At a certain time in one’s life, when settlement features heavily in any thoughts to the future, it becomes necessary to refer consciously to a space (albeit a room, a flat or a house) as ‘home’. The subtle transition from a ‘house’ or ‘flat’ as an object, to the declaration of ownership that results in the naming of a space as ‘home’¹ confirms the inhabitants possession and responsibility for the space, deciding that they are housed there, belong there. From this point, healthy² relationships with the ‘self’ are nurtured; one feels rooted and stable in their surroundings and a sense of belonging dominates, encouraging the growth of relationships with individuals and groups.

Settled, rooted individuals form stable communities.

Though the idea of owning and indeed, controlling one’s environment or dwelling has been a widely assumed given for those living throughout recent history in the U.K³, this attitude seems to vary widely across Europe. In contrast, Germany and the Netherlands in particular, show significant proportions of the population choosing long-term rental instead of owner-occupied dwellings⁴. However, for the context of this essay, I draw attention only to the current situation of families and individuals throughout the UK.

Inflated markets for the past 10 years, a shortage of available homes⁵, a buoyant rental market and poor quality design of new housing have confronted many families, partnerships and individuals wishing to create a stable living environment.

Challenged now, by the growing uncertainty of the economy, having seen a sharp decline over the period of several months, the housing market has been one of the first markets to suffer.  Interest rates are now at their lowest in the Bank of England’s 315 year history⁶ and tighter controls by lenders (with buyers commonly expected to have circa £40,000 as a deposit) has taken the market to a precipice of stasis. With fear of recession (and in many cases redundancy), the mood is ominous; homeowners are unwilling to accept negative equity on selling⁷, first-time buyers and people in rental accommodation (hoping at one time to step foot onto the property ladder) are, on application more likely to be denied a mortgage, ergo a ‘home’.

A stark indicator of the struggles ahead for homeowners, businesses and relationships alike, is the forecast of 75,000 ⁸ repossessions this year with further evidence suggesting, “…that 34 per cent of repossessions result from the breakdown of relationships [and] another 25 percent arise from the closure of a family company”⁹. Perhaps then, understandably, headlines such as, “Economy at 60-year low, says Darling. And it will get worse”¹⁰ frame the turbulent uncertainty of the immediate and somewhat distant future in personal, domestic environments and commercial businesses realistically.

Does this mean that under the current circumstances, some members of society are now so distanced from forming a stable living environment that our domestic aspirations of comfort, familiarity and security are faltering, leaving them insecure, unstable and disenfranchised?

Given the circumstances, naturally the rental market is in high demand, but with restrictions and pre-requisites on how the occupant must behave in this borrowed, transient space, the feeling of the temporary dominates. Christopher Alexander in “The Pattern Language” wrote;

“People cannot be genuinely comfortable and healthy in a house which is not theirs.  All forms of rental-whether from private landlords or public housing agencies-work against the natural processes which allow people to form stable, self-healing communities”and

“People will only be able to feel comfortable…if they can change their houses to suit themselves, add on whatever they need…”

In terms of comfort therefore stability, rental accommodation fails to provide for the inhabitants that require the freedom to mark and alter a space as ‘he’ wishes.   Landlords, by governing this sterile space, cultivate the feeling of ‘dwelling as temporary ‘stop-gap’’, consciously rejecting long-term or permanent settlement.  By denying the inhabitant a sense of permanence or an ‘ideal’ living environment, unconscious instability or an attitude that one doesn’t belong, prevails.  One is not wholly ‘comfortable’ and ‘healthy’ in a space that is not theirs.

Being in control of one’s environment is essential in order to form a solid foundation. Where one has a solid foundation, the ‘home’ exists as a central, physical reference point to orbit round and at times, return to. Our ‘home’ is where everything is familiar and grounding and upon our return, we surround ourselves with mementoes of our everyday, validating and reconfirming our existence. Alain de Botton in “The Architecture of Happiness” wrote;

“We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical to compensate for a vulnerability.  We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances.  We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.”

The ‘home’ enables the inhabitant to ‘house’ ones beliefs and ideals, enabling one to make comparisons to the distant and immediate past to current familial, professional and social situations. Braced from the psychological tumult of daily life, the steel structures support and isolate oneself, allowing freedom for reflection by protecting the more vulnerable, fragile sides of the psyche that elsewhere may otherwise be lost, unnoticed or unappreciated.

By default, housing all elements of ones identity in the home results in the communication of the inhabitants’ personality to their visitors. Sam Gosling¹¹, a psychologist specialising in the study of personality differences and how people form impressions of others in daily life, insists that the “minutiae of our private spaces hold the secrets of our true personality”¹². Central to his study are the conscious decisions that one makes on the choice of objects, their arrangement and location, ranging from public or private spaces.

“Displaying a poster of Martin Luther King JR may simultaneously reinforce your view of yourself and communicate your values of others, but it is useful to treat the two kinds of claims as separate.  This distinction may help us understand the difference between public and private spaces”

Likening our homes to display cabinets of parts of our personalities to the visitors we invite into our spaces, it is easy to comprehend how “[a] building [or a room] can act as a repository for our ideas [or personalities]” (Botton, p137).  It is interesting to note Alexander’s reference to the term he calls the ‘intimacy gradient’¹³ of the home.  By acknowledging spaces whose function is primarily those of a public or private space and the boundaries associated with those specific rooms, we begin to understand the choices we make when we embellish a room with ornaments and memorabilia.

Through the sense of privacy brings an element of control, with a tangible feeling of security and stability.

With permanent housing having been so unattainable for some over the past few years, the Government has acknowledged a need to improve accessibility for those that are first time buyers. Launching and improving schemes such as the Home-Ownership (whereby you purchase a percentage of the property and pay a subsidised rent on the remaining proportion) and Key Worker¹⁴ ownership schemes have helped many buyers on modest incomes.  In Boris Johnson’s¹⁵, ‘First Steps Proposal’¹⁶, emphasis was placed on the importance of affordability, accessibility and sustainability of current and future housing in the UK.  Despite the good intentions of properties included in the schemes (discounts ensure that properties are at least 20% below the local market rate), buyers with a joint salary of £60,000 are automatically excluded.  Considering that the average salary in London is approximately £30,200, any joint buyers on average incomes would be prevented from purchasing under the scheme.  With property being such a premium, only Londoners with an income of circa £86,500¹⁷ are able to purchase an average priced home.  This wage-gap, between those on average salaries and £43,250, has resulted in a vast section of the community that continue to wish for a permanent space still very much out of their reach.

There is no doubt that we are likely to see an enormous shift in the markets over the next few years as the economic boom busts, but with repossessions and homelessness set to increase a focus on the importance of the ‘home’ is set to magnify.  What remains in question are the potential social ramifications on the community in years to come as a result of these unsettled individuals and families, prevented from forming a stable, private, self-reflecting environment.

Only time will tell.

1. For the context of this post, this ‘declaration’ results from a financial ownership, resulting through the purchase of a property. [↩]
2. By ‘healthy’ I refer to all that is stable, communicative and open and by ‘unhealthy’ all that is unstable, detached and closed. [↩]
3. In particular the Conservative Governments ‘right-to-buy’ policy in the 1980’s (whereby inhabitants in social dwellings were given the opportunity to purchase their housing at discounted rates (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/20/newsid_4017000/4017019.stm). [↩]
4. Over the past century the percentage of people living in owner-occupied dwellings in the UK has increased. It is interesting to note that in 2000, 43% of Germans and 53% of people in the Netherlands owned their property in comparison to 71% of people in the UK. Further information can be found here; http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/facts/index43.aspx?ComponentId=12642&SourcePageId=19659. Please note - Table 1: Percentage of owner-occupied dwellings in different European countries, 2000. [↩]
5. “We estimate that the number of households has been growing at 200,000 or even more each year in recent years… yet new building has been running at between 140,000 and 160,000 a year” – Milan Katri, Chief economist of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors - Ian Pollock, 24th November 2006 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6065330.stm [↩]
6. ‘Interest rates hit all time low’- BBC, 8th January 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7817453.stm [↩]
7. “More people are unable, or unwilling to sell their properties right now choosing to let instead…Many new landlords are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, preferring to hold onto their assets rather than selling for a potential loss” – Lee Jones, “Landlords, Landlords, everywhere, but not a mortgage in sight” – MoneyMarketing, 22 August 2008 [↩]
8. Figure quoted in article, ‘Repossessions to hit 75,000’, Wednesday, 3 December 2008  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7762627.stm. This is a sharp rise from the figure quoted in the article by Anne Ashworth – “What other secrets may lie in Ms Flint’s handbag?” - Bricks and mortar, 16th May 2008, The Times, which predicted repossessions to rise to 45,000 in 2008 [↩]
9. Anne Ashwoth, What other secrets may lie in Ms Flint’s handbag?” - Bricks and mortar, 16th May 2008, The Times [↩]
10. Economy at 60-year low, says Darling. And it will get worse – Nicholas Watt, The Guardian - Saturday, 30th August, 2008 [↩]
11. Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas [↩]
12. Sam Gosling, The Guardian Weekend, 28th June 2008 [↩]
13. “Unless the spaces in a building are arranged in a sequence which corresponds to their degrees of privateness, the visits made by strangers, friends, guests, clients, family, will always be a little awkward.” - p610 – A Pattern Language – Christopher Alexander et al [↩]
14. Key workers are those working in the public sector such as those that are nurses and teachers [↩]
15. Conservative Major of London, elected 2008 [↩]
16. A download of the First Steps proposal  Member Briefing can be accessed by clicking on the following link; http://www.housing.org.uk/default.aspx?tabid=318&mid=1061&ctl=Details&ArticleID=1081 , National Housing Federation, April 2008 [↩]
17. ibid [↩]

An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar
13 September - 11 November 2007

Taryn Simon’s exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery is a spatial interpretation of Simon’s catalogue, “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar”. Having spent four years of committed research, Simon has collected the unseen and inaccessible, previously hidden from the public realm. Embracing science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature, security and religion, Simon has sought out full co-operation and approval from countless American bodies and institutions.

The exhibition itself is strangely alluring, confronting the boundary between inaccessible and accessible knowledge. Photographs of individual, unknown environments are detached from the reality of the everyday and familiar. Simon is a detached collector, informing the viewer of the previously unacknowledged. The unknown at times becomes sinister, the photographic records poised to unsettle and disturb.

Text within this exhibition plays an essential part, without which the photograph remains out of context, without meaning. Blocks of text taken from the catalogue accompany each image, informing the viewer with meticulous precision the use, the institution and the environment, giving where appropriate measurements to fascinating accuracy.

The gallery environment in this case does not lend itself to the fragile relationship between text and image; the continual disruptions of other gallery goers, inhibits the total absorption of information: only within the catalogue does the strange and unknown become still stranger but now acquainted.

Nonetheless, be it within the gallery or the catalogue itself, the index acts as a catalyst, creating a hunger to fill the void of information that has just been tersely created by the truly fascinating body of work.

White Tiger (Kenny), Selective Inbreeding, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge and Foundation, Eureka Springs, Arkansas

In the United States, all living white tigers are the result of selective inbreeding to artificially create the genetic conditions that lead to white fur, ice-blue eyes and a pink nose. Kenny was born to a breeder in Bentonville, Arkansas on February 3, 1999. As a result of inbreeding, Kenny is mentally retarded and has significant physical limitations. Due to his deep-set nose, he has difficulty breathing and closing his jaw, his teeth are severely malformed and he limps from abnormal bone structure in his forearms. The three other tigers in Kenny’s litter are not considered to be quality white tigers as they are yellow-coated, cross-eyed, and knock-kneed.

© 2007 Taryn Simon / Courtesy Steidl / Gagosian

You can also find this review Interface: a-n Reviews Unedited; an open space for new critical writing.

Architecture Week, 16 June
Urban Space Management
Eric Reynolds and Peter Ahrends

The modular design of Container City (dormant shipping containers stacked on-top of each other), located in a regenerated area of the London Docklands, Trinity Buoy Wharf, has been widely appraised for its design, environmental awareness, affordability and versatility.

The founding director of Urban Space Management, Eric Reynolds championed his vision at the 1996 LLDC competition, aimed at creating a centre for the arts and creative enterprise. Having won with his visionary proposal, Reynolds and partner Peter Ahrends pioneered the conversion of low-cost shipping containers into durable and attractive buildings. Reynolds, now a regeneration advisor throughout the UK, has confirmed his reputation and success in projects such as Gabriel’s Wharf, Old Spitalfields Market and Chelsea Farmers’ Market.

Container City has a minimal carbon footprint using 80% recycled material, costing less than half of a conventional building. Environmentally, the structure by default is more efficient, providing ventilation and improved insulation. In particular, onsite construction has been vastly reduced, the units are constructed offsite, leaving only the digging of minimal foundations and securing the modules into place upon delivery.

Drawing a parallel to Corbusier’s idea of stackable housing, buildings such as Unité d’habitation, Marseille (whereby each apartment is an echo of the next), employs identical blocks to create multiple units of housing. Reynolds, having started with mundane dimensions has resisted the urge to create a building whereby each unit echoes the next.  The modules have been arranged (rather than the façade existing on one plane) so that units protrude; creating a dynamic environment and as was the aim, cultivating creative discourse and enterprise.

Other useful link: Creative Space Agency

Clamor (2006)
17-29 April 2007

It’s never a pleasant experience when the first reaction to a work of art is an overwhelming sense of nausea. The hostile attack of sound, generated by Jennifer Allora’s and Guillermo Calzadilla’s, Clamor (2006) pierces the stomach, even before the solidity of the artillery bunker is encountered. The pair, having built their reputation on their socio-political and global opinions have framed the work at a time where a multitude of political crises fill the news. The aural assault of highly charged, military music is persistent in its aim: pushing the spectator to despair.

The two, helmet-like roofs and angular precipices (of the bunker) extend beyond the circumference of the rock like construction (hidden behind the permanent partition wall). Provocatively poised, patriotic, gleaming trumpets and trombones protrude, unmanned, out of the bunker cavities. The sounds of resistance hymns of Viet Cong and music used by American forces for the purpose of torture create a 40-minute melee that incessantly slices the environment, weakening the strongest of defences.

The atmosphere, oscillating between subdued melancholia and authoritative aggression adopts a place of simultaneous refuge and attack. Regardless of being heavily immersed in such a tormenting environment, you are still only an ignorant outsider; curiosity alone compels you to test your own potential breaking point. Denied access into the sanctuary of the caverns and fearing assault, I exit the gallery finding my freedom outside tainted for a while at least.

23 March – 5 May 2007

The first major solo exhibition of Andreas Gursky’s work hosted by the White Cube at Mason’s Yard, is also simultaneously presented at a separate location by Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, London. The exhibition presents a wide variety of photographs; the Boxenstopp series in particular captures the idea of the globalised society in a grand and epic scale. The continual development of digital photography has resulted in large-scale photographs, (approximately 220cm x 600cm) of an overwhelming quality.

As the viewer initially scans the four landscapes, spectators in the photograph look anxiously on; two teams frantically refuel, repair and change tyres against the clock. There is a distinct separation between light (the Formula 1 teams) and dark (the spectators) referring heavily to painting techniques that distinguish subject from spectator.

Vivid colour defines the separate teams which further divides the photographs into three precise sections. Seemingly charged with action, the state of stasis reveals itself only upon closer observation. Every figure, every gesture is a rigid construct employed to represent a frenetic moment in time, but in actual fact composes a frozen tableau, poised for activity.

These constructed environments, captured in exquisite locations, such as Monte Carlo and Istanbul are by no means contrived. The density of the VIP spectators and media presence, (camera crews and reporters are found in the shadows on the bottom half of the photographs) reinforce the financial game and risks that are rife beneath what appears as a simple team race.

Along with photographs documenting the Arirang Festival in North Korea, this exhibition clearly defines Gursky’s almost hyperactive obsession for detail.

You can also find this review Interface: a-n Reviews Unedited; an open space for new critical writing.

At a time when the UK has recently been alerted to the spate of shootings in South London, this show has unintentionally tied itself to the glamourisation of gun crime. There is no hint of the macabre in this film however, but is more of an exercise between the dynamic relationship between both sound and vision. It is an entertaining piece and is highly executed, but stands in a context where communities feel that guns are becoming more of a problem than ever before.

The 4 screen projection “Crossfire” is entirely composed of fictional frames using cuts from Western and War time genres. Marclay creates an environment that assaults the audience with the fetishistic nature of the gun and immerses the individual into a space of rhythmic and pictorial dynamism.

Without any consideration to the shows context, I too found myself in awe of the images that flashed by; seduced by the furore of sounds that cracked all around, it felt more like an orchestral piece that I needed to dance too. It was not a piece that filled the individual with anxiety but more enjoyment.

Marclay’s work has always left me filled with excitement, this time with no exception. Nonetheless, “Crossfire” has made me question the ease of which the individual can accept a given environment without questioning its social implications.

You can also find this review Interface: a-n Reviews Unedited; an open space for new critical writing.