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ABSTRACT
The role of formal architecture and urbanism in representing and reinforcing hegemonic power structures, ideologies, and identities is well established. It has been extensively critiqued both in relation to European nationalism and colonialism, and to explore how state agencies have deployed urban planning and architecture to re-imagine and represent national and postcolonial identities following the end of empires and the re-calibration of Western political and cultural influence internationally. Universities, as élite institutions tied to state agendas and as major landowners, urban developers and financially well-endowed clients for architecture, have historically been significant actors in these processes. This paper discusses the evolution of new forms of university spatial and architectural development which are framed by discourses around inclusive, diverse, and cosmopolitan urban identities and heritage, transcending nationhood.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributor
Clare Melhuish is Director and Senior Research Associate in the UCL Urban Laboratory, where she has been working on the role of university spatial development projects in urban regeneration and the production of cosmopolitan urbanism and imaginaries in the UK and abroad. She leads on research on universities and urban heritage in the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, a partnership between UCL and the University of Gothenburg, through its Curating the City research cluster, which organised and funded two workshops on this theme in 2016 (London) and 2017 (Gothenburg). Her background lies in architectural history and criticism, anthropology, and cultural geography. She draws on ethnographic and visual research methods to interpret and understand architecture and the built environment as social and cultural setting. Her particular areas of interest and expertise include Modern Movement and contemporary architecture, postcolonial urban aesthetics and heritage, and urban regeneration policy and practice, with specific area specialisations in the architecture and planning of the UK, France, the Gulf and the Caribbean. She works both within and beyond the academic context, drawing on many years’ experience as a journalist, author, and curator in architecture and design.
Notes
1 University of Gothenburg Project Vision, Project Campus Nackrosen 5 March 2013.
2 Braamfontein Regeneration Project Business Plan: Version 2 July 2004.
6 All quotes taken from presentations made by project team members at Universities and urban heritage: two closed workshops organised by Curating the City research cluster in the UCL/UGOT Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, London November 2016, and Gothenburg April 2017; and from interviews with project team members conducted in April 2017.
8 Quotes from interviews with former UCL East project director April 2017.