Night Raiders

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eloise Moss
Keyword(s):  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Night Time ◽  
Security Technologies ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
State And Market ◽  
Post War ◽  
The City

Night Raiders: Burglary and the Making of Modern Urban Life in London, 1860–1968 is the first history of burglary in modern Britain. Until 1968, burglary was defined in law as occurring only between the ‘night-time’ hours of nine p.m. and six a.m. in residential buildings. Time and space gave burglary a unique cloak of terror, since burglars’ victims were likely to be in the bedroom, asleep and unawares, when the intruder crept in, prowling near them in the darkness. Yet fear sometimes gave way to sexual fantasy. Eroticized visions of handsome young thieves sneaking around the boudoirs of beautiful, lonely heiresses emerged alongside tales of violence and loss in popular culture, confounding social commentators by casting the burglar as criminal hero. Night Raiders charts how burglary lay historically at the heart of national debates over the meanings of ‘home’, experiences of urban life, and social inequality. This book explores intimate stories of the devastation caused by burglars’ presence in the most private domains, showing how they are deeply embedded within broader histories of capitalism and liberal democracy. The fear and fascination towards burglary were mobilized by media, state, and market to sell insurance and security technologies, whilst also popularizing the crime in fiction, theatre, and film. Cat burglars’ rooftop adventures transformed ideas about the architecture and policing of the city, and post-war ‘spy-burglars’ theft of information illuminated Cold War skirmishes across the capital. More than any other crime, burglary shaped the everyday rhythms, purchases, and perceptions of modern urban life.

TYUMEN “STALINKAS” AND THEIR INHABITANTS IN SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET EVERYDAY LIFE

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 181-197
Author(s):  
Irina V. SKIPINA ◽  
Andrey N. Nemkov
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Cult Of Personality ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

This article studies a topical problem: the history of Tyumen “Stalinkas” in the 1930s-1950s and the everyday urban life of their inhabitants. The authors aim to show the process of pre- and post-war construction of residential buildings to provide apartments for Tyumen residents. Housing is considered as a necessary component of human activity. The object of the study is an architectural ensemble of pre- and post-war Tyumen, which reflected the realities of the 1930-1950s. It was a time when slogans of equality were proclaimed, the authorities said that they would provide the same opportunities for life and self-realization for all Soviet citizens. However, the houses in the center of the city with spacious apartments were built for the Soviet elite, and small apartments of poor quality on the outskirts of the city — for workers. Housing for workers was located far from educational, leisure, and retail outlets. Using the new documentary data, introduced for the first time into academic circulation, and taking into account a comprehensive approach to the study of the topic, the authors show the impact of housing development on urban daily life. “Stalinkas” are considered a legacy of the era of the cult of personality, which allows studying people’s everyday life, taking into account their social stratification based on their life, housing, everyday practices, and opportunities to participate in urban life. The results show that “Stalinkas” are not only our past, but also our present, they are a clear proof of the construction of a bright future, which has proven to be unattainable, and their construction stopped shortly after Stalin’s death. Further study of urban ordinariness and everyday practices of citizens will bring us closer to understanding the phenomenon of the “Soviet” as an essential part of Russian identity.

scholarly journals Configuring Taiwan’s Architectural Extensions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Robinson Yang
Keyword(s):  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Secondary Layer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Architectural Language ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

<p>Amongst Taipei’s contemporary urban skyline of skyscrapers sits a secondary layer of prolific informal structures latching onto the existing modernist infrastructures of Taiwan, most prominently multistorey residential buildings. These structures resolve the spatial issue of the urban environment on the surface level and communicate a certain expression of Taiwan’s way of life, but just as importantly, they serve as a critique of modernist standards and homogeneous space.  This phenomenon is the result of the absence of planning and declaration of martial law under the KMT’s rule of Taiwan from 1949-1987. During this time, all top-down plans were reduced to one objective—to take over from China and return to the mainland (Illegal Taipei). During this time the government was negligent about these unrestrained developments in the city. In a 2011 exhibition titled “Illegal Architecture” Taiwanese architect, Ying-Chun Hsieh expressed a distinct view of this period. He wrote:  Fortunately, while the government was concentrating itself on regaining the possession of mainland China and on promoting populism, which made it weak, people were given a chance to breathe. Their creativity was released, and fabulous urban life finally arose in Taipei… (Ching-Yueh)  In recent years, the government has had a change of agenda; the demolitions of illegal extensions are now enforced and with it what has come to symbolise a Taiwanese’s way of life informed by decades of creative informal expansions and certain freedoms. Although government regulations emerge from safety concerns, this thesis argues that there is a superior procedure to overcome these issues without altering the culture: to create an architecture that references but does not imitate the context, therefore creating a new architectural language that retains the spirit of context and history of the everyday in Taiwan.</p>

scholarly journals The Daily Life in Dnipropetrovsk in the Conditions of Post-war Reconstruction of 1944–1947 (by the Contemporaries' Memoirs)

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 252
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Nikiliev
Keyword(s):  
Water Supply ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Housing Stock ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Working People ◽  
Post War ◽  
Trading Network ◽  
The City

The aim is the daily life of inhabitants of the Dnipropetrovsk (Dnipro) are considered in the conditions of the first post-war years.Research methods: historical and genetic; historical and comparative, system.Main results. The situation in different spheres of city life, state of communal infrastructure, centralized water supply and heating, food supply, priority areas of development of the city economy are shown. The forms and methods of solving the acute problems of the post-war policy and each family, factors of the material and everyday condition of the working people are considered. The ways of restoring the residential area of the city are shown. The restoration of the housing stock was given in two directions: by repairing partially destroyed buildings and, to a lesser extent, by new construction. In the city, due to the lack of material and technical base, mostly one- and two-storey residential buildings were erected. The way out of the situation was the settlement of the incoming families in the apartment of the surviving state houses, as well as the provision of land to those who were ready to solve their housing problems at their own expense. The various spheres of life of the inhabitants of the city in 1944–1947, their social and economic problems are analyzed: the material and communal conditions of their everyday life, social behavior and strategies of survival of different categories of the population of the policy. The social deviations of the deviant character that took place at this time are shown. The situation in the city under conditions of famine of 1946–1947 was studied. The forms and methods of solving problems of specific categories of inhabitants of the city in this difficult period. The attention was paid to such categories as infants, children of nursery, kindergarten and schoolchildren and students of technical schools. The real situation with wages was investigated, it was found that due to the necessity of various types of voluntary and compulsory loans and mandatory taxes, it was low in itself, it could not ensure the proper existence of a person. It is shown that the system of ensuring food and real needs of the population, namely, normalized supply of food and cargoes through the trading network at government prices for cards. It was found that the supply of food and household goods was extremely unsatisfactory, incomparable with a negligible payment of labor, making the price even unattainable, even on the shelves. At the same time different norms were applied for the workers, for the unemployed, the workers of various sectors of the national economy, employees of different institutions and different rank. In parallel, there was state open (commercial) trade with high prices, and also - bazaars at their prices. Many residents of the city were forced to ride in the villages and exchange household items for food. An impoverished day-long menu of many inhabitants of Dnipropetrovsk consisted mainly of vegetable food. Despite the difficult conditions for the restoration of the industrial and residential sectors, the cityʼs social sphere was restored. Understand the destroyed buildings and exported garbage. Every year, thousands of trees were planted on the streets and in parks, new squares were broken, repairs of the pavement, sidewalks, dwelling houses were painted, and markets were adjusted according to sanitary requirements. Works were underway to increase the capacity of urban water supply. Hospitals, various kindergartens were restored. To provide everyday needs of the population, shops were open, workersʼ dining rooms, equipped sports, dance and playgrounds, parks were improved, new baths were renovated and new baths were introduced, working clubs were being built.Main results. It is concluded that the everyday life of the first post-war years of Dnipropetrovsk was characterized by the difficult conditions of the existence of its inhabitants. Despite the ongoing rehabilitation of the city material, domestic and communal conditions of their existence were determined by the complex socio-economic situation, severe socio-demographic consequences of the war, as well as causes of a natural climatic nature. All this determined the strategies of their existence in the difficult conditions in which the majority of the city population, despite the difficulties, continued to fulfill the basic purpose of the person – to live, work, raise and raise children.Practical significance. For the historians of the everyday life of Dnipropetrovsk in post-war times.Originality. On the basis of research materials and memoirs of participants of events, the situation of the city's everyday life was reconstructed.The scientific novelty. The article was first presented in the history of post-war Dnipropetrovsk through the prism of everyday life, the various spheres of the existence of its inhabitants.Type of article: empirical.

scholarly journals Configuring Taiwan’s Architectural Extensions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Robinson Yang
Keyword(s):  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Secondary Layer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Architectural Language ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

<p>Amongst Taipei’s contemporary urban skyline of skyscrapers sits a secondary layer of prolific informal structures latching onto the existing modernist infrastructures of Taiwan, most prominently multistorey residential buildings. These structures resolve the spatial issue of the urban environment on the surface level and communicate a certain expression of Taiwan’s way of life, but just as importantly, they serve as a critique of modernist standards and homogeneous space.  This phenomenon is the result of the absence of planning and declaration of martial law under the KMT’s rule of Taiwan from 1949-1987. During this time, all top-down plans were reduced to one objective—to take over from China and return to the mainland (Illegal Taipei). During this time the government was negligent about these unrestrained developments in the city. In a 2011 exhibition titled “Illegal Architecture” Taiwanese architect, Ying-Chun Hsieh expressed a distinct view of this period. He wrote:  Fortunately, while the government was concentrating itself on regaining the possession of mainland China and on promoting populism, which made it weak, people were given a chance to breathe. Their creativity was released, and fabulous urban life finally arose in Taipei… (Ching-Yueh)  In recent years, the government has had a change of agenda; the demolitions of illegal extensions are now enforced and with it what has come to symbolise a Taiwanese’s way of life informed by decades of creative informal expansions and certain freedoms. Although government regulations emerge from safety concerns, this thesis argues that there is a superior procedure to overcome these issues without altering the culture: to create an architecture that references but does not imitate the context, therefore creating a new architectural language that retains the spirit of context and history of the everyday in Taiwan.</p>

scholarly journals Desde vistas densamente llenas hasta la ciudad vacía de Piazzas. Imágenes que interpretan los dinamismos oscilantes de la realidad urbana

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-35
Author(s):  
Zoltán Somhegyi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Life ◽  
City Life ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Artistic Representations ◽  
Art Works ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
Contemporary Reality ◽  
City Representations ◽  
The City

Cities have been inspirational for the creators of visual art works long since, first as mere secondary, additional motifs to indicate the “urban” environment of the main scene, then as subject-matters in their own right. Those images could depict both imaginary and actual cities of the past and of the future, including mythological and Biblical locations, documenting distant lands and fantasizing on the appearance of utopian cities. In some of these aspects, the history of city representations shares significant similarities with the history of landscape depictions. In the present paper, however, I aim to focus on a curious and particular detail in this pictorial tradition. Following and further investigating a brief reflection by Michel Makarius from his 2004 book on Ruins, I would like to compare the visuality and aesthetic effects of dense and empty cityscapes, of which two classical examples could be the capriccios – imaginary views of cities completely filled with aesthetically pleasing elements, including magnificent remnants of the Antique heritage – and representations of cities in which their emptiness is highlighted to such extent that the observer tends to assume that the real subject-matter of the image is not the city, its buildings, forms and physical components but exactly its being “empty”. These “extremities” on the broad range of cityscapes, i.e., the densely-filled and the extremely depopulated are, however, not merely historical sub-genres of long-gone centuries. These typologies have survived to this day, in various versions and with diverse accents; what’s more, they seem to be more relevant than ever in understanding not only the nature of these artistic representations and their aesthetic references, but also in learning more of our contemporary reality itself. It is enough to think of the numerous ways in which artists approach the convoluted issues and challenges of urban life today, with the classical references and visual vocabulary in mind, either unconsciously creating occasional parallels or using them as explicit forerunners to their own works. The density of the global megapolises are represented in artistically novel ways often with socially critical overtones, while the images of empty cities – not long ago, for example, during the recent pandemics and lockdowns – are again resulting in aesthetically inspiring and insightful works incentivizing us to reflect on the oscillating dynamisms of our present urban realities. Therefore, it is particularly beneficial to observe such renderings of our cities and hence to raise more our awareness of the multiple global issues that are often very strongly manifested in the everyday life in large metropolises. Pieces of art thematising the extreme forms of city life can become very efficient ways of constantly reminding us of our duties of taking care of both our cities and our life.

Visions in conflict: a city of possibilities

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Howell ◽  
Richard Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Management ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Local Production ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
Industrial Economy ◽  
Social Struggle ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Land Water

This chapter casts the deindustrialization of Detroit as part of a larger transition providing new dangers and opportunities. The disappearance of industrial economy has created opportunities for the emergence of alternative means of creating new, sustainable and vibrant urban life. The resources of African American culture and imagination provide a perspective on developing innovative ways of making a living that nurture our capacities for cooperation and care. Rooted in Detroit’s long history of social struggle, a vision of self-determining urban life based, on local production for local needs is emerging. Mainstream elites and media generally ignore or deride these efforts. This chapter explores specific examples of the practices and programs emerging from the community. New forms of resisting dehumanization, especially since the takeover of the city by emergency management, are combined with creation of concrete alternatives to questions of land, water new ways of thinking.

scholarly journals PETROGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF FINISHING MATERIALS OF BUILDINGS OF CULTURAL HERITAGE OF SEVASTOPOL OF POST-WAR CONSTRUCTION 40 - 50S OF THE XX CENTURY

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
N. V. Lyubomirskiy ◽  
S. I. Fedorkin ◽  
А. S. Bakhtin ◽  
A. L. Hmelnitsky
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Post War ◽  
Cultural Heritage Objects ◽  
The City

This article is devoted to the identification of materials and the study of the composition of mortars used in the decoration of the facades of residential buildings that are cultural heritage objects and identified cultural heritage objects to be restored according to a major renovation plan, st. Bolshaya Morskaya and pl. Lazarev in the city of Sevastopol.

The originality of the “estate topos” in the A.N. Tolstoy’s novel “Peter the First”

2020 ◽  
pp. 262-272
Author(s):  
Anna S. Akimova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Childhood Memories ◽  
Research History ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Peasant Household ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Poor Peasant ◽  
The City

Moscow is the city which united the characters of A.N. Tolstoy’s novel “Peter the First”. Kitay-Gorod is the space where the action of the first book is mainly set. In the novel Tolstoy showed in great detail the everyday life of the city and its inhabi- tants. According to the I.E. Zabelin’s research (“History of the city of Moscow”) in late 17 — early 18 th centuries Moscow was like a big village that is why Tolstoy relied on his childhood memories about the life in the small village Sosnovka (Samara Region) describing the streets of Moscow. The novel begins with the description of a poor peasant household of Brovkin near Moscow, then Volkov’s noble estate is depicted and Menshikov’s house. The space of the city is expanding with each new “address”. Moscow estates, and in particular, connected with the figure of “guardian, lover of the Princess-ruler” V.V. Golitsyn, in Tolstoy’s novel are inextricably linked with the character’s living and with the life of the country. The description of the palace built by Golitsyn at the peak of his career is based on the Sergei Solovyov’s “History of Russia in ancient times”. Golitsyn left it and went to his estate outside Moscow Medvedkovo and from there in exile.

Public Disclosures of Private Realities

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-189
Author(s):  
Stephen Vider
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Documentary Photography ◽  
Political Space ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Diverse Communities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Disclosures ◽  
The City ◽  
Hiv Aids

AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism, presented at the Museum of the City of New York from May to October 2017, aimed to complement and complicate popular narratives about the history of HIV/AIDS by examining how HIV/AIDS played out in the everyday lives of diverse communities in New York. The exhibition placed works of art alongside documentary photography, film, and archival materials in unique ways to ask visitors to rethink what counts as activism and to reconsider home as a crucial political space. This paper reflects on the ways the curator sought to activate the domestic archive—the everyday ephemera and affects of illness, caretaking, and family life.

‘A new image of the living theatre’: the Genesis and Design of the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, 1948–58

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 347-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fair
Keyword(s):  
Modern Architecture ◽  
City Council ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Living Theatre ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Post War ◽  
The City

When it opened in March 1958, the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, was the first new professional theatre to be constructed in Britain for nearly two decades and the country’s first all-new civic theatre (Figs 1 and 2). Financially supported by Coventry City Council and designed in the City Architect’s office, it included a 910-seat auditorium with associated backstage facilities. Two features of the building were especially innovative, namely its extensive public foyers and the provision of a number of small flats for actors. The theatre, whose name commemorated a major gift of timber to the city of Coventry from the Yugoslav authorities, was regarded as the herald of a new age and indeed marked the beginning of a boom in British theatre construction which lasted until the late 1970s. Yet its architecture has hitherto been little considered by historians of theatre, while accounts of post-war Coventry have instead focused on other topics: the city’s politics; its replanning after severe wartime bombing; and the architecture of its new cathedral, designed by Basil Spence in 1950 and executed amidst international interest as a symbol of the city’s post-war recovery. However, the Belgrade also attracted considerable attention when it opened. The Observer’s drama critic, Kenneth Tynan, was especially effusive, asking ‘in what tranced moment did the City Council decided to spend £220,000 on a bauble as superfluous as a civic playhouse?’ For him, it was ‘one of the great decisions in the history of local government’. This article considers the architectural implications of that ‘great decision’. The main design moves are charted and related to the local context, in which the Belgrade was intended to function as a civic and community focus. In this respect, the Labour Party councillors’ wish to become involved in housing the arts reflected prevailing local and national party philosophy but was possibly amplified by knowledge of eastern European authorities’ involvement in accommodating and subsidizing theatre. In addition, close examination of the Belgrade’s external design, foyers and auditorium illuminates a number of broader debates in the architectural history of the period. The auditorium, for example, reveals something of the extent to which Modern architecture could be informed by precedent. Furthermore, the terms in which the building was received are also significant. Tynan commented: ‘enter most theatres, and you enter the gilded cupidacious past. Enter this one, and you are surrounded by the future’. Although it was perhaps inevitable that the Belgrade was thought to be unlike older theatres, given that there had been a two-decade hiatus in theatre-building, the resulting contrast was nonetheless rather appropriate, allowing the building to connote new ideas whilst also permitting us to read the Belgrade in terms of contemporary debates about the nature of the ‘modern monument’.

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