VIRTUAL Manchester Livable Cities

Abstract

The city is an emergent entity with boundaries determined and delimited through ideological and regulatory frameworks, cultural constructs and contested realities. Progressively, it has expanded beyond the architectural object and its contextualisation within the urban, while it continues to challenge existing material, spatial, socio-economic, and temporal dimensions of its metropolitan identity. These forms of encounter have served to inform relational approaches that employ the lens of historic and cultural continuity to measure the impact of contemporary fabrications on the existing urban fabric. Furthermore, continuity is contingent upon the interventions that act upon the core of the historic object, as well as the city in an ideological and material capacity. The paper seeks to examine these revelations in the context of the Museum of London and contemporary architectural interventions that have emerged in its stead, as an attempt to identify and interrogate potential instances of cultural contestation in the City of London. The proposed demolition of the Museum of London has sparked controversy and inspired debate in cultural discourse and practice. The proposal is hinged upon its relationship between the relocation of the museum to the former Smithfield Market, interventions previously proposed on the site including the Centre for Music Scheme and the critical position of the development with regards to the proximity of the London Wall, a Scheduled Ancient Monument, among other nationally renowned heritage assets including the Barbican and Golden Lane housing estates. The research proposes creative retrofit as a strategic design solution as opposed to demolition and rebuilding options which would manifest as environmental detriments and acts of cultural contestation within the historic urban context.