Towards a Phenomenology of the Concrete Megastructure

Abstract

The Brunswick Centre is a concrete megastructure, comprising a shopping precinct and flats, built in central London between 1968 and 1972. This article, presenting a re-reading of its spatial characteristics, is part of a larger project concerned with revealing the layers of cultural meaning invested in a building conventionally regarded as a work of abstract modernism. It sets out to develop a reinterpretation of the building through a phenomenological approach based on a multi-dimensional exploration of its design and occupation, bringing to the fore issues of perception and embodiment, or ‘beinginthe-world’, at individual and collective level.

Keywords

architecture existentialism modernism phenomenology place

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abram, David (1996) ‘Philosophy on the Way to Ecology, Part II: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the Participatory Nature of Perception’, in D. Abram The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, pp. 44–72. New York: Vintage Books .

Attfield, Judy (1989) ‘Inside Pram Town: A Case Study of Harlow Interiors 1951–61’, in J. Attfield and Pat Kirkham (eds) A View from the Interior: Feminism, Women and Design History, pp. 215–238. London: Women's Press .

Bloch, Maurice (1995) ‘The Resurrection of the House amongst the Zafimaniry’, in Janet Carsten and Steven Hugh-Jones (eds) About the House: Levi-Strauss and Beyond, pp. 69–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

Boudon, Philippe (1972) Lived-In Architecture: Le Corbusier's Pessac Revisited. London: Lund Humphries .

Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) ‘The Kabyle House, or the World Reversed’, in Pierre Bourdieu The Logic of Practice, pp. 271–283. Cambridge: Polity Press .

Buchli, Victor (1999) The Archaeology of Socialism. Oxford: Berg .

Carsten, Janet and Hugh-Jones, Steven (1995) About the House: Levi-Strauss and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

Csordas, Thomas (1999) ‘Embodiment and Cultural Phenomenology’, in Gail Weiss and Honi Haber (eds) Perspectives on Embodiment: The Intersection of Nature and Culture, pp. 143–162. London: Routledge .

Giddens, Anthony (1991) ‘The Trajectory of the Self’, in Anthony Giddens Modernity and Self-Identity, pp. 70–108. Cambridge: Polity Press .

10.

Hamilton Eddy, David (1989) ‘Castle Mythology in British Housing’ , RIBA Journal December: 28–33 .

11.

Hodgkinson, Patrick (1972) ‘Notes’ , Architectural Review October: 194–218 .

12.

Le Corbusier , Charles Edouard Jeanneret (1970 [1923]) Towards a New Architecture (trans. Frederick Etchells). London: Architectural Press .

13.

Marcus, Sharon (1999) Apartment Stories: City and Home in 19th-Century Paris and London. Berkeley and London: University of California Press .

14.

McLeod, Mary (2000) ‘Everyday and Other Spaces’, in Jane Rendell , Barbara Penner and Iain Borden (eds) Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, pp. 182–202. London: Routledge .

15.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1989 [1962]) Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge .

16.

Miller, Daniel (1988) ‘Appropriating the State on the Council Estate’ , Man 23: 353–372 .

17.

Miller, Daniel (1987) ‘Towards a Theory of Consumption’, in Daniel Miller Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford: Blackwell .

18.

Norberg-Schulz, Christian (1980) Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. London: Academy Editions .

19.

Norberg-Schulz, Christian (1968) Intentions in Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .

20.

Pallasmaa, Juhani (1994) ‘An Architecture of the Seven Senses’, A+U Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture, July 1994.

21.

Seamon, David (n.d.) ‘Phenomenology, Place, Environment, and Architecture: A Review’, Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology Newsletter, www.arch.ksu.edu/seamon/EAP.html.

22.

Sennett, Richard (1993) The Fall of Public Man. London: Faber .

23.

Tilley, Christopher (1994) ‘Chapter 1: Space, Place, Landscape and Perception: Phenomenological Perspectives’, in A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments, pp. 7–34. Oxford: Berg .