Avenue: Notes Towards A Spatial Theory of Suburbia

How does one look seriously at the suburbs? How does one get past the lazy assumptions to understand what makes them work, as well as what doesn't?

When Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown took their students to study America's Levitown suburb they had to develop new methods to describe its spaces. The traditional tools of architectural representation - plans, sections and models - were supplanted by photography, film, cartoons and collections of artifacts and ephemera.

The Venturi's study was predominantly, though not exclusively, sign based rather than spatial. Their interest was in the signs and symbols of the American suburb rather than its spatial organisation. This still remains its least analysed and understood aspect from an architectural point of view. Beyond such pejorative descriptions as 'sprawl' there is no serious spatial vocabulary for suburbia.

Perhaps it doesn't lend itself to traditional forms of architectural analysis. The qualities denigrated by architects and urbanists - its formlessness and lack of spatial hierarchy - require different modes of representation. Equally the same traditional tools are instrumental in establishing the counter claims of urbanism. Or, put another way, architecture's representational and analytical tools are better at describing the positive qualities of urban because that's what they have been developed to do.

The ubiquity of the representational devices employed by architects blinds us to their partiality. The figure-ground drawing for instance has been vital in establishing how we think about the city and, in particular, the relationship between private and public space. Possibly the most influential figure-ground plan ever was Giambattista Nolli's 1748 map of Rome. Nolli's plan represents enclosed public spaces as equivalent to open civic spaces, illustrating them as white positive ground against the black figure of buildings. This technique gives the piazzas, colonnades and courtyards a compelling physicality, suggesting the convivial, communal qualities of internal rooms but on a much larger scale.



Following Nolli, the external spaces of the city are conceived as urban living rooms fostering civic qualities through the physical proximity of bodies in space. By contrast suburbia's fragmented spaces are seen as encouraging social atomisation through physical dispersal. But if the city is made of up of certain typological components - streets, squares and colonnades - then what are the suburban equivalents? The avenue, the parade and the cul-de-sac? What kinds of social spaces do these create? What civic qualities do they possess?

To begin to find out one might have to look beyond architectural representation to other art forms. Pop music in particular has a vital relationship to suburbia. Frequently this is antagonistic - a railing against suburbia's political and social conservatism - as in goth, grunge or metal. The relationship is more ambiguously affectionate in the case of the English literary pop tradition of The Kinks, Small Faces and the Beatles through to The Jam, Blur and Pulp. The fact that pop is often an escape - both literal and metaphorical - from suburbia, means that this portrayal is inevitably double edged, describing this landscape with a mixture of affectionate observation and caustic commentary.

Equally the endless suburbs of somewhere like LA have have been a key subject matter from the surf pop of the '50's and '60's through the denim rock of Laurel Canyon's decadent suburbs in the 1970's to the G Funk and west coast rap of Dr Dre and Death Row records. With Dr Dre the music's languid affluence and smooth sense of unease acts as a darkly satirical ramping up of the familiar cliches of suburban one-upmanship. The video for Still Dre even works as a satire of '50's LA pop with Dre and Snoop Dog cruising the suburban streets in retro Cadillacs on the way to the beach.



Whilst Pulp are in many ways a quintessentially urban band - and the very particular urbanism of Sheffield at that - they also brilliantly evoke an edge of the city feeling too. Jarvis' tales of adult affairs and formative sexual experiences gone wrong exist within the social mores of close knit suburban communities. David's Last Summer combines both an affectionate homage to suburban childhood and the corresponding desire to escape. Its spoken word vocal bids suburban teenage life a fond farewell, although it remains ambiguous as to whether this is as a result of growing up and moving on or something more tragic. Its evocation of the teenage house parties and exquisitely endless summers on the cusp of adulthood is hard to beat.

Walking to parties whilst it's still light outside.

Peter was upset at first but now he's in the garden talking to somebody Polish.
Why don't we set up a tent and spend the night out there?
And we can pretend that we're somewhere foreign but we'll still be able to use the fridge if we get hungry
or too hot.



These are also the spaces described by the paintings of George Shaw. Shaw paints suburbia but he also gets to the heart of its more ambiguous and difficult to define spaces; left over places, ends of terraces, undeveloped land. These places exist on the margins of suburbia where development has (temporarily) stopped and become a temporary home to all sorts of improper activities. Ignored by most people, these are public spaces for (mostly) minor acts of transgression. It is also the same dead space of Pulp's song Reservoir, which captures the unpleasant goings-on of unpopulated bits of suburban infrastructure.

But the 'proper' spaces of suburbia also lend themselves to reinterpretation. The suburban cul-de-sac is a public space as well as a piece of pragmatic development. Perhaps because of their social and economic exclusivity these spaces become home to street parties and events as well as informal meetings. The drawing below (by my colleague Sean Griffiths) is of the street where he grew up and describes the impromptu football matches that were played on it. The 'pitch' is distorted by circumstance so that the house gates becomes the goal-mouth, stretching and rotating the familiar layout. Here, ironically, is the classic figure ground plan of the city but adapted to show things that are usually left out such as activity and event.


Perhaps this is where suburban place differs from urban space. It is repetitive and formally unexciting. The architecture isn't challenging or formally inventive in the way that architects want it to be. It's what happens in it that's interesting though. This activity requires an expanded version of traditional architectural drawing to capture, one that describes places rather than buildings and content rather than form.

Criticism: Not What It Used To Be

I wasn't going to respond to Tim Abraham's criticisms of this blog - along with several notable others - partly out of a fear of appearing too defensive. His article may have been a bit of a rant but, then again, I've written a few of those in my time. Besides it's always nice to be noticed. However his article has resulted in some very thoughtful and intelligent responses which I wanted to expand on.

Both Things and Sit Down Man have made eloquent rebuttals of his argument so I'll try not to repeat them here. Nina at Infinite Thought too has elegantly dismantled most of the more reactionary statements about the internet more effectively than I could. I would add though that an article posted on line and linked by Blueprint to Twitter is on slightly thin ice criticising the ephemeral nature of blogs.

But onto more positive things! Tim Abraham's article is interesting because it raises a number of anxieties about the nature of criticism and architecture writing on the web. Firstly there is the issue of who is a legitimate critic. Abrahams seems keen to establish a proper hierarchy ranging from professional paid critics on respected magazines at the top down to the unsolicited plethora of amateurs on line.

As well as the levelling out of this entirely self-serving hierarchy he has a further concern that the internet itself destabilises proper categories of artistic worth. There is, Abraham's states, "no register of what is more important than something else".

A certain paranoia seems to underpin this anxiety, a sense that one might not know what it's correct to think anymore. I would suggest that this fear is a pretty constant anxiety historically speaking and the internet is merely the latest in a long line of "worrying" trends towards a democratisation of opinion.

Things magazine's numerous links and connections can be occasionally dizzying, but they are also intelligently and critically put together. Ironically enough Tim Abraham cites Venturi Scott Brown as forbears of 'proper' critical writing. If ever there was an architectural precedent for something like Things magazine though it is surely the Venturis?

VSBA's research projects into Las Vegas and the American suburb (which resulted in the critically panned Signs of Life exhibition) were disliked by architects precisely for daring to look seriously at everyday culture in a non-judgemental way. Too much information and not enough moralising has always been the received critical wisdom on Learning from Las Vegas and Signs of Life.

Finally, and most centrally, there is the curious criticism of blogs for being nostalgic and for "giving up on the future". Leaving aside the question of why this might be the only legitimate subject matter for an architecture blog, perhaps it's the concept of the future deployed here that needs revising.

The Future is freighted with baggage, already overcoded to the point of being meaningless. Abrahams wants a declamatory THIS IS THE FUTURE sort of criticism, not realising that the desire to return to such linear certainties might itself be reactionary and nostalgic. Perhaps the future is already here? Or rather visions and speculations about it already are. It's just that they don't look like they used to.

There seems to be to be a stiff literalness at work here, a failure of imagination. It's perfectly legitimate to speculate about architecture (and its future) by looking at the recent past (Brutalism or Post Modernism) or at objects that fall outside the accepted canon of good design (Googie architecture, the Popemobile) or at other art forms (jungle, sit coms). This is a way to open up architectural debate, rather than flatten it. And looking at the past is not inherently nostalgic.

Blueprint's article exhibits a self-censoring ideology of what it's acceptable to write about, as well as a perverse fear of the possibilities thrown up by the internet. Not only is the format of internet based writing highly speculative (all those links and new connections) but a lot of the content is too. The considered response to Abraham's article by people like Owen and I.T. seems to speak too of the internet's ability to generate valuable discussion in a way that printed media simply can't.

Ultimately the blog sites that Abraham's criticises are (as Things points out) those of a more speculative and experimental nature. Their value lies precisely in the fact that they aren't looking in the same place as everyone else. Their interests may appear esoteric, eclectic or even bizarre, but that's because architectural criticism is so crowded with the same people all talking about the same old things.

Perhaps the future is not over there at all. Perhaps it's over here.

A Narcissist Writes...

Original posts are in short supply here at the moment due to ongoing issues of being massively exhausted most of the time. A combination of work and a baby being to blame, not that I'm one to complain.....

However I have been busy elsewhere. My review of Jeremy Till's new book is in the current issue of Icon. I'll post it up here if it doesn't make it on to the Icon Eye website. I tried to avoid reading other reviews of Jeremy's book until I had written mine although I did listen to AJ editor Kieran Long discussing it on Radio 4. I have though just read The Sesquipedalist's excellent review, and there is a lot of overlap with my own (hopefully not the only reason I rate his review)

One of the things that Steve goes into that I didn't is Jeremy Till's role as an academic. Till initiated some very interesting things in his former role as Director of Architecture at Sheffield, including an attempt to abandon the ridiculous crit structure of teaching. I've thought for a while that architectural education is stuck in various ruts, although conversation around this seems to flit between either professional tutors who have a vested interest in it remaining the same, and blinkered professionals who regard all intellectual speculation as pretentious. Nonetheless Architecture Depends does clearly emanate from academia where myths of the architect's omnipotence flourish as a result of the unit system and its mini-starchitect structure.

Also in this month's Icon is my post on ice cream vans which has been published as their Icon of the Month. It looks lovely, much nicer than it does on-line. Thanks are due to Kosmograd and to Murphy at Entschwindet und Vergeht for their helpful comments on the post at the time, which have informed the slightly expanded version of it in Icon.

Finally, a reminder to any Manchester based people that I'll be giving a lecture as part of this tomorrow night. No support band I'm afraid but I will do encores. It starts at 6pm, and it's here: Room 303 Manchester School of Architecture, Manchester Metropolitan University, Chatham Building, Cavendish Street, Manchester.

That'll be the justification for the gratuitous Smiths picture too, although it's meant to be self-deprecating given that this post is written by me about some other things I've written. Or going to say. And sorry people of Manchester if using The Smiths is like making gor blimey guvnor jokes about London.