. treated as a measure of popular taste, High retailer on a peripheral trading estate is distinguish between the information then It’s about people, and the need to create Street Honeys (© 2002 FHM magazine) exactly the same as one in the centre of its hopeless. At Idea Stores we would help The future of the ‘high street’ is difficult a good relationship with them. are sexy but accessible, and the ‘death of town. For the current government, the high you find the information you are looking for for people in my trade because of the price The future of this High Street is likely the high street’ has been threatened in street is certainly a real place tied into and in the process we will engage with and of gold. We trade in gold jewellery, and to be big players taking over. With the newspapers for decades. Significantly, traditional forms of community structure, empower you. If your skills are limited or people are not buying gold in the way Olympics and Westfield coming up, we when Kate’s dress was identified as coming which is why they launched a high-profile, in need of improvement, we have a wide they used to before. That’s a general thing. are expecting an influx of people from from a high street retailer, it was not the celebrity-led campaign to save it in May range of courses on offer to help you, I’m sure other businesses, like myself, are other nations and we believe that more shops that were flooded with people but 2011, whilst ‘High Street 2012’ is a key from IT, dance and language to cookery struggling. We haven’t started anything businesses will be created in this locality, the retailer’s website – it crashed minutes component of London’s Olympic project, and life skills, from basic to advanced on-line yet [but] we might consider this. but the whole nature of local retail may after the pictures were released. So the and is explicitly linked to a chain of ‘real’ levels. You can’t get that on Google. The future of this High Street depends change. We read a lot about changes, high street is more on the internet than it high streets from Aldgate to Stratford. I can imagine further interest by the on the new shopping mall, Westfield, which and we see them – the face of the area DK-CM fashion decision tells us a lot about how is in our towns, at least until the servers The following interviews are a snap- retail sector in the High Street even after is opening in Stratford. In business terms has been changed – but nothing has been the ‘High Street’ currently works in the go down. shot of how the high street is perceived the Olympics have finished. It will give it is likely to affect the local community said about how to support local retailers. When Kate Middleton wore ‘high street popular (and journalistic) imagination: it is The location and meaning of the high by its principal agent: the retailer. What is businesses something to look forward to here. [However] when something new There used to be little clothes shops here, fashion’ to greet the Obamas on the less a real place than a social and economic street changes depending on one’s point the future of the ‘high street’ as a concept? and will attract the wave of visitors we’re comes up there’s a period of excitement but now people will want to go to the big occasion of their recent UK visit, she was barometer that measures prosperity, of view. Local campaigners might consider What is the future of this high street? expecting to go in and use them. initially drawing the local community there, boys to buy clothes. That is going to kill widely praised by the press for choosing popularity, class and ubiquity. It exists – the ideological ‘high street’ to be a defined after that this area might get back to its a lot of retail businesses. Only God knows something so accessible, literally and big, generic and unreal – collectively. centre of their community, whilst for feet again. I don’t yet know how to tackle how long this will be sustainable, but I’m socially, to the rest of the nation. Kate’s Opinion gathered from the high street is economic forecasters the prosperity of a this problem, I’ll have to take it as it comes. putting in my best. 6 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 7
Square development – although it had been wall of titanium pillows – the Shoal. This uncertain. The Kingsway International tough before the Waitrose came along. strange billboard of public art was Christian Centre continues to battle it “People call it London’s own little originally installed to hide the town’s out with Tablighi Jamaat – mega-church Dubai,” one resident tells me jovially, decaying shopping centre during the and mega-mosque vying for control of peeping out from behind the security Olympics, to ensure the world’s media the arena since the premature dissolution grille of her ground floor amenity space. wouldn’t catch sight of the boarded-up of the Olympic Park Legacy Corporation. “And now we’re living in our very own pound shops. The High Street, meanwhile, for all it’s mini-Burj Khalifa.” She seems happy here, It now supports a big sign embla- glistening glamour and phallic ambition, with access to a communal roof terrace zoned with the title ‘Stratford Village’, remains eerily deserted. and a car club. signalling that this is home to a local And why not? produce market and alternative village Hannah Tourell She is living at the very pinnacle fete – collectively organised by the of Newham’s Arc of Opportunity, the Stratford Spacemakers. But no one goes. “Each distinctive London’s High Streets are constantly charged nexus of the Thames Gateway Westfield’s Great Eastern Market sells in flux. As the shops change use or Enterprise Zone and the Lea Valley the same stuff, but under the ethereal silhouette is matched ownership signage is replaced, shop-fronts Technology Growth Corridor. She is on glow of an LED waterfall. by an equally ripped out and replaced in a matter of Oliver Wainwright the edge of what will one day become the Outside the perforated golden days and security shutters bolted to the Queen Elizabeth Park, the largest new carapace of the shopping complex, things inimitable palette fronts of buildings. Who could have predicted that it would green space in Europe, and minutes from are beginning to get interesting across of materials” Surviving the continual change of turn out like this? Westfield Stratford City. This was the the railway tracks, as Olympic Legacy the street are the richly ornamented When the London Plan identified biggest attraction for most Pioneers, a Transition Mode grinds into action. ends of the party walls, a small sliver of Stratford as an area for tall buildings all reassuring reminder that it wasn’t so There’s been a buzz of activity ever since shared matter between buildings. Here those years ago, little did the planners different to Shepherd’s Bush after all. the fences came down to make way for there is less change, as any alterations realise that they were beckoning forth It was a beautifully sterile leisurescape, Meanwhile Fields. 200 hectares of empty Walking back down, past the triumphant require the negotiation of a party wall what would become known as the a pleasure palace of 300 shops, 70 tarmac, this was to be a deregulated portal of Ikea City – which, for all its agreement, and so they collect traces of “glittering gauntlet of the East End”. restaurants and a 17-screen multiplex, not zone for temporary activities, a hasty promise, ended up being just a self-build the modification and inhabitation of Ever since the English Heritage to mention London’s largest casino. 1.9 stop-gap in the absence of developers – version of Bow’s Tesco Town – I pass a the adjacent buildings. Design Council Cabe Foundation bestowed million sq ft of safely patrolled semi- paralysed by the depths of the triple- faded poster of the original High Street their hallowed gold standard on the public space – with a John Lewis to boot. dip recession. Vision. It is a captivating Photoshopped High Street last year – once and for all The transport links are also unrivalled. It was to be a non-plan utopia, a scene of bustling street life, armies of declaring it Area of Outstanding Modern It is “the best connected metropolitan bottom-up free-for-all for experiments avatars enjoying their 20,000 new homes “Continuous, subtle Architecture – I’ve been wondering why. centre in the UK”, as the brochure in community-led social enterprise. It and 46,000 new jobs, the canyon of towers So I thought it was time to take stroll up trumpets, served by two tube lines, the continues to play host to all manner of “animated with commercial frontages.” adaptation rather the A11. overground railway, DLR, plus the high- projects, from last month’s pop-up Active frontages, that were never activated. than radical changes” Standing at the western end of speed Javelin train to Kings Cross – community compost heap, to the wildly Indeed, they remain boarded up, peeling the street, just east of the Bow Spaghetti taking you to St Pancras in only 6 minutes. popular Whole Foods’ temporary billboards promoting a plan, planned Junction, where the tangle of tarmac The Eurostar doesn’t actually stop here, allotments – a productive urban plot, by planners who failed to bother planning. tendrils collide, it all looks impossibly but people still like the glamorous ring of rebuilt out of the fragments of the futuristic. The 6-lane motorway is now ‘Stratford International.’ relocated Manor Gardens, on whose Future Stratford: all schemes depicted here The rhythm of these walls along the street lined either side with shimmering towers In case you were in any doubt that grave the community gardeners merrily are built, under construction, or have planning permission. Left to right: Icona, Spirit of Stratford, describe property boundaries some of that march relentlessly towards the town you had arrived at an international hub, dance in their organic hessian wellies. Velocity, Athena, the Edge, Three Mills West, which date from Medieval times. A typical centre, reaching ever higher to the skies when you step out of the station you The future of the park and its Olympic Tower, Broadway Chambers, Stratford plot of land in London has long comprised in ever more iconic shapes. It is as if the are at once greeted by a vast iridescent permanent flat-pack stadium remains Eye, Duncan House, Aurora. a building and a yard on a long strip of Hilberseimer plan has been reinterpreted land with a narrow street frontage. This by Will Alsop. arrangement of land has an enduring Over the past five years it has grown influence on the character of the High into a street of endless landmarks and Street, encouraging a continuous, subtle signature buildings, each one shouting a adaptation rather than the overwhelmingly little louder than the next in a desperate radical changes that result from the attempt to signal that they, not their acquisition and development of large neighbour, are in fact the Gateway to parcels of land. East London. Each distinctive silhouette is matched by an equally inimitable palette of materials, fruity panellised concoctions “They make manifest of coloured render and anodized aluminium competing with swathes of glass and vibrancy, adaptability steel, powder-coated in every hue of and density” the rainbow. And each tower has of course been christened with its own alluring brand name. Stratford Gate, Stratford Eye, the Spirit of Stratford, Olympian Tower, At an urban scale, the existence of these Athena, Aurora, Icona, Velocity, the Edge. ‘party walls’ preserves the fine grain of the Which to choose? It was a tough decision city, and when visible on the street they for the Legacy Pioneers, that brave group make manifest the vibrancy, adaptability, of settlers who were the first to be lured and density of occupation characteristic east in the wake of the sporting circus, of our high streets. If high streets have a attracted to being part of the most exciting future, then the diverse ownerships and new development in Europe. rates of change expressed by these ‘party “Most West Londoners get a nose- walls’ must surely be part of it. bleed any further east than Holborn,” the estate agents had joked. But the Pioneers were made of sterner stuff. Most of them Project produced at Kingston University School of Architecture and Landscape. Photographs depict had survived the trial acclimatisation the ‘party wall’ ends of Rye Lane, Peckham. period in Barratt Homes’ gritty Dalston 8 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 9
Tom Hunter, ‘Prayer Places’, 2008 10 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 11
agglomerative tendency to a conclusion, re-selling the city back to itself, ways of deploying multiple stores within a single further commodifying the city into product. entity: a mega high street folded in The third model is a stranger on itself. It is a pseudo high street that is phenomenon still. In areas of dense sited not in the centre but at the periphery gentrification a nostalgic resurrection has of the city in a zone that it itself owned. re-appropriated the high street. Speciality It completes the project of interiorisation cheese shops, nu-bakeries, chi-chi of the city that the supermarket began. fishmongers, artisans and independent From Brent Cross to Bluewater, this retailers have recolonised the high street. flip in the city’s polarity challenged not They directly recall the traditional high only high street retail, but the very idea street, often directly through their function of the city. By reconfiguring its audience, and retro-branding. This ‘retrofication’ Sam Jacob economy. We should recognise that this out of town retail also effectively reconstructs the sensation of the village was not some ideal state of social atomised the idea of neighbourhood or the suburb within the inner city. In The high street, perhaps because it is the cohesion but something born out of the and community. Located at the edge, it this, it acts as a perfect mirror to out of most normal and unexceptional place limitations of transport, logistics and mirrors the outwards expansion of the town mega-retail. We find then that the also acts as a kind of dip-stick that gives communication, out of the strict hierar- city into suburbia. Yet its own vision is at traditional idea of the city is inverted: the us a clear measure of an era’s idea of the chies of the social and economic milieu. odds with the suburban ideal as developed centre appropriated by the periphery and city. It is exactly its unexceptionality This form of the high street by planners and architects, instead the suburban re-sited in the centre. SS LIBERTY CARGO SHIP, REPLICA that makes it such a telling description came under attack from Retail’s own seeing the periphery as the intersection Across all these models we see Retail OLYMPIC TORCH of what it the city is: how it is organised, agglomerative tendency. The invention of the city with transport and motorway shifting from something that emerges out what we do with it and in it. By tracing of the supermarket is one that dissolved systems. While it simultaneously seems of the life of the city, to the point where ZENIT E After having watched Churchill’s FARM the development of the high street, we the boundaries between previously to pledge its allegiance to the suburbs retail generates the city itself. In Stratford Island in 1941, my grandfather Zalman also trace the development of the city. distinct uses. It assimilated shops into a it also operates against the idealised for example, it’s the retail offer that drives Standing from left: my grandfather Zalman, was convinced the war would end When I was eight or nine, my grandfather Its own story mirrors, and sometimes single spatial and economic entity. urban-village that the Metroland suburbs the finances and planning of the areas my uncle Saul, my grandfather Biker, my in a year or two. Swept along by a Bikram told me a story, a secret one, that drives, the city’s waves of development As aisles replaced streets the had promised. regeneration. Retail is the de facto urban father Ranjit and me. Sitting from left: patriotic fervor, he began producing he made me swear never to retell. I could from centrifugal industrialism via suburban relationship between shopping and the condition – it is what the city does and what my great uncle Dudi, my mother Ava, my memorabilia for the 1944 London live with it only by translating it into the dispersal to inner city gentrification, city underwent a radical shift – the activity we do in the city. Entirely commodified, grandmother Judith, my grandmother Olympics. Working with a Canadian most expressive language I knew, which regeneration and even abandonment. of shopping was interiorised. Though not only is retail the primary function of Parminda. Sitting in the foreground and a manufacturer, he placed an order allowed me to tell it over and over again Through the narrative of the high street still sited within the high street the the contemporary city but the city itself bit out of focus (metaphorically, as well) large enough to fill 5 shipping con- without ever speaking one word of it we can read how, over the course of the supermarket began to operate as a black “The city has has become entirely commodified. is my sister, Ida. Not pictured: Uncle Max tainers of replica medallions, banners to anyone. It was an incident, a dramatic twentieth century, the city has turned hole that sucked surrounding bodies turned itself inside out If retail has consumed the city, then (who took the photograph). and flags, pins, miniature trophies, situation, a series of perspectives and itself inside out and upside down. into its gravitational field. Into its interior the high street, in some way, is now and glassware. The cargo ship was objects and structures I built and rebuilt If we think of the traditional it pulled not only the functions of the and upside down” everywhere. Yet in its moment of victory scheduled to arrive in London, via a in varying configurations until, finally, I conception of the high street we think high street but its public network of rela- over other conceptions of the city, Retail Liberty convoy, in the fall of 1943. had come to an end of needing to figure it of a row of shops, of butcher-baker- tionships. The figures then of J. Sainsbury, faces its own crisis. On the verge of Months before the cargo ship was due out. My grandfather died on a Wednesday, candlestick-maker located at the centre of Marks and Spencer cast their shadow double dip recession, with retail figures to arrive, the Olympics were officially mid-day (my parents took me out of of a community. It has agglomerated a over the idea of the city and we began The combined effects of Retail’s advancing pointing downwards and the visible creep cancelled – thus assuring, it seemed, school), and I took my building bricks to variety of public and private uses, and to see the changing nature of Retail exert models on the old centres – the high streets of the hollow high street as unit after unit the Lövy family’s financial ruin. To my the attic that evening. developed along with the growth of a its force on the physical fabric of the city. that have been left behind – still exist at closes down, our faith invested in retail as grandfather’s unbounded glee, the town. It is both formed by and has formed As Retail agglomerates, it monopolises the centre of our communities. Here we the future of the city seems precarious. convoy was intercepted by German the urban fabric around it, densifying and privatises not only the city’s economy see three resulting scenarios: Twentieth century experience U-boats, and the cargo was destroyed. the city around a centre. This centrifugal but its spatial and social orders. In its First, we see the logical and obvious suggests that Retail has performed a The insurance value of the lost attraction drew uses together into own densification and acceleration it result of Retail’s inversion of the city: series of aggressive attacks on the status Olympic goods supported the family symbiotic proximity – both supporting de-stablises (and de-densifies and an eviscerated and hollow centre. We quo of the city. In order to achieve growth for the next two decades. and taking advantage of one another and de-accelerates) the traditional urban fabric witness this in high streets as strings of Retail has destroyed the environments the city itself. around it. pound shops, charity shops, discount that created it. The question then arises: But we should wipe the nostalgia The extent of privatisation exerted retailers and boarded up units. If the city has been totalised into retail from our eyes. The high street is only the by the supermarket seems quaint to us A second model sees the high street entity, perhaps its only logical conclusion product – both social and economic – of now from the other side of the next great evolving into a mechanism for the self- is to destroy itself. Having sucked its own era. It only operates in relation to leap forward in retail economics which cannibalisation of the city. Rows of estate everything inside its own event horizon a particular moment in the development saw the development of out of town agents and designer furniture shops perhaps, like a black hole, it might of urban technology, infrastructure and retail. This concept accelerated Retail’s represent a machine for re-furbing and swallow itself. MILK BOTTLE
From a police report displayed in our sitting room: Judith Lövy, aged 26, of descent. Constructed from the standpoint 87 Fieldgate street, Tower Hamlets, of Monarch Lövy Singh, this collection of was charged: stories and objects at the border of artifact and artifice, document and fantasy, m"1AL@"):KLJM;LAF?"* "1=::"AF"L@=" STORM TROOPER BAR MITZVAH CAKE history and myth in order to complicate execution of his duty the effort at ever fully, or even adequately, m"1AL@"L@JGOAF?"FME=JGMK"9JLA;D=K"9L" In the tradition of his ancestors Monarch archiving one’s past. Because forgetting is B.U.F. demonstrators Lövy Singh will be called to the Torah a kind of remembrance and remembrance m"1AL@"MKAF?"AFKMDLAF?"OGJ shop in Bacon St – a popular location for street artists – and there Keith learnt of the powerful culture of respect that exists between the painters. “They’re a tight crew,” he informed me, “If someone sprays over another’s painting, it’s war!” And so Keith devised a cunning plan to invite one artist to paint his entire van, which thereby became sacrosanct to the taggers, and then, instead of attention from the police, he found that wherever he went people wanted to photograph his van out of admiration. The notion quickly spread, because others traders had the same problem, and today there are dozens of these painted vans which bring the romance of the cir- cus and the fairground to the markets of The Gentle Author of the East End – and are especially concen- www.spitalfields.com trated around Whitechapel Market. This unlikely alliance between the traders and For a couple of years now, I have enjoyed the street artists has led to an unprec- photographing the colourfully-painted edented flourishing of popular public art ‘white vans’ of Whitechapel – those in which the market traders, acting simply shabby old jalopies that the market traders out of the wish to keep their vans neat use as overnight storage, which you see have become unwitting art patrons – I parked in all the back streets. But, just call them, “the accidental Medicis of recently, I realised that the imposition of Whitechapel.” “It makes me feel calm,” he said, stroking his chin and tilting his head, to “If someone sprays contemplate the newly painted green abstract with satisfaction, before adding over another’s in disdain,“What’s on the other side is painting, it’s war!” too busy, all squirls and clowns – it’s like something out of the hippy sixties.” In fact, Keith had parked his van against the wall to conceal the aesthetic offence of the reverse of his van, which is due artist Eska upon his van, which is of the for repainting imminently. “But what are evolved mode, filled an entire side of you going to do next year?” I ventured, the vehicle. Over this period, since it all “When all these vans have to go…” And began, Keith had his van repainted by Keith replied without taking his fond gaze several artists and has delighted in from the new painting. “I’m hoping to becoming something of a connoisseur, take the box off this van,” he said, “and developing a discriminating sensibility put it on a new one.” of his own with regard to the painting of There may, even yet, be a future for vans and always insisting now upon the white vans of Whitechapel. seeing examples of artists’ work before he will let them loose on his vehicle. the Low Emission Zone in Central London Once this phenomenon took flight and in six months time will see the end of all the artists saw each other’s work upon these vehicles, causing the gallery of the vans, then an immediate development paintings to vanish along with them. took place in which basic tags were Even as I have photographed them, replaced by more elaborate and complex I have observed an evolution in the versions of the artists’ monikers filling the designs and so, as we approach the final vans – possible now, since once they were flowering of the white vans of Whitechapel, invited there was not longer any need I thought I would play the art historian to be covert. As time has gone by, these and attempt to trace the development evolved tags have been supplemented of these paintings through the early and then replaced by images, until now to this late period, just as if they were artists are composing each side of the Renaissance murals in Tuscan churches. van as if it were a canvas and their tag Keith, who proudly parks his painted is only present in a corner as discreet van in Sclater St Market where he stalls signature upon the artwork. These out each Sunday, explained to me how ambitious compositions – some of which it all began back in 2005 when, like many are photographed here – that have begun other traders, he found that his beloved to appear in the last year, comprise the old truck was attracting taggers and mature and, possibly the final period of this in turn was drawing the attentions the white vans of Whitechapel. of the police who began to stop him When I spoke to Keith, he was eager regularly. Keith’s brother Des runs a junk to show me the new painting by street 14 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 15 of speculation. Architecture’s record of food and add to their shopping New inventive uses and entrepreneurial are unlikely to give rise to high rents but in the history of urban capitalism basket for delivery to home. This internet endeavour might be encouraged. An could be long term uses and so we need a demonstrates a consistently ambiguous whether the chains and clone towns have company wants a high street presence. example is The Hub in Kings Cross, a change in expectation too. commitment to the public realm. For caused the erosion of the public life of Amazon too has announced that it wants working community where you hire space We may need local authority property example, in his extraordinary novel ‘The high streets and town centres or merely to have collection points for goods rather and facilities as you need them, you get a managers to demand best value, not just Kill’ Emile Zola showed how aesthetics contributed to its decline, but attractive than the lottery of delivery times. Could PO Box address and the benefit of forging highest price, and to think holistically and fraud were the woof and warp that and well maintained public realm and the town centre or high street be the networks with people that might otherwise about the mix of retail, services and fabricated the excessive splendour buildings are an important component place for this? be hard to do. If more of us are working residential that makes a place successful. of late 19th Century Paris. And in the of success. Perhaps the high street ought to locally then we will need support for We may need to brand the high street Louis Moreno economic history ‘One Hundred Years make more of its role in providing services business in terms of IT but also meeting to be as familiar and of consistent quality of Land Values in Chicago’ Homer Hoyt and not goods. What we might also spaces and printing facilities. as the mall, company or a hotel chain. On a Saturday afternoon, floating above suggested that the innovation of the want from our connection of place is a We may have to find new ways of the corridor of flimsy steel frames lining skyscraper was only made possible connection to people. A significant number rating property on the high street and the busy Roman Road market, a pair of because it allowed speculators to monetize “Perhaps the high of people in Starbucks on my local high encouraging new uses of vacant units heavy-duty icons demarcate London’s fresh air. Architectural aesthetics were street ought to make street appear to be working, either as “Whitechapel will rather than seeing them empty or turned new speculative horizon. At one end the called on to convey the democratic more of its role in students or employees, self or otherwise. over to high turnover, short lived uses. barbed vectors of the Olympic Stadium principles of a civic realm; whilst attention These lone workers seek out human remain the hub for We have to be smarter about allowing represent the ‘city’ of Stratford. At the was drawn away from the rampant providing services contact and interaction not just coffee. community life: rapid change of use. Town centres and other lies the cornichon form of 30 St Mary exploitation supplied by the opportunity and not goods” Undoubtedly, residential is a key use high streets should be able to be mix and Axe which sexed-up the City for the 21st of development. in most places. Living on the high street working, exchanging match uses, so long as building regulations Century. Connected by an unobstructed However despite the financial might still be seen as an inconvenience can be satisfied what does it matter a eye line, the stadium and the tower seem chicanery and land expropriation that but in our crowded Isle we have to and playing” high street building changes from retail to plot out the co-ordinates of the global accompanied the boulevards of Second consider it. The types of properties are to office, residential or cafe? We need city’s palatial east-wing. Empire Paris and the Chicago World’s However, while internet purchase and often open to being altered, giving a different development logic, that includes Right now a wave of urban restruc- Fair, buildings were still products of home delivery increases then so too does blank canvas; but empty shops could those with a stake in the area and not turing is busily remapping the metropolis’ their environment. Even as residues of the inconvenience of not being home easily become places of live and work. Delivering social infrastructure, health focus solely on retail growth. Whitechapel eastern hemisphere. The Shard at speculative subterfuge Chicago tall when they deliver. Perhaps this is an Why not set up an office downstairs from and beauty could also be the next big will remain the hub for community life: London Bridge, latching onto the ongoing buildings and Parisian bourgeois opportunity for the high street. Ocado, the where you live? thing. Education and training might be working, sharing, exchanging and playing. development of Bankside, is steadily apartments synthesized new expressions of company famous for delivering Waitrose There will always be a part for a big winner, with schools and colleges Whitechapel has great flexibility and fabricating a new inner-edge to the City; urbanity. But the artificial ‘quarterization’ food within the M25 area, recently had a retail, particularly in places with strong looking for new premises as their existing adaptability and an important mix of retail, whilst Crossrail carves up sections of of London into zones of investment, pop up shop or rather a shop window, at local economies, and service provision buildings crumble. Large vacant office health and culture so should fare well in the west-end, wiring Heathrow into the entertainment and media, torqued by One New Change on Cheapside, the City can’t hope to match the rental levels or vacant Victorian buildings could be the future but it needs to be cared for financial zones of Canary Wharf, the City infrastructure towards the centre of of London’s High Street. Using an app, of successful retail, but perhaps some schools. How about hotels occupying now and its community to forge a place with a and Mayfair. All these projects, including banking, indicates a highly abstract and Photo: Rubbina Karruna what else, customers could scan pictures landlords won’t have a choice. redundant Town Halls? However, these unique identity. the 2012 Olympics, were spawned from selective urban form. One that attempts the re-development of Docklands in the to package up the ‘blooming buzzing 1980s and 1990s. Which makes Canary confusion’ of urban society like a raw competitiveness has been compromised Given current uncertainties, the idea that Wharf a kind of seed-crystal – an emergent material for export. by the grim reality of recession and a place will be regenerated off the back urban form, crystallizing out through In the boom the qualities of urban austerity. Which means that the steel of a shed propagating consumer debt proposes the opportunistic densification the seams and lineaments of London’s diversity and dynamism were excitedly secretions of a catastrophic boom represent would be a fantastic joke if the facts of of 4 vacant ‘yards’ along Assembly metropolitan fabric. touted by politicians and officials. The an unreliable image of what the future of the matter were not so stark. The riots Passage, just off the Mile End Road. The Perhaps from a certain vantage public realm of London was presented by London holds for its citizens. Nonetheless, that began in Tottenham, swept through four new buildings reinstate a mixed point London’s new spatial matrix City of London planners and the London it seems the new urbanism of what Wood Green Shopping City, spread programme of light industry and affordable represents the global city equivalent of 2012 bid team as a kind of complex The Economist calls ‘Londonism’ – where out into the suburbs of Croydon, and housing, whilst suggesting that the urban thoroughfares. But since they commodity, encapsulating the spirit of all roads lead to the City – seems to have ransacked the regenerated precincts of backlands are capable of holding more accommodate trade operating at an competition, creativity and enterprise taken the popular imagination hostage. England’s industrial towns exposed formal activities through the construction altitude far removed from the everyday international markets thrive upon. This A recent piece of boosterism in the metropolarization on a national scale. of a Pentecostal church and churchyard. street, we might ask what kind of social conception of urban creativity was trans- Evening Standard advertising the new The networked trashing of high streets This strategy of small scale infill would transformation is this new urban form lated through a new style of graphic Westfield ‘Stratford City’ mega-mall – across the country should, at the very provide a framework for future intended to produce. For those working urbanism. The modified form of the City of the gateway to the Olympic park – argued least, provoke a reexamination of what development in similar sites across the on the shop-floor of London’s economy, London and the Lea Valley were designed that the “launch will transform many is leading the rush to mentally and city. In an economy where large scale the long term significance of these schemes to represent a new image of the city Londoners’ ‘mental map’ of their own materially restructure London’s landscape. projects are too risky small buildings allow is – in spite of all the glass and steel – adjusted for the risk appetites of ‘world city”. As the Standard put it the Olympic Looking beyond 2012 what endgame Shaun Young a site to be developed incrementally as hardly transparent. class’ traders, athletes and companies. ‘legacy’ is banked on the success of does the transformation of East London and when the market requires. Of course, there is no reason to expect Since the crash of 2008 the gilded “London’s latest and biggest ever temple have in store? The high street is not just a linear the form of buildings to explain the intent rhetoric of global growth and urban to Mammon”. condition. Its decline may not only be due to lapses in its commercial frontage but also to the gradual de-densification “Strange of its backlands; the spaces behind the street which once played a key role in agglomerations environment have played their part in its economy. born of philanthropy, the sustained decline of the high street. London’s high street backlands Ben Van Bruggen Our high streets have grown as are strange agglomerations born of opportunism, accident & Steve Smith Meccas of retailing when towns and cities philanthropy, opportunism, accident and and abandonment” flourished and growing your own veg, abandonment. They are a prevalent city At a time when retail sales volume is baking your own bread and making structure, as rich and strongly identifiable declining on the high street, and shop candlesticks became a chore rather than as the Georgian square, Victorian terrace closures and job losses are making the a necessity. There are more streets with and mews block. Their densification headlines, internet sales are still growing – this name than any other in the UK by far. and subsequent inhabitation could With over half of London’s brownfield sites we are still buying stuff, still consuming – In London you are never more than a few contribute to the continued success of within 200m of a high street it seems stay calm and keep shopping. hundred metres from a high street. the high street as a sustainable economic important to envisage the high street to But our high streets and town centres Many high streets have been in infrastructure. be as deep as it is long. are no longer seen as the only places to decline for years. It is difficult to assess Backlands are punctuated by yards, go for shops. Limited car parking, and high brownfield sites left over as light industry rental levels are most commonly cited, but moved out of the city to units in London’s Project produced at Kingston University School poor quality public realm and built eastern sprawl. My speculative project of Architecture and Landscape. 16 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE II — SPECULATION — SEPTEMBER 2011 of Animals. Even though it was also vegan, thinking had to be put on hold for this aesthetic to make desirable had been halal, kosher and fat-free, these people whole time. In the beginning he tried to cracked by anyone though, which made were the only ones to welcome his samples have discussions, “no actually, most lab Keith, his bench neighbour, increasingly with other words than “Eeew! Why would tests don’t do any harm at all” and sarcastic about the whole thing. Yet there I eat that?!”. “without the protein from cooked meat, we was a solution, staring him in the face It was almost five years ago, and the humans wouldn’t even be here anymore”, most nights of the week at around 10.30pm, initial euphoria was fading. It had been but he soon learned to keep these thoughts a kebab grill. The people who enjoyed so easy, since no one had claimed the to himself, especially after he quit his job. this kind of delicacy surely weren’t too $1 million prize in 2012. Even though he He missed the nerds from the Centre of regarding as to what the meat looked like, wasn’t growing chicken, they gave him the the Cell. The few he ran into since leaving wouldn’t they go for a healthy lab-grown David Benqué money, and it was more than enough to ignored him at best, some yelled at him. alternative? and once they ate it, the rest scale up the production. He threw himself He remembered that night, like so would see, it was perfectly fine. Leaving Did he really want to be here? It was in the community spirit. The meetings, many others, when he locked up the lab, half of his wrap and a full portion of chips boiling, and he’d turned that date down, action-teams, and press conferences now leaving a bunch of cultures to grow over- on the table, he ran home to start working he would be better off sipping a fresh seemed like the biggest shift in this whole night. Shalamar kebab house had become out the details during the first of many cocktail in good company right now. adventure. Social activities and ethical darkly familiar and he now sat down to sleepless nights. The sunday PETA demonstration was causes, let alone speaking in public, eat his doner and chips. Drifting away, he Further Reading: marching on, his T-shirt read “MEAT IS weren’t really a big part of his life before, wasn’t even looking at the rotating grill m"* ."v"EADDAGF"HJAR="i"OOO H=L9 GJ? >=9LMJ=K MURDER (not anymore)”. and the loner in him felt exhausted. when the idea hit him. In-vitro meat In-Vitro-Meat-Contest.aspx Animal Rights activists had been the He embraced the cause without too exploited the same technology he used m"(=O !9JN=KL"i"OOO F=O @9JN=KL GJ? only ones receptive enough to support his much effort, I mean seriously, who would to grow organ tissue for patients, and m"MJ?=JK" JGE""&9:"(*,"i"OOO FHJ GJ? ¡vv invention back then, and yes, he went along openly argue for being mean to animals? advances in the field were often discussed v¨ v¦¡ :MJ?=JK >JGE 9 D9: L@= OGJD< of-in-vitro-meat with it. In-vitro meat was a perfect match He’d never felt a particularly strong bond at the coffee machine. He even tasted m"JLA>A;A9D"E=9L";GMD<"KDA;="=EAKKAGFK "K9Q" for even the most radical ideologists with other multicellular species though, samples at a conference. Neither the K;A=FLAKLK"i"OOO ?M9J Many thanks to all our contributors for their hard work: David Benqué, Ben van Bruggen, The Gentle Author, Tom Hunter, Sam Jacob, Keith R. Jones, Onkar Kular, Louis Moreno, Cristina Monteiro, Steve Smith, Noam Toran, Hannah Tourell, Wouter Vanstiphout, Oliver Wainwright and Shaun Young. Edited by Holly Lewis & Oliver Goodhall We Made That www.wemadethat.co.uk Guest edited by David Knight www.dk-cm.com Designed by Andrew Osman & Stephen Osman www.andrewosman.co.uk www.stephenosman.co.uk Correction It has come to our attention that the article ‘Wentworth Street: Then & Now’ in Issue I, was missing the full and correct credit: “This survey was produced by General Public Agency with research conducted by Kate Rich. It was commissioned by the Whitechapel Gallery as part of the ‘The Street’, a programme of artists projects, events and research which focused on Wentworth Street”. We apologise for this omission. THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 2 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 3 Olympic Park Stratford Ω Ω Ω Stratford High Street Victoria Park STRATFORD Pudding Mill Lane Ω HIGH STREET Eleanor Fawcett, Olympic Park which I hope will become even more Legacy Company of a focus once next summer’s events have passed. Three Mills It’s a curious thing that the High Street Green 2012 initiative has emerged as a real STARTING WITH WHAT IS THERE pioneer for a host of ideas that are now Ω Bow Church Ω influencing city-wide policies and projects. In this and past editions of The Unlimited Bow Road Bromley-by-Bow Ω Thinking back to the first discussions Edition you will have seen pieces of Ω Mile End on the project – then called ‘Olympic research and projects which have been BOW ROAD Boulevard’ – between the newly formed focused on getting under the skin of the Design for London and the London Borough places and people that make up High Stepney Green Ω of Tower Hamlets nearly 4 years ago, Street 2012. Some have been critical and MILE END ROAD it’s extraordinary how far the project has some have been celebratory, some have come, and how influential it has been. been looking at the most minute details Whitechapel Ω Take the ‘High Street London’ and others have examined where some of initiative – this important research by the street’s businesses sit in the context of Royal London Mile End Aldgate Hospital Park Gort Scott and The Bartlett, UCL, shines global trade. The clear-eyed understanding East a new light onto what most Londoners and of places as they really are, and not Ω WHITECHAPEL ROAD certainly everyone involved in the High idealised or abstracted, which is evident Street 2012 project instinctively knows: in lots of this work is absolutely critical WHITECHAPEL High Streets matter (See Fiona Scott, p14). to working out how best to steer future HIGH STREET But little did we know just how change and investment. significant they are for London’s well- I was recently asked to present some being. In fact the city has 500km of high of this work in the context of a discussion ALDGATE streets, which support more jobs than with Denise Scott-Brown as part of the central London. Two-thirds of Londoners V&A’s Postmodernism exhibition. I was live within a 5-minute walk of a high street. struck by the parallels between her work The High Street 2012 project is a perfect and the sensibility that can be seen in © London 2012 example of one of the initiative’s key the work of Design for London and many This newspaper, The Unlimited Edition, is final issue in June 2012, ‘Collation’ will recommendations – that investment in emerging practices working across London part of the High Street 2012 Initiative. High combine the previous papers into a projects large and small should be today, and that permeates the High Street amazing opportunity for the creativity The revitalisation of the buildings lining Street 2012 is an ambitious programme set that together will form a unique prioritised for High Streets, in recognition of 2012 initiative. Her seminal ‘Learning and inventiveness which the High Street the High Street adds an important layer to to enhance and celebrate the ribbon of documentation of the local area. just how important they are for Londoners. from Las Vegas’ project took the visually 2012 project showcases. the project – the impressive restoration of London life that connects the City at We have invited a wide range of The Mayor and his Design Advisory Panel chaotic, messy and marginal Las Vegas clusters of historic building frontages, and Aldgate to the Olympic Park at Stratford. guest writers, artists, urban designers are now working on ways of capturing of the 1970’s, which didn’t have any real THE VALUE OF DELIVERING the pop-up shops and other projects which The project combines a series of area- and community members to contribute the potential of High Street London to status amongst architects and urban have occupied spaces along the street. based initiatives that respond to specific creative snapshots to these papers. support the capital’s sustainable growth planners, and was able to present a whole This issue of The Unlimited Edition focuses The next wave of projects will soon be places along the route with street Through this open and collaborative and regeneration, and the Mayor launched new take on its role and importance as on actually delivering projects against completed, including Altab Ali Park and actions that cover the whole stretch to method of content collection, The ‘The London High Streets Possibilities somewhere rich and wonderful. the backdrop of all the complexities of Mile End Waste. create a coherent thread that unites the Unlimited Edition encourages you to look Primer’ earlier this year – which of course At their heart, Learning from Las the High Street that have been explored Seen alongside major projects such intersecting high streets. again at the familiar, at a route that is so showcased High Street 2012. Vegas and High Street 2012 are projects in previous issues. So, this is where things as the Olympic site, Westfield, and the Over the summer months of 2011 we often travelled and so rarely celebrated. The complicated relationship between which carefully and thoughtfully celebrate start getting really interesting. No matter flurry of towers which have emerged on are publishing three issues of this paper The Unlimited Edition is curated the High Street 2012 project and the and reveal the special character of places how much talking and writing and strat- Stratford High Street, each of these specifically dedicated to High Street 2012. by We Made That. All three initial issues Olympics is another of its great strengths. by starting with what is there already, egising happens, for most people the projects represent small changes. The Each issue is focused around one of of the paper will be distributed for free Brilliantly opportunistic in embedding and reject the notion that new models project doesn’t really exist until there determination and time it often seems the themes ‘Survey’, ‘Speculation’ and on High Street 2012 in late summer 2011. the reference to the Olympics in the whole must be imported to ‘improve’ such areas are diggers on site. Here we can start to to take to make these small changes ‘Proposition’ respectively. The papers Full sets of all four issues: ‘Survey’, naming and definition of the project – (see Oliver Wainwright’s essay in The see the ways that the High Street 2012 happen can seem out of all proportion to are intended to reveal surprising aspects ‘Speculation’, ‘Proposition’ and ‘Collation’ ‘linking the Olympic Park to the City of Unlimited Edition, Issue II). initiative is going to affect the day-to- their scale, so each of these projects © All rights reserved. No part of this publication of the existing and explore enjoyable will also be available to order from London’ – High Street 2012 has expertly Even the proposals for the redevelop- day life of regular people. are a triumph. But it is precisely these may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or opportunities for the high street. A June 2012 at: www.wemadethat.co.uk levered in funding and momentum to get ment of the Olympic site post-2012 – The results can already be seen on small changes, with their generous and by any means without prior permission in writing from the editors. Every possible effort has been things done and will have delivered a rich perhaps the ultimate tabula rasa project – the ground along the whole corridor – celebratory spirit, which can make the made to locate and credit copyright holders of mixture of projects before the immovable have scaled up this philosophy and Braham Street park and new public realm biggest contribution to creating successful the material reproduced in this publication. deadline of next year’s Olympic and the vision for the Olympic legacy is really along Stratford High Street are completed, urban places. The editors apologise for any omissions or errors, Paralympic Games. In many ways this all about ‘Learning from London’. The as are important projects providing which can be corrected in future issues. The views can be seen as a blueprint for securing a challenge of introducing a fine grain and brand new connections with High Street expressed in this paper are those of the individual authors and do not represent opinions of the tangible ‘Legacy’ from the Olympic Games ‘growing’ places within the Olympic site 2012 such as Bow Riverside Towpath and Eleanor Fawcett is Head of Design at the Olympic editors or funders of this project. for surrounding communities – a challenge which are really part of East London is an the Stratford High Street DLR station. Park Legacy Company 4 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 5 m E 0 00 IO N OR AT A 5. SIT F LO XIM 1 PO D P RO UM W ON AP ES ED D AT DO S EC CK WIN ALO NOR DO A N RENDER IO UP UP could not guarantee them. The discussions V AT PE UP LE PI H 30 E M NT 75 F RO 19. 92 FL 19. FL R K 74 DE K B RIC 19. UP R EN B RIC FL you have around contracts become . 5R NC 9.9VE CO FLCO 15 0H 9.53 the shop was worth in whatever currency”. really interesting. FL 1 53 19. 53 FL 19. 9.95 FL B FL 1 8 19. FL 9.90 1 H 94 PE 75 M 19. FL9.98 PI Ø Y FL 1 NE 08 A So we advertised it, interviewed IM ER 20. CH D 94 FL 0.1 B UP 5H LA 19. 2 FL 97 op 19. H sh SL OPD ESW N FL M CE LIN G 9.9 1 r artists and selected our preferred artists. HL: And I’ve heard that you’re now doing owe sh dy stu N REND 8H IO UP 10 V AT LE E NT So one was a photographer – Victoria a project at Toynbee Hall? F RO m R dro DE be R EN Gift Nightingale who did photographs in the A om nd ro owe leta iler toish bo r owe Exchange hospital, and we had Verity Jane Keefe TK: Yes, we’re working there with the sh omlan R throen p DE baop R EN m dro f of be or ces race who did a skill exchange at the market. architecture students that we tutor at ac ter ling rai RENDER ling of rai or ces race m m ac ter 0 00 dro 5. be 1 UM That was amazing, she had a list of skills London Metropolitan University. Its D AT lanom en pthro opba iler interesting talking about this straight after bo om that she could offer and she suddenly nd ro t letaowe toish m found out that there were stallholders the ‘Whitechapel Gift Shop’ as Henrietta dro A be nine za me UP R that could paint and all sorts of things. Barnett, who started Toynbee Hall, got all dy K DE stu 92 K B RIC R EN 19. B RIC r FL owe sh N IO V AT LE E CESL LINOP GES RENDER NT And that in a way we created this her wealthy friends to bring their famous op 97 DO W N F RO sh 19. FL ER B 08 D UP IO N m 0.1 20. LA Y E OR SIT 0 00 2 FL NE AT F LO PO 5. H IM XIM D W 1 9.98 94 H M CH P RO ON DO UM FL 1 19. M AP S EC WIN D AT FL 9.90 1 amazingly informal art space, without any paintings to Toynbee Hall and opened 53 B 19. 53 FL FL 19. FL FL need to comply with institutional the doors to the residents of Whitechapel, 15 0H UP R VE CO 74 UP 19. FL 92 constraints or compliance with funders but of course what the Barnetts did is 19. 75 FL 19. FL H M UP30 UP UP ED A ESCK LOC AOR requirements, evaluations etc., which was not comparable. NOD A very interesting and refreshing. Toynbee Hall has an extraordinary social history, which is incredible to A ED CK LO OR Private work with. I can’t wait to get into their DO A HL: And did you ‘gift’ something to the shop? UP UP PE UP PI 75 19. 92 FL 19. FL 74 Threshold archives. The Welfare state and Unions 19. UP FL .R 5 NCVE 9.9 TK: At the time we were doing all the came from people that were residents at CO FL drawings for the planning permission, so Toynbee Hall. Wallpaper design developed from planning application drawings Courtyard Andreas (Lang, Public Works) developed At Public Works we are so involved Semi-Public this wallpaper from the planning drawings. in art and architecture, and we have been And he did a fanzine of patterns at for the last 12 years, we became really Living different scales. So that was his gift to the interested to do this Aldgate Project, which Private gift shop. My product was rubbish so let’s is initiated by Publica in collaboration with Gift Shop Semi-Public not even go there! London Metropolitan University. Public Threshold HL: Was there a relationship between the programme of the space and the design? “All these items TK: The clients had this very eclectic taste, from eBay had Public which totally suited me down to the Threshold ground, after having done minimalist a past history” architecture for years which by now bored me to tears, I found it exciting to try The Whitechapel Gift Shop something different. We created unclut- tered clean backdrops that hosted one-off The students, are doing a structure, which objects, up-cycled pieces mainly from will be a cross between a shop, market eBay. They became certain ‘moments’ or stall and by now a fair. They’re going to the other traders and shop keepers house becoming an art space – a short characters in the house. construct it in front of Toynbee Hall and understood what we were doing they also artist residency program, where artists We soon discovered that all these they’re going to programme it for a week got involved either by ordering bags, engaged with the rest of Whitechapel, pieces that we were buying from eBay had in November. They’ll have fashion shows sending customers to us or by helping us such as the market, the homeless shelter, narrative and a past history. So, suddenly I to games to garage sales, weaving, street fix the machines. the hospital. And Pilar and Pele (the started asking people that we bought from, theatre, tea and cakes and haircuts by clients) really liked the idea, they really what the stories behind the objects were. Richard from The Haircut Before the Party. ‘1,000 Bags Here and Now’ on Wentworth Street HL: How important is your agency in those wanted to do it, and they did. The students have mapped different relationships? Can they happen if you HL: What kind of items did you get aspects of Aldgate. They all came up just make opportunity, or to you have to HL: And did those public ambitions come from eBay? with different points of interest, which make them? completely from you? informed their stall design and has started TK: They ranged from a sink from an to give it an eclectic 19th Century fair feel. TK: I think you do have to trigger them, TK: They came from us but could not have arts and crafts house to chapel doors from There are two students who designed Torange Khonsari, Public Works market stall on Petticoat Lane and over a I don’t think they will just happen if you happened without them. It was the reason Milton Keynes, to filing cabinets from a monopoly game – Monopoly Aldgate 2 week period produce 1,000 bags from make the space. Creating social exchange we got the job. I think you can always the coast… and some of them had really edition and they’re going to work with a Torange Khonsari is one of the 3 core team materials donated by local shops, passers is very complex. challenge a brief. If you come up with an interesting stories, and some really didn’t. graphic design student from London at Public Works, an art and architecture by and waste material we picked up from interesting brief, some clients might say Although this space of the Metropolitan University to realise the practice working within urban and rural the market. The stall was fitted out with HL: And have you been working in the no, but some might go for it. However ‘Whitechapel Gift Shop’ no longer exists game. The money earned through the public realm. She teaches a design studio 2 hand powered sewing machines and we area more recently? what I didn’t realise was that the client as it’s been sold, the project is still on game is the money you spend at the Stall. at London Metropolitan University Faculty produced bags which we would give away wanted to just do it and set up the space going. I would like to do a book where we So you have to play to earn. of Architecture and Spatial Design. free of charge to whoever wanted one. TK: Another project in the area was the as an artist residency almost immediately, collate all the stories from the house We are also going to work with The market stall turned into an ad hoc Whitechapel Gift Shop. That was a I thought we might fundraise for it and and create a fictional story. The project Toynbee Hall residents. The chairman Holly Lewis: When did you first become design and production studio. Some people straightforward architecture commission have a bit of budget, but she said no, let’s as a cultural project continues and the of Toynbee Hall Graham Fisher is on involved with work in the High Street came to order bags according to their initially, and at the interview I floated just do it, which was great. building refurbishment was just part of board with the project and we hope is 2012 area? own needs and designs, others were more the idea of the shop space attached to the The client, Pilar, was reading a that process. The architecture just happens not disappointed. happy to give us advice on how to handle book called ‘The Gift’, so she was really to be part of that process, rather than We will construct the Stall from waste Torange Khonsari: We did a project as the sewing machines. interested in the idea of the gift economy, ‘The End Product’. material found in Aldgate and up cycle part of Whitechapel Gallery’s ‘The Street’ which was again connected to the ‘1,000 So it also becomes interesting that them into design projects. Students are project in 2009. It took place in Petticoat HL: And did people return to the stall? “You can always Bags’ project. She said “Look – we gift we started to become playful with very making contacts with people they collect Lane market, and was called ‘1,000 Bags challenge a brief. Some the space to interesting new artists and mundane bits of architecture, like planning. materials from and also program them Here and Now’. Initially the Whitechapel TK: Yes. some people were coming and they gift to us what they think their time in Planning drawings become a wallpaper for when the Stall goes live on site. Gallery invited us to design a cotton bag. going “I gave that to my uncle, can I clients might go for it” pattern. The negotiations we had to do Instead of designing the graphics to print have another one?” or they ordered bags with the contractor because we were ‘Let’s Take Time’ will be outside Toynbee Hall from on the bags we proposed to set up a and returned later to pick them up. Once using second hand eBay items, and he 30 November – 7 December, 10am – 4.30pm. Eclectic interiors: the bathroom of the Whitechapel Gift Shop 6 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 7 The Unlimited Edition has set out to with several floors above, our contributors explore and record the many facets of have been asked to imagine new uses High Street 2012. Against the backdrop for this familiar location. The submissions of huge changes to its physical, cultural have been combined into a ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ and economic context, we have high street – a game of urban Conse- documented the high street’s delights and quences. The collective result is a vibrant eccentricities and speculated about its and creative parallel to the High Street possible futures. 2012 as it currently exists. It is both a The high street is a diverse, vibrant – demonstration of the delights of this and sometimes contentious – setting. particular feature of the built environment In this feature we celebrate the joyous of our cities and a reminder of the vitality potential of its multiplicity. Taking one and creative talent that surrounds them. typical high street plot: a narrow frontage What happens above that? What happens above street level? What happens on this plot? What happens on the pavement outside? B C Plot Use: The High Street Public Toilets / Power Station Opening Times: Always open as long as shoppers need to visit the toilet Activities: Using the toilets, petting the cows and collecting energy KEY New public toilets will be installed along the high street to provide the busy E F B Daniel Eatock shoppers and residents with a quick D C Catrina Stewart stop-off point. The collected donations Plot Use: Retail / Education Plot Use: Public House Plot Use: Market D Charles Holland of faeces and urine will provide water Opening Times: 10am – 10pm Opening Times : Monday – Friday, E Andy Friend and electricity for all the shops along Opening Times: 7am – 7am 11am – 11pm F Yemi Aladerun, Stuart Darling, the high street. Biogas digesters will be Activities: Selling sweep equipment, Activities: Trading, Eating, Drinking Alex Jenkins, Rob McCarthy used to convert the waste into methane dance lessons, cockney supplies Activities : Eating, drinking, socialising G William Haggard gas. The more visitors the building can A Multi-Storey Market that makes use of H Nick Wood attract the more power and water will a vacant site and extends the full height ‘Would You Adam & Eve It?’, chimney A facsimile of The Mitre Tavern in Holborn, I Daniel Frost be produced for the high street. Cows of the plot. A distinctive market canopy sweep supplies and cockney outfitters – built by Bishop Goodrich in 1546. J David Knight will be kept as pets and farmed for their forms a continuous cover for stalls and this is east London after all! On the K Erin Byrne methane gas to then be used to generate stairs. The roof is a market cafe with views second floor there's a dance studio, and L Mags Bursa additional energy. over the city. above that, the roof tops of London. 8 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 9 H Plot Use: Bank / Social Club Opening Times: Monday – Saturday, 9.30am – 4pm. Other times available K by booking Plot Use: High Street Museum Activities: Advice on saving and spending J Opening Times: 9am – 1pm, 2pm – 5pm Money / Credit. Weekly ‘Meet the I Managers’ Hog Roasts Plot Use: Vacant retail unit Activities: Historic Tours, café, battle re- G L Plot Use: Rainy Days Umbrella Emporium enactments. This Weeks re-enactments: Opening Times: Unknown Plot Use: Garden of Remembrance Further Government legislation regarding Queues for Northern Rock, Glasgow City Plot Use: P.Y.O Opening Times: 9am – 7.30pm honesty of big businesses meant High Activities: Unknown / Memorial Centre circa September 2007 Opening Times: Dawn – Dusk Opening Times : Seasonal Street Banks decor had to be unified Activities: Retailer of bespoke umbrellas Activities: Relaxation, Events, according to brand identity. Despite and repair services The missing section of Wickham’s A High Street Museum commemorating Activities : Growing and picking fruit Sandwich eating marking a return to their historical Department Store on Mile End Road is the death of the high street. Subsidized and vegetables grandeur, the style change was not met Rainy Days Umbrella Emporium is a finally built, not on its intended site but evening classes to include: ‘John Lewis A national ‘chain’ of parks inhabiting well on the High Street. (The) Piggy Bank retailer of bespoke umbrellas for all your elsewhere on High Street 2012. Apparently does carpet’ – Getting over Allders (over This is a pick your own shop where the shells of bankrupt chain stores; the was established in response to this. weather dilemmas. Founded in 1955 by unoccupied, it serves as a civic tribute to 50s); ‘Tactile shopping’ – how touching everything that will grow is grown on site. shop is stripped out and the terrace The growth of online banking left many Bob Merryweather after he was sacked as the small shopkeeper. A ceramic ‘welcome things before you buy them can be The shop then sells all the seasonal stabilised with an open steel frame. The of the Banks redundant. Now instead of a weatherman for a local TV station, the mat’ is set into the pavement in front of beneficial; Eye contact and conversation produce as it ripens. Customers harvest plot is planted with trees, and the defunct changing address details on accounts bank company is now run by his dastardly sons, the vacant retail unit’s plywood entrance, classes for internet shoppers; Pick ‘n’ Mix their own shopping. The shop includes a signage made into park benches and employees have become ambassadors who will do everything in their power to and the phone number on the ‘To Let’ Club with the Woolworths seniors and greenhouse, shed, frames and wormery picnic tables. to spending. increase profits. sign is never answered. Looting for beginners. to maximise production. 10 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 11 south-facing side of the park, so they’re facing the sun, and two, it gives a very theatrical relationship to the street where you become slightly removed from it. HL: So how did you involve those groups in the delivery of the project? Katherine Clarke, muf that it was very, very well used at particular times of the day by different kinds of KC: The detailed design process meant Katherine Clarke, Artist Partner at muf people. And one of the most dramatic that it felt very important to think about Architecture / Art LLP, presents their transformations was at about half past how we could include the different recently completed work at Altab Ali Park three and lunch time, when the young men constituents that use the park, and to to Holly Lewis. who come from Bangladesh to attend almost socially engineer meetings between the business schools in the area came out those young men and other users of the HL: When did you start working in the of the schools either for their lunch or at park. With the Museum of London and High Street 2012 area? the end of the day. They would come to with the support of Design for London, the park in quite large groups of twenty to we organised an archaeological dig. This KC: We tendered to a very extensive brief thirty, and there was nowhere for them to image (see opposite) is the dig in the park, for 4 sites and we won 3 of these: Aldgate, sit, so they used to colonise the childrens’ Overlapping walls of two previous churches clearly visible and you can see here the walls of the Mile End Waste and Mile End Park. East play equipment. The mere presence of a church from the 1800s intersected with the Architects won Whitechapel Market, large group of young men immediately walls of the classical church. The dig was which is also currently on site. The brief gave a very particular atmosphere to the sense of being a forgotten, ‘non-place’, it classical style, and stood on the site from used as a means to invite people in to the was produced by Fluid and that had been park, and one that – we discovered through didn’t seem to have any identity at all. probably about 150 – 200 years. And then park, so we had about 800 people coming about 2 years in the making. talking to other people – made it less However, in our research – as the rest architectural fashions changed, and that through and either partaking in the dig attractive a place for young women or of this area reveals when you start to church was considered too classical in its or coming and seeing the exhibition that HL: What were you trying to achieve with for people with children to come to. look – it had this immensely interesting form, so that church was demolished, funds we laid on. We had interns that actually the scheme? And yet, when we began conversa- and rich history. We found an image were raised, and the church was rebuilt worked alongside the Museum of London, Recently completed Altab Ali Park. Photo: Sakiko Kohashi tions with these young men they were of the church that stood on this site until in the gothic style. and we had young women and girls from KC: Our ambition was to make accom- incredibly sociable and they came to this 1952, with a huge banner in Hebrew on So when we came to make this first modation for all users of the park without park, partly because it was the only green the side of it. The celebration of the conception of how we would transform that they tell about how people lived in the church and intersects with the earlier prioritising one over the other, and to space in the area, but also because of Language Martyrs also happens here every the park it was very much about finding past, and that those lives were probably church. And there’s lots of references to the understand the site as a microcosm of the the monument in the corner, which is year on International Language Day, when that hidden history, finding those many “The park was a just everyday lives. In exchange for a piece ecclesiastical furniture. The interpretation “A way of wider neighbourhood of this part of called the Shaheed Minar. It is a replica between 3,000 and 10,000 people from different layers and also finding a way that home from home of cake, people gave us everyday objects of the park is a really long strip that runs demonstrating London, where historically many different of a monument in Dakar that marks the the Bangladeshi community come to this the park could have a better relationship which we then displayed alongside the along the outside of the railings and cultural, religious and political influences beginning of the independence movement, park and lay wreaths on the monument. to the street, and could invite people in for these young historic objects. which tells you about how the park got its that history is have shaped the fabric and the people of the creation of Bangladesh from eastern It’s very much to do with the politics of much more. And it wasn’t simply about the men who arrive not There was also a second event of name, it tells you about the Shaheed Minar just made up of who live here. We actually diverged from Pakistan, which began with the assas- Bangladesh, so it’s really interesting ‘home- history of the site as a churchyard and layering that we commissioned. In Dakar monument and it tells you about the White the original brief quite extensively, and sination of what are called the Language from-home’ evidence again. hosting churches, (although in fact the knowing anyone” Language days are a time of celebration Chapel. The artifacts that came out of the everyday” chose instead to focus all of the budget Martyrs. So the park was very much a home first church on this site was made in white and procession, they paint the roads the Museum of London dig have been cast in the park as we thought this was better from home for these young men, who very HL: How did your early proposals develop? down to the monument with this beautiful into terrazzo and ground down, the result value to the people who live in the area often come without knowing anyone, for traditional painting, called Alpana. So we is almost like a faux grave marker. and who use the park. months at a time, and have this enormous KC: The research that we did continued, Mulberry Girls School come along as well commissioned three Bangladeshi artists, You could almost conceptualise the that they offer up play opportunities for cultural dislocation. The park was very both through conversations that we had “It was very much as primary school children, as well as one who was recently arrived from south side of the park as being a memorial young children. One of the pieces is HL: Did research into the local area precious to them, but it was also very with people who were using the park about finding that those young men who came to the park Bangladesh, to come and make Alpana in to religion, and the north side of the designed as a carum board and another influence the project? precious to other people who came here, and through a historical study that was for their lunch. So we sort of orchestrated the park and they covered all the paths up park being much more about landscape as a ‘marble run’. The making of the stone families with children and young people, commissioned through the Museum of hidden history” this cultural space where they all met. to the monument with painting. and the relationship to place. We made pieces was done in collaboration with the KC: One of the things that struck us older people, people on their lunch break. London. We found that there was a church As part of the dig we organised what a landscape setting that gives you this Building Crafts College in Stratford, and immediately about the park was the fact And yet the park had this very strange from the 1600s which was built in a neo- we called the ‘Artifact Exchange’, and it HL: So, what were the final proposals? view from the eastern high street corner that picked up on one of the qualities of was a way of demonstrating to people that straight down to the Shaheed Minar, the east end as a place of philanthropy, stone, which is how the area gets its name, history is just made up of the everyday. KC: The main moves that we made in the there’s this grand, processional view to it a place of bringing education to the the White Chapel), but it was also all And the reason that historical objects are park were to make this east-west route through this very simple device of English working classes. The Building Crafts college of the other influences that have been precious to us is because of the stories through that traces the footprint of the landscaping. And then we brought in is affiliated to the Carpenters Association, brought to bear. these rocks and tree trunks to give it this which was founded by John Cass, who The first move that we made was this sense of being a landscape. We re-clad the was actually buried in this churchyard, so idea of opening up this route, so that you base of the monument with pink terrazzo there’s a nice circularity in inviting the could come in through the gate in the and made an area in front that kind of students from the craft college to make West corner, you could walk through the leads you into the landscape. So it was a the pieces. park and come out through the other end. very contrived way of making a landscape So you could still be on your journey that would be populated at different times HL: And are there plans for you to have along the high street, but you would just of the year in different situations by any future involvement in the project / segway very gently into the park. In different people. project area? order to make that walkway, what we did One of the ambitions to make this was trace the edge of the wall of the last park that children could play in, but there KC: It is unlikely we will continue to be church that stood on the site, and then was a lot of anxiety about having play in involved as there is little funding intersected that with the previous church. the park, because for some reason children for the future, though we have a number We made a sort of collage if you like, seem to be synonymous with misbehaving of projects we would like to implement with the idea of the White Chapel and very often. And so the play almost came one of which is an extension of the the previous classical church. by stealth. We made this landscape here Alpana project. Raising the walkway does two with these fallen trees, that again mimic things: one, it makes a very elongated set ecclesiastical furniture with red rope and of social spaces for people to sit in the cast cushions that are put onto the trees for children to explore. There are also these white carved Altab Ali Park is now open to the public. Many Results of the archaeological dig with the Museum of London Alpana being created in the park stone pieces that are made in such a way thanks to Katherine Clarke and Cristina Monteiro. 12 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 13 playfulness. The funding from High Street use the new additions to their park. These 2012 allowed us to address these issues. magnificent tree segments look as if they We agreed with the design team have been there forever and they are learn workplace skills; or Dalston’s Arcola “One should that the platforms to the east and west of already enhancing the play value of the theatre, which became the UK’s first never let a serious the bridge should be planted with native environment. carbon-neutral theatre after a journey that broome. This would perfectly compliment It is a tribute to the design firm muf, started by sharing its building with local crisis go to waste” the colouring of the bridge, provide a that they listened to the contributions entrepreneurs. Some examples have been rich splash of colour and attract bees and made by PATH. It is easy for large around for a while, such as the Bromley by other pollinators whilst deterring any companies and organisations to refuse Bow Centre, a hotbed for social enterprise misuse of the spaces. to acknowledge the local, dedicated since the mid-1990s; others are very recent, in renewable energy or broadband PATH was able to work directly with expertise of the play world. like Space Makers Agency’s initiatives to infrastructure. Or grow food in the public Penny Wilson, PATH I work for the Play Association Tower the design team at muf, and together we We are now closer to having an re-think underused town centres as domain. Or hack existing online data for Hamlets, PATH. We have had a close developed a series of play artefacts made utterly playable park in Mile End. This is community-driven marketplaces, or the unexpected use. Or commission their own With the East End getting all spruced working relationship with Mile End Park from natural and unadorned materials that not a luxury, but an urgent need. Children New Zealand peer-to-peer car-share homes, or get easier access to vacant up in preparation for the Olympic since the very earliest days. Together with would punctuate the passage of the public in this area are growing up divorced from website Jayride. premises for new projects. Or do whatever extravaganza it was obvious that Mile End the park director, we developed a vision from Solbay bridge over the Green Bridge nature. They do not know how to climb What these examples have in it is that makes people tick, unleashes Park should have a souvenir of the of park that had a play offer running right and through to the bus stop to the north. trees or use the natural environment in common is how their protagonists create their ideas and liberates their imagination. remarkable occasion. the way through it. We had worked on Following the theme originally their playing. Nature is alien to them. They platforms and invitations for others to join, Scaling and building on these It also seemed clear that the focal this vision, starting with the Children’s Play identified by muf, we decided to locate a are brought up to be biophobic. collaborate and contribute. They manage approaches is the way forward to building point for the location of this souvenir Park and the adventure park adding two magnificent felled tree beside the play With these new artefacts to explore to unlock a new type of abundance, a new economy, generating real impact should be on and around ‘the Green Bridge’. liminal play spaces in the northern tip of pod on solbay bridge, a buried tree crown and discover through their playing, unleashing the resources that people and deep value. We used the term ‘fertile This extraordinary feature creates an Wennington Green and beside the railway nearby, a series of what appeared to be they will come one one step closer to already have, whether innate curiosity to ground’ for civic entrepreneurs and the archway over ‘High Street 2012’ the Mile bridge north of the Art Pavilion. The areas felled tree stumps rising up the incline of a relationship with nature which the invent or assets that can be shared or ventures they create to grow and prosper. End Road, the arterial route through the either side of the green bridge had no the green bridge and a gorgeous natural increasing pressures of development in co-invested. And they do something that Sometimes, this is about scaling successful East End of London. This bridge gives the obviously playable elements. tree base to climb up and watch the world the area are in danger of denying them. the dominant organisations of the late initiatives, or even replicating them public pedestrian access over this busy In addition, the original design for of passing by above the bus stop. This addition to High Street 2012 will 20th Century were very bad at: creating elsewhere. In many cases instead it means road, providing an uninterrupted stroll the green bridge had design quirks that To our delight, the lead designer from enrich the play environment for children productive interfaces between large scale creating the conditions for mass prolif- along the length of this linear ‘green lung’. were misused and not very conducive to muf and I watched as children began to and adults for many years to come. entities and issues (utility infrastructures eration – enabling similar ideas to spring and providers, landowners and real estate up and linking them to each other. Our management, the education or transport collective challenge is to recognise fertile system, etc.) and the micro level of citizens. ground where it exists, grow it where This more porous interface is what it is scarce, and utilise its opportunities allows, for example, people to co-invest creatively whilst others talk of crisis. The Bromley-by-Bow Centre, both local and social Natural play proposals in Mile End Park. Drawing: muf Here we have included two examples of BROMLEY-BY-BOW CENTRE the ‘civic economy’ in action: one literary A platform for neighbourhood well-being and one local. The Bromley-by-Bow United Reform BROOKLYN SUPERHERO SUPPLY CO. Church in East London had a congregation A tutoring centre on the high street of just 12 people and almost no funds when the Rev Andrew Mawson arrived The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. in New in 1984. Faced with a near empty church Joost Beunderman, Architecture 00:/ Ltd policy debates and other practitioners, York City is a small shop selling all types in a low-income neighbourhood, the www.architecture00.net my practice recently published a book of superhero gear from photon shooters minister and his congregation decided to about what we call the ‘civic economy.’ We to invisibility potions. Here’s the surprise… open up the church hall to the community. It seems so long ago now: that famous recognised that this new type of social and hidden behind a trick bookshelf is 826 Incrementally, this has grown into a dictum of Rahm Emanuel, the then-chief- civic impact ventures can be found across NYC, part of a network of non-profit revolutionary organisation changing both of-staff of then-recently elected president the economy – and that understanding the organisations supporting young people the social and physical fabric of the Obama, that one should “never let a behaviours of their protagonists can help with their writing skills. neighbourhood. serious crisis go to waste”. Almost three us create the fertile ground for a wholly The store fronts of 826 chapters From the initial offer of a carpentry years later, some would say that across different economic development story. are a central aspect of their success: workshop and artists studio space, the world, many opportunities have been The examples in the book – called the originally established to overcome zoning facilities now include a 40-seat sanctuary, wasted. What is certain is that the crisis Compendium for the Civic Economy – go constraints, they establish an ambient the nursery, a gallery, a theatre space is still upon us: our economies, both across a wide spectrum: from Manchester’s culture of non-institutional fun and and a flexible community room. In 1997, globally and in the UK, have stalled; the FabLab, a high-tech community product creative achievement. They reduce barriers an integrated health centre was set up, mood across society is brittle, and the development workshop originated in to participation by removing the stigma combining a public park with a GP practice, quality of the environment keeps eroding. the ‘How To Make (almost) Anything’ often associated with tutoring spaces. In a families project, a social landlords’ In order to grow a more resilient and course module at MIT, to Livity, a socially 826 chapters across the US, almost 24,000 office and other local services. The centre inclusive prosperity, re-imagining and responsible marketing agency-turned- students have received tutoring, with now hosts more than 2,000 people every re-building our economy has never been alternative-youth-club that helps young the help of over 5,000 volunteers. As such week and has become the third largest more urgent. people from often tough backgrounds to they show how a local high street could provider of adult education and training In this context, many social pioneers evolve towards a different type of use in the borough of Tower Hamlets, a are getting on with it. Realising the and experience. vibrant ‘third space’ in between public and importance of their initiatives to inspire Creative writing in a surprising setting, Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. private space just off High Street 2012. 14 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 15 What projects do we hope to see emerging brand experts, graphic designers. And with the millions of pounds worth of these people will need to give up the usual From our surveys, we found that typically “Look behind the funding available? Almost-impossibly sense of order or control, as some of the two thirds of trips to high streets were façade, down alleys, fragmented projects made up of multi- outcomes will be unpredictable because for activities other than shopping: so to faceted work streams: bringing a vacant first you need to get to know the high understand them as a retail phenomenon side streets and mews” property back into use here, improving a street area inside-out. Those involved will is both to underestimate and to mis- junction there, strengthening links with need to develop new skills on the job, and understand them. High street retail is traders, helping landlords upgrade their they will need tenacity and determination undoubtedly suffering: this erodes local premises or improve their shop displays. to cut through the daunting statutory, economies, and drags down the appear- not designed by architects but are derive Projects to make better spaces for play, organisational and time constraints. ance of the street front leading to a from pattern-book building. High streets planting, new seating and lighting. These projects involve finding vicious circle of decline. But all the other are also resistant to a singular vision, either Projects that make affordable workspaces whatever momentum, ambition or skills uses that were observed are potentially from architects or developers, and to that available, site purchases that unlock better there are in a local area, and corralling what sustain the shop-front retail and extent, they were somewhat resistant uses of space, land assembly processes to them into actions that make a place- services: multiple functions are woven to the sweeping gesture of Modernist de-risk sites to stimulate investment. specific difference. The range and breadth together in a web of interdependency on urbanism, which has had such a lasting All these projects involve the coop- of collaborative working needed to reverse a micro level, and we need to reinforce legacy. Making better high streets is eration of large numbers of people across the decline of our high streets is an all the functions of the high street if we about embracing plurality and ordinariness, the public and private sector, from immense challenge, but one that could want to make them better. and confronting questions about what landowners to shop keepers. And many of generate almost immediate, positive High streets are about the everyday: designers can meaningfully contribute them will need multi-disciplinary teams results, that affect the broadest possible worldly, commercial, and rather traditional. today, to parts of the city that have often of urban designers, social entrepreneurs, cross-section of Londoners. Many impressive high street buildings were got along without them. artists, lighting designers, marketing and The fine grain of a High Street carefully recorded James Pallister here for years, through thick and thin, so reducing rates to encourage occupancy Forget the hassle of temporary uses or isn’t really an option as it’s perceived as pop-ups, James Pallister reports on a very unfair. This is a good way of livening pragmatic way of sprucing up unloved otherwise dead shopfronts. Some people high streets. complained, thinking that we must be spending lots of money on it, but it costs The British High Street is in trouble. There about £2,500 – 3,000 to do each one, and Fiona Scott, Gort Scott I am an architect, and I first started are too many shops, the rates are too they are reusable.” studying London’s high streets fairly high and everyone’s skint. Between July It may seem bizarre, but serious It is almost impossible to over-state the recently, in 2008. The ‘death of the high 2008 and July 2009 the number of vacant thought went into what type of faux-shop importance of high streets to London’s street’ was common rhetoric, but I was shops doubled, with Derby, Blackpool and they put in place. Sensitivity was needed, fabric and culture. The network of varied, surprised to find very little in terms of Liverpool three of the hardest hit places, Goldfinch says, as they didn’t want the characterful non-residential streets critical observation of what London’s high each with over 20% of retail capacity fake shopfront to introduce unwanted encompasses so much of what we think of streets are really made of, and what role vacant. And no one likes to go shopping on competition to existing (real) tenants. as the city, that it is sometimes easier to the streets and buildings play spatially a grimy street with a fifth of its units So the first shop was a delicatessen, define high streets by what they are and functionally. I could not even find a boarded up. As Sarah Cordey, spokes- something which the high street didn’t not: they are not business or retail parks, map of high streets in London. Everyone woman for the British Retail Consortium, currently have. Neil Wilson and Paul not typically vehicular priority routes, not seemed to have a vague sense of what Mapping London's High Streets puts it “Empty shops are a categorically Murphy’s Shopjacket, has since worked shopping malls. But they are the structure a high street was or should be, but there a bad thing. There’s the danger of a spiral with several local authorities including for almost every other kind of public and are many, many different kinds of high of vacancy if there are several empty North Tyneside Council, Sedgemoor civic function in London, particularly street. High streets tend to be complex, unremarkable. But by careful on-the- thirds of Londoners live within 5 minutes shops on a high street as the unpleasant District Council, Harrow Council and West outside the very centre of the city. And disorderly and mixed: they are not just ground observing and recording the scale, walk of a high street. And outside the environment scares shoppers away from Dunbartonshire Council. Shop Jackets: Before and After where planning decisions over the last shops with flats above. And the London form, use and physical structure of very centre of London, they support more the area”. “The premise was not to hide a few decades have failed to recognise or condition – the network spread over some certain high street blocks, we have tried than half of the capital’s jobs. This was the situation which Karen problem, but to encourage shopkeepers to respect the significance of the high street 1500 square kilometres – is quite unique. to understand their value and develop a We have found that physically, high Goldfinch and her colleagues at Whitley think about design, to help bring top sized stickers on the boarded up windows Shopjacket has recently been taking (which they have frequently), highly In our work, we have tried to frame a renewed appreciation for something that streets are very much more than parades Bay Chamber of Commerce feared for quality design to the suburban high street”, of vacant homes showing signs of enquiries from towns and cities in mainland dysfunctional pieces of city have emerged. sensibility to some of the more ‘ordinary’ has been both unfashionable and unloved of shops. Look behind the façade, down their town. Faced with a number of vacant says Neil Wilson. His colleague Jo Atkinson habitation (pot plants, blinds) have been Europe. Like hospitals and schools built It is an important time for London’s elements of the high street. A lot of in recent years. alleys and side streets, and mews. Look shops they came up with a novel solution – of Shopjacket explains she is wary of used to cut crime rates. And years after under PFI – another British product being high streets, with £50 million Outer London the street is background, and aesthetically At the same time, using Geographic at what goes on inside adapted industrial to put in place printed foamex boards accusations of filling up the high street Christo and Jean Claude wrapped buildings enthusiastically adopted overseas – one Fund money to be spent on projects Information Systems (GIS) – a form of and civic buildings and the rooms above inside the shop window that gave the with fake shops. “That’s not what we want conservationists in cities like Rome and can imagine them being adopted by many related to the capital’s high streets by 2014. digital data mapping – allowed us to plot shops. You will find colleges, bakeries, illusion of there being an occupied unit to do. We’ll only do one or two per high Venice had to cover buildings during well-meaning councils and retailers This summer the Mayor also announced a London’s high streets as a spatial network. mechanics, mosques, film studios, picture- within. A graphic designer and property street, normally in a cluster, and then repairs. They soon got wise to the fact that looking to staunch the flow of shoppers £50 million Regeneration Fund dedicated “High streets tend According to this work, there are over framers, accountants, timber yards, specialist teamed up to provide the service ideally back them up with one-to-one one way of helping fund repairs and keep from the High Street. They give tired high to high streets and town centres, partially to be complex, six hundred high street areas outside the council offices: places of work, culture and and later formed their own company – retail merchandising workshops with residents happy was to sell advertising streets a temporary facade of aspiration, in response to the August riots. Political very centre of London (see image), and community, and every kind of activity Shopjacket. The idea is to minimize the existing retailers, as we did in Dumbarton. space on these hoardings – or better still, operating somewhere between – to inject will and popular consensus are galvanising: disorderly and mixed: mapping them onto a single drawing was that sustains the city. In terms of floor area, blight of vacant shops and – best case The aspiration is that you create a print giant versions of what the pristine a little American glamour courtesy of ideas and actions are growing. There is they are not just shops a big step towards appreciating what they shops and services may account for only scenario – to perhaps entice in some new successful cluster which then spreads.” building would be once the covers were off. T.S. Eliot – the ‘pain of living and the drug a palpable sense that we can restore some mean to the city as a whole. These high half the non-residential use. tenants. For Goldfinch its definitely The Potemkin-shopfront seems The shopjacket solution is without of dreams’. of the vigour and dignity of these valuable, streets comprise only 3.6% of the capital’s worked. “It’s been very successful and a fairly bizarre, but it has a surprisingly long doubt a practical, low-cost one. Sanitised with flats above” A longer version of this piece appeared in the working places, that have been taken for road network, and yet they represent year on we’ve reduced vacancy rates on line of precedents, especially in the they may be, one can imagine these pieces November issue of Creative Review. James Pallister granted for decades. some of the most important spaces: two our high street. Some retailers have been construction industry. In the US window- of bittersweet pragmatism proliferating. is Senior Editor at The Architects’ Journal. 16 THE — UNLIMITED — EDITION ISSUE III — PROPOSITION — OCTOBER 2011 A HOME THAT IS A PLANT GROWING CLUB Proposition: House (C3a Dwelling houses) land lady now provides tutorials in tomato that is a tomato cultivating club (D2 growing and holds parties for birthdays Assembly and leisure) and celebrations, some organised through the Royal Horticultural Society’s network. By allowing lodgers a spare room in She had to make her spare bedroom the house, and by employing others as into a living space for the ‘lodgers’ – but gardeners, a group of professional- they only resided for up to 2 hours each. amateurs set up a hobby network. A super-short term tenancy agreement Oliver Goodhall, We Made That For example, shops are grouped as Class “The sofa and kitchen was only for needed to be signed each time. That was A1, restaurants as A3, houses as C3, and occasional use, and that’s why both were the only inconvenience, other than that it Out of town shopping centres, the retail so on. Use Classes are used to categorise, squeezed between the plant pots. The was a roaring success.” price index, the mall, big sheds and Pay but also to control – once a plot has a Use Pal: all now characterise our high street, Class, its possible future uses are strictly either directly or indirectly. Trade, sales laid out. Sometimes changing between and commerce have long formed the classes is easy. A butcher becoming a focus of our high streets, yet today they chemist is fine. A bank becoming a butcher are under threat. is also permitted... but what if we want Declining sales and the proliferation something else from our high street? In of online consumerism bear witness to the face of uncertainty, how can we a shift in the urban and social relevance increase flexibility in how our high streets of the high street. This shift is outdoing might be put to use? As the shape of the the planning of our high street. If retail street adjusts and the notion of high can no longer be relied upon, what will streets is re-thought, should we plump for replace it? better ‘Mis’-Use of these categories? The way high street plots – and By subterfuge and slight of hand, indeed all pieces of land – can be used is these examples increase the possibilities currently controlled through ‘Use Classes’. for the future of our high streets: A MONEY EXCHANGE THAT IS AN AUCTION HOUSE Proposition: Money transfer (A2 Financial in the crowds and it’s a mesmerising sight and professional services) that is a live as the professional brokers flit between eBay auction shop (Sui Generis) bid windows. The best thing is that they have the Employees act as brokers operating online items sent to them and there’s always to gain best possible prices on second someone there to sign for it. They arrange hand goods being sold on eBay. a convenient time for you to pop by “They’ve amassed a feedback score to collect your item. The fee they take is of well over 4,000 on eBay in such a short just a percentage of 2.5%, although time. Plus, they have a well known there’s a minimum charge of £1.25. A small reputation for getting those hard-to-find price to pay for online shopping on the items. The array of widescreens really pull high street.” A SHOP THAT IS A LOCAL LIBRARY Proposition: Shop (A1 Shops) that is Library to re-shelve the book in the correct place (D1 Non-residential institutions) on the separate rack. It was also possible to purchase Through selling books to philanthropists, furniture. The delivery and handling charge reading material is moved from one on chairs, tables, reading lamps was set side of the shop to the other, where it at £4.95. This would cover the relocation can then be read freely within a public from the one side to be appropriately library section. placed for use on the other. This continued “It was pretty straightforward. When for close to six months, relying mainly customers went to the till to pay the on the good nature of people wanting to security tags were left on. Then, before build this into a success. leaving the ‘shop’, each would be directed Now the only items the shop still to the filing system assistant who employed sells are those bookmarks personalised the Dewey Decimal Classification in order with your name written in a swirly font.” Many thanks to all our contributors for Edited by their hard work: Holly Lewis & Oliver Goodhall We Made That Yemi Aladerun, Joost Beunderman, Mags www.wemadethat.co.uk Bursa, Erin Byrne, Katherine Clarke, Stuart Darling, Daniel Eatock, Eleanor Fawcett, Designed by Andy Friend, Daniel Frost, William Haggard, Andrew Osman & Stephen Osman Charles Holland, Alex Jenkins, Torange www.andrewosman.co.uk Khonsari, David Knight, Rob McCarthy, www.stephenosman.co.uk James Pallister, Fiona Scott, Catrina Stewart, Penny Wilson and Nick Wood. during the week. Nearly 60 % of the people are likely to accelerate the trend that numbers of people that Crossrail and the we stopped to speak to on a weekday began with home-based online shopping. enlarged Royal London Hospital will bring. were here for work. Predictably, this According to Barclays, the amount we The changes are complemented by the changed at the weekends when nearly spend on shopping via mobile phone in work designed by Julian Harrap Architects everybody was on the High Street for the UK will rise from £ 1.3 bn in 2011 to restoring magnificent historic buildings. shopping or socialising. There can be few £ 19.3 bn in 2021. Much of this spend will In these careful restoration projects places in the city which are so consistently disappear from the high street. there has been space for freshness in the busy, but for completely different Julian Dobson, Urban Pollinators So we need to think how the high Paul Harper, Design for London, approach to signage where Julian Harrap reasons day-by-day. street can become something different: Greater London Authority worked with graphic designers Objectif. We also discussed with people the It’s hard to find an American city without a place where social and civic functions At Ocean Green plans were already This issue of The Unlimited Edition marks changes they have seen in the area, a sign warning pedestrians: ‘No Jaywalking’. attract commerce and activity, not just a It’s June 2012 and on Whitechapel High well advanced when it became part of the end of our series of newspapers about both recent and longer term (one person The road is the domain of the car, and shopping destination. We need a ‘right Street, Mile End Road and Stratford High the High Street 2012 project. However PRP High Street 2012. Here we present a we spoke to had lived in the area for 68 walkers should know their place. If you to roam’ for the high street. Town centre Street there is lots going on: diggers are Architects have worked with Adams and folio of the first three papers, combined years). Particularly in Stratford people want to get to the other side, there are property is usually privately owned. But it on site, trees have been planted, shops Sutherland to craft a design of quality with reflective articles on each of our spoke about recent improvements, such designated crossing points. only works when it attracts the public. and building have been spruced up and for the landscape at the edge of the themes of ‘Survey’, ‘Speculation’ and as taking out the railings and returning We’re less intimidatingly anti-people in The high street is a public place: it is people are banding together to celebrate estate, re-connecting it to the high street ‘Proposition’. As a set, we hope that the the High Street to the open feeling of the the UK. But while we don’t fine pedestrians open, accessible, and its value is in its use it all. High Street 2012 has been a model but still providing privacy and protection papers form an intriguing record of this 1950’s. Although, we have to admit that for jaywalking, we still screen them off and enjoyment by ordinary people. But the for improving parts of the city that for residents. unique and vibrant area in this landmark some complained about the problems of with safety railings and push them to the people who create its value are too often carefully works with what is there, that Access to Mile End Park has also been year of 2012. how busy it is to go shopping now! sides to allow the traffic to get through. ignored by those who reap the benefits. celebrates the everyday and that injects improved and the green bridge replanted. In light of the recent improvements It’s a physical fact, but it’s also a reflection Just as the ‘right to roam’ established creativity into the process of change. A magnificent floating towpath has along the High Street, we also asked of a psychology that says the high street by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act So how are we doing? appeared on the canal at Bow and the what else you think should be done. is for traffic. We give over the roads to in England and Wales created the concept In Aldgate, Braham Street Park has Cycle Superhighway now snakes its way You gave us a whole host of ideas, but motor traffic, and the buildings to retail of access land, which people could use emerged from the unravelling of a one-way down part of the street. Paving, lighting the most common response was that traffic. Yet with all this movement and and enjoy without compromising the traffic system. This project was funded by and carriageway changes have started there should be more open spaces to sit throughput we create few spaces for the owners’ rights, we need a right of access a private developer who recognised that to make Stratford High Street a little with more flowers, trees and greenery. really important traffic: the exchanges in the high street. Landlords should release offices next to a park would be much more more like a street than an urban motorway. Hopefully some of the projects described between people that create social value. idle or underused property for community attractive than offices next to an urban It has not been easy to nurture by Paul Harper in his ‘Proposition’ As retail guru Mary Portas came to or cultural activities as an alternative to motorway. EDCO Design worked with a change of real quality whilst negotiating article, such as Altab Ali Park will help understand while doing her review of the high paying empty property rates. Start-up broad client team through many iterations a way through the complex network of on this front. street last year, it’s the social traffic that businesses, artists and educators should to create a park at the edge of the City ownership, responsibility and regulation We Made That We have been struck by the number creates economic traffic: when you want to be able to identify unused space they that is not a corporate plaza but a softer, that characterises work in the public of people for whom this is ‘their’ High get together with other people, commercial can occupy, with the landlord receiving a more welcoming park accessible to local realm. Getting good designers on board When we began this newspaper series Street. Many people had memories of exchange and business ideas follow. proportion of first-year profits. Local residents as well as office workers. has been crucial, but as important for about High Street 2012, we wanted to the Market over a number of decades, So imagine high streets where authorities should encourage communities At Altab Ali Park amazing things have success has been the holding together of reflect an exciting range of ideas about and several spoke to us about the area’s jaywalking was encouraged. Not just the to come forward with ideas for events happened, guided by muf architecture / art. an expanded ‘client team’ for them to the High Street. It was really important violent past: Jack the Ripper and The physical jaywalking that values informal and activities that can take place on An archaeological dig literally excavated work with. This team has included highway to us that those ideas would be based in Blind Beggar pub, where George Cornell movements, such as crossing the road to public highways on certain days. the history of the site and an Alpana authorities, local authorities, heritage an understanding of the area, and the was killed in front of the pub’s patrons by say hello to a friend, but psychological The purpose of a ‘right to roam’ in the street painting event highlighted the organisations, private developers, parks people who live, work, shop and learn Ronnie Kray in 1966. jaywalking that refuses to be hemmed in high street is twofold. First, it recognises richness of the culture of the Bangladeshi departments, artists, market traders, here. As part of our ambition to celebrate You also told us about your positive and constrained when thinking about the value of the place as a shared good community living in the area. These schools, museums, women’s groups, and explore High Street 2012, we have experiences of the High Street: the market how we can use a particular space or that all should be allowed to enjoy, while events opened up a meaningful dialogue religious organisations and many more. been speaking to the people that actually trader who looks after your bike whilst you what activities should take place on our recognising the contributions and between those using the park and those It is a long list that has allowed the project use it – you! The following findings offer go shopping, and restaurants that you’ve high streets. Instead of just designing responsibilities of the owner. Second, it living, working or studying nearby. to tap into shared imaginings of how a snapshot of the life of Whitechapel been going to since childhood. Even those for safety, why not design for fun? And aims to encourage activities that enhance This helped the design team to produce good things might be, reveal shared and High Street, Whitechapel Road, Mile who spoke about the violent side of the instead of just designing for commerce, and increase the value of the place, a sophisticated, layered design that hidden histories and make changes to the End Road, Bow Road and Stratford High High Street did so with fondness – the why not design for conversation? attracting new activities, uses and users. provides space for sitting, chatting, play, physical environment, and the experience Street, as we lead up to the London 2012 life of this street is intertwined with our The high street of the past has gone: By releasing space for enterprise and for social and political gatherings and of everyday London life. Olympic Games, when the eyes of the own lives. This familiarity and affection is academics and policymakers have been imagination, the high street is restored a space where you can learn about the High Street 2012 is a great example world will be on East London. just one of the things that has made High warning of the change for 25 years, and to landlord and user alike as an asset history of the area. A similar process of of the many initiatives that are now The first striking thing that we found Street 2012 a fascinating study subject by now an entire generation has grown up rather than a liability. Researchers and engagement with a remarkable history taking place across London to help improve is how familiar so many people are with over the course of The Unlimited Edition with out-of-town shopping, car-centred community representatives need to work and dynamic present are about to reveal our high streets. It can be seen as a the High Street. Of the people we spoke to, newspaper series. It is an area with a rich retail parks and big-box superstores. The with landlords and local authorities to a similarly multi layered landscape at productive precursor; informing decisions the majority come here everyday, or nearly history, a diverse cultural make-up and trend on the majority of high streets is identify how such rights of access can work. Mile End Waste. being made and actions taken elsewhere; everyday. Most people also live nearby, site of continuous change and excitement. retail shrinkage. More than half the leases What incentives or penalties would bring At Whitechapel, the market was designing changes to London’s high street within half an hour’s travelling distance. We hope that Issue I, ‘Survey’, and indeed in our shopping centres and high streets landlords to the table, and what facilitation probably the most logistically complex places so that they can remain at the Despite the hustle and bustle of the market, the entire series, did justice to the are coming up for renewal in the next would be required to manage disputes? project. East Architects have designed heart of our shared social, economic or even Stratford town centre – this is a vibrancy of the area, and that it might three years, and as they do the big chains What can be done using existing powers, improvements that do not shout change and civic life, rooted in history, fit for the thoroughly local destination. help people to value the familiar and will reduce their costs, concentrating and what new powers may be needed? out loud, however they will make the demands of the present day but also We saw that the High Street and the sometimes overlooked greatness on this their energies in a smaller number of prime One question above all should inform market work better, with improved lighting, designed flexibly so that they can respond areas around it are a hive of activity High Street. locations. Meanwhile mobile technologies the discussion. It’s this one: ‘Why not?’ drainage and servicing for the large to changing patterns of use. 1. Wentworth Street To Victoria Park 2. The Grave Maurice Pub (269 Whitechapel Road) 3. Wickhams Department Store (Mile End Road) To the Olympic Park 4. The Ocean Estate (South of Mile End Road) 5. Walter Beasant’s Peoples’ Palace (Queens Building) and the Octagon Library (Queen Mary University, Mile End Road) 6. Matt’s Gallery (42 – 44 Copperfield Road) For a full tour, as described by Laura Oldfield Ford and Douglas Murphy, see page 12 of The Unlimited Edition Issue I 5 Ω Mile End 3 Ω Stepney Green WHITECHAPEL 2 4 6 Whitechapel Ω MILE END 1 Aldgate East Ω STEPNEY To the Thames 2-4-1! Code: Meat-was-murder-2012 This coupon is non-redeemable As featured on page 16 of The Unlimited Edition Issue II 2-4-1! Code: Meat-was-murder-2012 This coupon is non-redeemable B O G F B O G F As featured on page 16 of The Unlimited Edition Issue II 2-4-1! Code: Meat-was-murder-2012 This coupon is non-redeemable B O G F As featured on page 16 of The Unlimited Edition Issue II Do YOU have experience of biogas ∫ digesters and cattle herding? UMBRELLA EMPORIUM Assistant Vacancy ATTENDANT REQUIRED * Public Toilet / Power Station Must be good with hoses Own wellington boots required Use your skills to contribute * to the high street’s power supply Call Bob Merryweather: T: 0–00-rainy-days Poor sense of smell preferable .) & ." m" .) & ." m" .) & ." WICKHAM’S DEPARTMENT STORE FRAGMENT Do not visit or call · T: 0 0 0 0 0 0 .) & ." m" .) & ." m" .) & ." 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