Empty Spaces Perspectives on Emptiness in Modern History
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IHR Conference Series Empty Spaces Perspectives on emptiness in modern history Edited by Courtney J. Campbell, Allegra Giovine and Jennifer Keating Empty Spaces perspectives on emptiness in modern history Empty Spaces perspectives on emptiness in modern history Edited by Courtney J. Campbell, Allegra Giovine and Jennifer Keating UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH First published in 2019 by UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU Text © contributors, 2019 Images © contributors and copyright holders named in captions, 2019 The authors have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as authors of this work. This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. More information regarding CC licenses is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Any third-party material in this book is published under the book’s Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in the credit line to the material. If you would like to re-use any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons license, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. Available to download free at http://www.humanities-digital-library.org or to purchase at https://www.sas.ac.uk/publications ISBN 978-1-909646-49-0 (hardback edition) 978-1-909646-52-0 (PDF edition) 978-1-909646-50-6 (.epub edition) 978-1-909646-51-3 (.mobi edition) DOI 10.14296/919.9781909646520 Contents Acknowledgements vii List of figures ix Notes on contributors xiii Introduction: Confronting emptiness in history 1 Courtney J. Campbell, Allegra Giovine and Jennifer Keating 1. ‘Take my advice, go to Mongan’s Hotel’: barrenness and abundance in the late Victorian Connemara landscape 15 Kevin J. James 2. Amid the horrors of nature: ‘dead’ environments at the margins of the Russian empire 33 Jennifer Keating 3. Empty spaces, aviation and the Brazilian nation: the metaphor of conquest in narratives of Edu Chaves’s cross-country flights in 1912 59 Leonie Schuster 4. Looking over the ship railings: the colonial voyage and the empty ocean in Empire Marketing Board posters 87 Tricia Cusack 5. Spectral figures: Edward Hopper’s empty Paris 111 Emily C. Burns 6. Landscapes of loss: the semantics of empty spaces in contemporary post-apocalyptic fiction 133 Martin Walter 7. Surveying the creative use of vacant space in London, c.1945–95 151 Krystallia Kamvasinou and Sarah Ann Milne 8. Urban prehistoric enclosures: empty spaces/busy places 179 Kenneth Brophy Index 201 v Acknowledgements This volume began life as a conference on ‘Empty Spaces’ held at the Institute of Historical Research in London in 2015, organized by the three editors and a fourth colleague, Will Pooley (University of Bristol). Given the enthusiasm generated by this event, and the clear value of gathering together scholars with interests in spatial history, we have since collected a number of papers originally presented in London, along with several recently invited new chapters. In 2016 we organized a workshop at the Institute of Historical Research to discuss the chapters and the implications of our ongoing exploration of emptiness, of which this volume is the fruit. Through each step of the process – from conference to workshop and workshop to final publication – we have relied on the support of several institutions and individuals. We thank the Institute of Historical Research in the School of Advanced Study of the University of London for providing the initial financial and administrative support along with the space within which to carry out first the conference and then the workshop from which this volume developed. We also thank the Historical Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society, the Department of History of Vanderbilt University and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London for financial support that underpinned the initial conference. A Scouloudi Publication Award provided financial support for the images included in this volume, while the College of Arts and Humanities at University College Dublin contributed funding for indexing. In addition, we would like to thank Will Pooley of the University of Bristol and Vanessa Rockel of the Institute of Historical Research for their support and labour in helping to organize and administer the Empty Spaces conference in 2015. We express gratitude to Lawrence Goldman, former Director of the IHR, for his support of this project (along with our individual research). We thank the two anonymous reviewers whose comments helped us to mould this volume and our introduction. Julie Spraggon and Jane Winters, in their roles as former and current Head of Publications at the IHR, have offered tireless patience, support and knowledge in support of this volume. Finally, we save our most hearty thanks for the contributors to this volume whose hard work, rigorous research, skilful writing and endless patience have made this volume possible. vii List of figures 1.1 Map of Galway, with map of Ireland inset. 14 1.2 Mongan’s Hotel, Carna, Co. Galway, n.d. 18 3.1 Alfredo Storni: ‘Casos da semana’, O Malho, 16 March 1912, p. 28. 74 3.2 ‘O maior “raid” da America do Sul. De S. Paulo ao Rio de Janeiro’, Gazeta de Noticias, 29 Apr. 1912, p. 1. 77 3.3 ‘O maior “raid” da America do Sul’, Gazeta de Noticias, 30 Apr. 1912, p. 1. 79 3.4 ‘O maior “raid” da America do Sul’, Gazeta de Noticias, 1 May 1912, p. 1. 80 3.5 ‘O vôo S. Paulo-Rio. 548 kilometros em aeroplano’, A Imprensa, 30 Apr. 1912, p. 1. 81 3.6 ‘O grande acontecimento do dia. Hoje o aviador Eduardo Chaves realiza o vôo de São Paulo ao Rio’, A Imprensa, 27 Apr. 1912, p. 1. 83 4.1 MacDonald Gill, Highways of Empire, poster, Empire Marketing Board, 1927. 96 4.2 W. McDowell, Mauritania, poster, Cunard, c.1920. 99 4.3 First class smoking room, Viceroy of India, designed by Hon. Elsie MacKay, photograph, 1929. 101 4.4 Section through ocean liner, Aquitania, poster, Cunard, c.1914. 102 4.5 Charles Pears, Gibraltar: The Empire’s Highway to India, poster, Empire Marketing Board, 1928. 104 4.6 Charles Pears, Bombay: The Empire’s Highway to India, poster, Empire Marketing Board, 1928. 104 4.7 Brézil-Plata, poster, South Atlantic Chargeurs Réunis, c.1928. 106 4.8 Charles Pears, There’s All the Health of the Sea in Fish: Caught by British Fishermen, poster, Empire Marketing Board, 1931. 108 ix Empty spaces: perspectives on emptiness in modern history 5.1 Postcard of the Rue Auber, Paris, from Edward Hopper to Nyack, c.1906. 112 5.2 Edward Hopper, Stairway at 48 rue de Lille, Paris, 1906, oil on wood, 12 7/8 × 9 5/16 in. (32.7 × 23.7 cm). 115 5.3 Edward Hopper, Interior Courtyard at 48 rue de Lille, Paris, 1906, oil on composition board, 13 × 9 1/4 in. (33 × 23.5 cm). 117 5.4 Edward Hopper, Sketch of Paris Courtyard at 48 rue de Lille with Nude, c.1907, fabricated chalk, graphite pencil and grey wash on paper, 19 7/8 x 14 7/8 in (50.5 x 37.8 cm). 119 5.5 Edward Hopper, Le Louvre et la Seine, 1907, oil on canvas, 23 5/8 × 28 5/8 in. (60 × 72.7 cm). 122 5.6 Edward Hopper, The Louvre in a Thunderstorm, 1909, oil on canvas, 29 9/16 x 28 13/16 (59.8 x 73.2 cm). 125 5.7 Postcard of the Quai Voltaire booksellers, from Edward Hopper to Nyack, c.1907. 127 5.8 Edward Hopper, Les Etudiants de Paris, 1906–7, watercolour, brush and ink, and graphite pencil on paper, 19 3/4 × 14 5/8 in. (50.2 × 37.1 cm). 128 7.1 St. John’s churchyard, Wapping, from the air, 1922. 161 7.2 3 August 1970, St. John’s churchyard. 161 7.3 Front cover of McCullough, Meanwhile Gardens (London, 1988). 164 7.4 Map of ‘Meanwhile Gardens’ printed in McCullough, Meanwhile Gardens. 164 7.5 Planting plan of William Curtis Ecological Park. 167 7.6 William Curtis Ecological Park from the air. 167 7.7 Camley Street Natural Park from above, showing King’s Cross station and Regent’s canal. 168 7.8 Camley Street natural park looking towards north. 169 7.9 Hackney Grove Gardens ‘Work in Progress’, Jan. 1983. 172 7.10 Plan drawn for case study of ‘Greening City Sites: Good Practice in Urban Regeneration’, Department of the Environment, 1987. 172 8.1 The andyS Road stone circle, reconstructed in its original form and location in a cul-de-sac in the x Introduction town of Scone, Perth and Kinross, after housing built here in the 1960s caused complete excavation and temporary removal of the standing stones. 184 8.2 Pupils from Strathearn High School marking the route of the western ditch of the Neolithic Broich cursus, which runs beneath the school campus and playground. 186 8.3 The ighthillS stone circle, Glasgow, in 2013. 188 8.4 Solar eclipse at Sighthill stone circle, 2015: for once, not an empty space. 190 8.5 The central stone of the ighthillS stone circle has increasingly come to be a focus for the memorialization of the deceased for one local family. 192 8.6 The econstructedr Balfarg henge, Fife – this view shows the entrance to the henge and one of the internal standing stones. 195 8.7 Henge Gardens, Glenrothes. 197 8.8 Wear marks indicating the use of the timber posts at Balfarg henge for goal posts.