| dc.description.abstract | This thesis contributes to discourses concerned with urban space and performance
practice. It identifies ways in which built environments become performative; how the
built environment performs meaning(s) within the urban context and how spatial
practices of contemporary performance engage with city-spaces. The programming
and order of urban space tends to fix meanings; increasingly regulated and singlepurpose
city-spaces seem unable to react to informal or unplanned activities. However,
this thesis suggests that urban space entails inherent opportunities for conceiving and
practising space otherwise and looks at a spatial spectrum – from leftover spaces to
London’s landmarks. It analyses incomplete presences in the built environment and
their unexpected (re)uses, which make urban space an arena of ideas, interaction and
creativity. It examines how spatial practices of performance, such as site-specific
performance, audio-walks and installations, inform our (re)thinking of space, its
meaning and its re-appropriation. It argues that through performative concepts and
actions, space manifests a changeable and dynamic quality, rather than motionlessness
and inertia.
The thesis involves an interdisciplinary approach employing geography, urban,
architectural and performance studies. It looks at four types of built spaces that have
been used for performance purposes; a disused warehouse at 21 Wapping Lane, the
converted power station housing the Tate Modern art gallery, the exterior of the
National Theatre’s building and the London district of Wapping. All of these sites are
awaiting, or are undergoing, major alterations in their design or planning, involving
reconstruction and expansion, or total demolition. The uncertain future of these sites
and buildings, the inevitable decay of their material, and the temporality of the built
environment invite questions of architectural design and urban planning in terms of
performance. The examination of these sites at this moment of change and the
potential impact of the redevelopment plans on city life make this research timely,
since the thesis emphasises the imperative of re-defining concepts of space, planning
strategies, and design processes so as to imagine a less determinate, more creative
urban space. | en_US |
