Forensic Investigation of
Alleys & Corridors MArch Architectural Thesis
Sharifah Nur Amirah Thesis Tutor: Simon Withers 2020
Contents Entering the Passage
5
The Journey
1
Of entrance
13
2
Of service
19
3
Of exchange
21
4
Of mystery
27
5
Of intensity
31
6
Of the unexpected
37
7
Of escape
41
8
Of relief
45
Reaching the Horizon
49
References
57
Appendices
65
ENTERING THE PASSAGE
In contemporary practice, the term forensic has been used broadly for the act of
scientific research and techniques in criminal investigations. The term originated from the Latin word, forensis, where it pertains to an open court or a set up that demands the participation of the public. It stimulates discussion that grows into an argumentative discourse. The Latin word also describes a marketplace or a forum. Therefore, rather than denoting the term as a scientific method associated with criminal investigations, this observational discourse applied forensic as a reflection on the relationship of the public and the site. This discussion would further expand and explore on the involvement of the public and how they could initiate causal dialogues in alleys and corridors.
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Eyal Weizman, and his team in the Forensic Architecture, applied the term as
the operative concept of a critical practice, committed to investigates any events and actions to the scale of bodies and buildings. The ground of Forensic Architecture’s approach to an investigation is to use the jargon by examining the two fundamental elements of a site; fields and forums. Fields refers to the site of investigation, while forums, on the other hand, is attributed to the place where the results of an investigation are being demonstrated and debated. Fields is not merely a flat and passive site where events are being mapped on, but it a dynamic space that shapes conflict as well as being shaped by it. Forums, however, is a composite apparatus. It is a conjunction of the presented object or site, the interpreter and the assembly of public gathering (Forensic Architecture (Project) and Weizman, 2014).
As sites with spatial quality, buildings or the built environments are not just
passive elements, nor just a witness to a crime. They are a complex conglomeration of structures, infrastructure and services that are capable of interacting and acting upon their surroundings, thus moulding the events in the space. These are the essence to any corridors and alleys in the city. This type of urban elements is classified as a special and unique architectural class, and they will be examined meticulously both as the fields and the forums. Contrary to the practice of criminal investigations being brought to a specified court, the observations and investigations of the events in alleys and corridors are being discussed on site, in the context of the alley itself. 6
These urban spaces can be closely compared to the description by Juliet Rufford
(2015) in her book on ‘Theatre and Architecture’, where she suggested that with external factors such as the use of lights, materials, technology, texture and sound, architecture sculpts the space and the organisation of the environment in which we live and ‘act’. The stories and events in theatres are orchestrated by the bodies inhabiting it, the setting and the external elements. Historically, the city was a stage on which the middle-class Victorian played out their lives. Theatre back then existed as an essential part of the urban life, without any specific architectural component being attributed to its exclusive use. The situation “allows those producing a performance to place it in whatever locale seemed most suitable meant that theatre could use to its own advantage the already existing connotations of other spaces both in themselves and in their placement within the city” (Carlson, 1989). Theatres are depicted as social events that encourage more act of active discourse. Accordingly, alleys are looked at as pocket theatres or place of performances in the cities.
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The events occur in these tight spaces of the cities, and are congealed and
concentrated. These “congealed events”, described by Mikhail Bakhtin as “condensed reminders of the kind of time and space that typically functions there” makes the alleys intriguing and worth investigating into (Bakhtin, 1982). Considering the abundance of spatial qualities in the alleys, the events are site-specific where it can only happen in that specific type of space with a specific time structure. Bernard Tschumi proposes that the events that takes place in a space is as important as the space itself. He wanted to shift the focus to the actions that occur inside and around a space, such as the movement of bodies, to the activities and to the objective that drives a space (Tschumi, 1994).
“To really appreciate architecture, you may even need to commit murder.”
- Bernard Tschumi, Advertisement for Architecture
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Bakhtin conceptualize the episodic events in the cities as a term that he called
‘chronotope’. The importance of the chronotope is highlighted where it “makes narrative events concrete, make them take on flesh, causes blood to flow in their veins. An event can be communicated, it becomes information, one can give precise data on the place and time of its occurrence” (Bakhtin, 1982). Hence, time becomes apparent in a space, and these narratives are heavily determined by the time and the action of the space and place.
•••
9
The thesis is an observational exercise, aimed to exhaust alleys, corridors and
other similar class of space of its events and spatial values. These pocket spaces of the cities that are often regarded as spaces that are absent of any potential are the considered as cracks in the cities that are concentrated with hyper charged energy. As the audience and the public, you will venture through different narratives as you traverse through the different type of alleys and passageways, directly or indirectly involve in the events. The circumstances are naturally altered by each new space they occur in. “To move is never to go from one place to the next, but always to execute some figure, to assume a certain body rhythm.�
The occurrence of the different narratives is significant and exclusive to the
space it occurs in. Different alleys tend to have very different characteristic in terms of its inhabitants, the actions happening within it, the character of the space, as well as the character of time. Some alleys are slow and sensitive, while some others are intense and fast. With the different combinations of the determination of events, it raises the question: could there be a different type of narrative, unique and explicit to alleys and corridors?
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THE JOURNEY
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1 Of entrance
Knightsbridge was a small village outside of London that was an area of mews and
courts. Horse-drawn carriages were widely used in the 18th century. For a department store like Harrods situated in the area, it was their main transportation for deliveries. Nearby, the infamous Tattersall’s, a prominent horse auctioneer found its home. The entrance to the area was an architectural display. The structures were concentrated on the street front, demonstrated by a stone archway guarded by iron gates with the lower entrances for pedestrians forming the centrepieces (Greenacombe, 2000a). The large and noticeable architectural piece obstruct the main court from public view. For anyone entering through the archway, the walk could be very short, but it highlights the course of the entrance as the whole emotion and intensity is focused in the such a minute space.
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Entrance archway of Tattersall’s in 1902 Courtesy of British History Online
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Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel ‘Crime and Punishment’ (1866) partly structured
the story around entrances and doorways. He expands these short spaces, where they are often unnoticed, by constantly reiterating the act of the characters standing on, in or passing through the space. They are described as “double spaces” that are “charged with intrinsic significance” (Seitz, 2017). Doorways and entrances, like the Tattersall’s, serves to connect, or separate, or in the case of a castle that is under attack, the portcullis gates serve to contain and trap. The French word lisière that defines a fringe of an edge, the edge of a forest, could also signify a space of a gap. Louis Marin (1993) called it a neutral space, a separating gap but is “uncertain of its limits”. The stone archway of the Tattersall’s could then be seen as a very brief alleyway with a very grand entrance enticing the street. It is a highly charged space, a threshold, that could serve to connect. It is so much bigger and wider that the physical character it is in.
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Apart from the auctioneer, the residentials in Knightsbridge were also
recognizable. They were grouped in a close compound, often with stables on the ground floor and living quarters above them. These smaller cluster of houses were hidden behind large row of terrace houses that are facing a smaller street. The entrance to these courts would be navigated by a small alley, with the main purpose of giving the residence some privacy. Some of the access to the alley from the street would be hardly obvious as they are usually disguised among the doors of the street front houses. In the present day, the courts are no longer used as stables, and the word ‘mews’ in the alley names becomes the traces that is left on the site (Refer Appendix A). Most of the alleys are still there, although they’re stripped of their main function. With new developments in the area, new path from the main street have been added to the courts for easy access.
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Progressing from that, indoor corridors have been used as secret entrances
to hidden areas. It has become a secretive and exclusive element of a building. Palace of Versailles has secret rooms guided by passageways with disguised doors. Harrods in Knightsbridge has underground network of corridors underneath Brompton Road that accommodate electric trucks from World War 1 for their deliveries to the nearby warehouses (Logan, 1986). Even in modern buildings like the luxurious apartment complex of 1 Hyde Park, known among famous figures celebrities, has an underground passageway that leads to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel next door for the purpose of special catering (Tweedie, 2011). Corridors continue to adapt, serving to provide special access and hide the programs and services they are attached to.
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2 Of service
As corridors started to depict a space of service, they also started to get
neglected. They could be found in the same group as other services part of the building, like the trash room or the lift shaft. They are regarded as infrastructure that hardly received any mindful attention, but instead only catering to the elemental part of life (Angélil and Siress, 2017). Modernist despise these ‘servicing space’, expressed as living in an ‘anti-corridic’ world (Luckhurst, 2019). Corridors and passageways turn monotonous. Tintti Klapuri (2013) described modernity at its best. “In modernity, with its future-oriented linearity, time loses its previous close connection with human activities (the timing of tasks associated with natural cycles) and becomes abstract clock-time”. They become distant from the events that is happening in the space. For corporates, corridors are assigned to mundane service functions and obligatory fire escapes, apparent in The Seagram by Mies van der Rohe (Luckhurst, 2019). Corridors are seen as a hindrance to efficient modern office.
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For alleys in the cities, they have different modes and patterns. In this case, it is
acknowledged that they are a place of service. Most of the alleys are used as servicing road for delivery trucks or taking out garbage. Services are considered as assistance to businesses. They are crucial and would be the core of a commercial building. Apart being shoved to the side and frequently undervalued, for the workers, these are the places where they would find comfort. Restaurant staffs would have cigarette breaks in alleys and exchange a few conversations. Lorry drivers that pick up or drop off goods would take a breather in between trips.
Aside from being a space for backdoor services, alleys also serve as frontage.
Shops, like cafes and restaurants open their businesses in the alleys. They emerged as a commercial solution for the unused spaces in the cities. These passages are then converted into roofed arcades. First appearing in Paris in the 1790s, arcades are then associated with shopping. One of the major shopping Avenue is London is the Lowther Arcade. It is lined with shops on both sides and connects the Strand to Trafalgar Square (Jackson, 2006). As alleys and passageways becomes the frontal for business, the space is activated with activities and interaction. Unlike the space of service described before, the arcades are undeniably alive and instinctively triggering communication and dialogues.
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3 Of exchange
These tight spaces ostensibly become a space and place of discourse. Jarzombek
(2010) describes of a corridor that “might have been a scout send behind enemy lines, a governmental messenger, a carrier of money, or even a negotiator arranging mercantile deals and marriages�. It is incredible how such a small and tight space, often regarded as a passive element, can adjust to a such dynamic event. That is why there are public houses at the end of most of the alleys in London. They wanted to accommodate to these exchanges of dialogues. These bars sometimes are named after the alleys next to them.
21
Apparently, pubs are common among robbers as their meeting place. During
their planning phase, the robbers of the notorious Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Robbery met up one time at a North London gastropub to plan their heist (Grierson, 2016). It is probably an unlikely setting for robbers to plan, but that is what pubs are for. They encourage planning and discussion albeit it is about a crime or a simple lunch conversation. However, after the heist, the news about their discussion place were being reported all over the paper, thus attracts many locals to the pub. Ironically, the staffs at the pub were barred by the owner from having any conversations about the robbery.
The Hatton Garden Robbers at the pub. Picture courtesy of Met Police.
22
The act of discourse is not just prominent inside the public houses, but
interestingly, also on the outside. Their sitting areas could extend and open right in the alley, or their back door would open up to the alley, providing the bar workers to have their own space of exchange. People would often have conversations while standing outside. They would stand by the window ledge and put their beer glasses in the space in front of the windows. The protruding window ledge acts as a standing counter and stimulating conversations.
This close association of the spatial characters of the alleys to the inhabitants
celebrates the simple act of discourse and gave the alleys a richer sense of community. Oscar Newman describes of a defensible space as a space that relies on self-help and the involvement of the residents. He was researching on a failed community corridor housing of Pruitt-Igoe that was supposed to be well-maintained and lively. However, the design made it unattainable to “feel or exert proprietary feelings, impossible to tell resident from intruder� (Newman, 1996). People inhabiting houses in alleys have adapted to this problem to avoid these spaces being appealing to crimes.
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A community of an alley in London has resorted to placing flowers and small
trees outside of their houses. Colville Place is a paved court that link Charlotte Street with Whitfield Street. The houses have revitalized the alley with colourful doors on the ground floor, with rectangular fanlight at the top and a small window next to it. It all probably started with a small act by a specific house that were later followed by the others. With the petite garden in front, this environment would spark interactions, either among the residents or the even the passer-by. This condition differentiates an alley to a street. “The street in principle belongs to no one. They are divided up, … into zones for motor vehicles and pedestrians.” (Perec, 2008). Alleys are much more belonging, attached and acquire the proper definition to a neighbourhood.
×
24
Colville Place, London Courtesy of Dhaniah Samad
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4 Of mystery
You never know what is in an alley or what is at the end, until you pass through
it. It possesses a sense tension, thrill and uncertainty. Warwick Passage next to the Old Bailey is an interesting one. The entrance to the alley is small and mundane that pedestrians walking along the building would easily walk pass it without noticing. It blends in with three other archway that serves as the main entrances for the Old Bailey. Those entrances are exclusive for anyone involved in any case that are being held there or staffs that has access to it. For the Warwick Passage, however, as you walk through it, you will notice that it serves another entrance. It is the public entrance to the court, to watch the trials. The entrance is just a simple wooden door, slightly offset out of the passageway into the building. That small dent in the alley is very intriguing but is not noticeable unless you walk through it. And if a person would traverse the Warwick Passage from the Old Bailey Street to the other end (where most people do as that is the busy end of the alley), he/she will be rewarded with a small set of stairs leading about 2 meters above, and it opens up to a small garden decorated with four columns, part of the old structure of the Old Bailey.
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Entrance to Warwick Passage.
The public entrance to the galleries. Pictures taken by Author in 2018.
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These moments are only found when seeked, and it is initiated by interest and curiosity. “Moments of adventuristic time occur at those points when the normal course of events, the normal, intended or purposeful sequence of life’s events is interrupted. These points provide an opening for the intrusion of nonhuman forces -- fate, gods, villains -- and it is precisely these forces, and not the heroes, who in adventure-time take all the initiative.� (Bakhtin, 1982).
Motivated by curiosity, it compels the observer to perform an investigation that
demands commitment. As you walk through a passage, you are committed to walk all the way through. Franz Kafka depicted in his story An Imperial Message, of a very committed messenger instructed to pass a message from the Emperor (Kafka, 1919). The messenger was described running through the maze corridors and passages of the castle, breaking through every door and striding through different courtyards, but the labyrinth of more corridors and doors does not end. The distance that the messenger must travel is beyond a measurable space, thus, it should be measured by time. Nevertheless, the messenger is dedicated to pass the message of the already dead Emperor.
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Likewise, when finding a disjunction in a space. During the research for the
thesis, I found a peculiar clearance of space on the map south of Knightsbridge Green. The triangular area currently serves as a small roundabout packed with parked cars that looks unnecessary in such a bustling area. It is later discovered that it was one of the many plague pits in London where it was used to dump the bodies of the plague victims in the 17th century. After overlaying with the London tube map, the Piccadilly line that runs under Brompton Road slightly diverts in its direction between Knightsbridge Station and South Kensington Station, where it is suggested that the tube line might tried to avoid the plague pit (Ruggeri, 2016).
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5 Of intensity
Corridors are long used to organise inhabitants by administration, and this can
be seen in prisons and hospitals. In this case, space would inhabit people and made them, not the other way around. This is depicted in an ancient alley at the Old Bailey. The Dead Mans Walk was where hundreds of criminals trod through to meet their death. The passage connects the prisons to the execution stage located in an open square outside of the Newgate Prison which was conveniently located next to the court. The walk is a narrow and compact and it is covered with four arches that gets lower and narrower as you get to the end. The change in width is noticeable as it has one less brick every arch.
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For the prisoners, the walk was a way to prepare them, mentally and emotionally,
before they were hanged. Erno Goldfinger mentioned of spaces that are subject to psychological effect. He called it the “sensation of space�, where it is a subconscious phenomenon, and the consequences on the person subjected to it varies with the degree of dimensions and materials of the enclosed space. For the convicted, they have nowhere else to go except to go through the passage. They would have no choice of turning back. The distinct characters of the Dead Mans Walk then act as a space that would gather and focus their thoughts, moulding the last emotion of the person.
For the other inhabitants of the city that are going through alleys and passages,
the sense of intensity would be perceived in very tight alleys or alleys with a dead end. Sometime the space is so tight, but you force your way through it. An unfamiliar alley would lead you to a dead end. This could influence your emotion, thoughts and understanding of the space.
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The Dead Man’s Walk Photographed by Peter Dazeley, Unseen London (2014)
33
Apart from the intense psychological energy in alleys, there would also be
tension in the materials of an enclosure. A structural crack is an excellent example to detect pressures in materials. It highlights of “material events that emerge as a result of evolving force contradictions around and within them.� (Forensic Architecture (Project) and Weizman, 2014). Fredy Peccereilli demonstrated the nature of cracks by illustrating the impact of a bullet to a skull 1. Apparently, cracks move faster than the material they break through (Tavares and Weizman, 2012). There is such intensity and pressure in the material that the element of speed is accelerated. The rupture, which is the act of breaking or bursting that happens after a crack, presented as the consequence of the intense energy. For alleys and passageways, they could be the cracks and fissures of the cities.
Fredy Peccereilli explaining the trajectory of
cracks through a skull. Courtesy of Forensic Architecture, The Mineral Geology of Genocide
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When a bullet hits the skull at three times the speed of sound, cracks that emerge at the hitting point of the bullet travels across the skull faster than the bullet. The bullet slows down because of friction, but the cracks accelerate because of the pressure of impact.
The Harringay Passage in London has a magnitude of its own. The area was
an open park with a sewer that runs underneath. Over time, houses were being built but the land above the sewer had to be cleared off, so it became a footpath in between buildings. In the early 19th century, the sewer had to be upgraded to adapt to the increase in the housing developments. A special wood structure had to be erected in between the passage to support the walls and to prevent collapse (Hishelwood, 2008). Over time, the footpath exerted an intense pressure as a consequence of the sewer beneath it. The wooden structure can be interpreted as a form of ‘correction’ to the ‘crack’. The act of correcting means to ‘suspend’, to attach so as to allow free movement. Similar behaviour is observed in the correction of cracks using wallpaper or plaster
Upgrading works in the early 1900s. Note the coats hanging on the wall. Courtesy of Kevin Lincoln, Haringey Council
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6 Of the unexpected
The act of traversing in alleys and corridors are not linear nor uniform. The
movement is tracing your trajectories and drawing the path you take. Movement is a form of choreography that “attempts to eliminate the preconceived meanings given to particular actions in order to concentrate on their spatial effects� (Tschumi, 2001). When you are walking through a passageway, you are not walking only one way. You walk, meander, avoid, stop, turn around, while looking up, down and all over. Same goes to the other bodies that walk through such a space. Two people might never encounter the same experience, depending on how fast you walk, how tall you are or where you are looking. We learned about the Special Relativity theory that states that two different observers moving in different manner will have different judgment and perception about either a concurrent event or of distant events. Therefore, the experience of the people progressing in a different rhythm will be different and within our own field of view.
37
We experience time as it comes to us. We have no knowledge of a future event.
During this imminent nature of time, there might be a sudden ‘conflict’ 2 or a disjunction. Bakhtin characterised this moment as a type of time that “usually has its origin and comes into its own in just those places where the normal, pragmatic and premeditated course of events is interrupted – and provides an opening for sheer chance, which has its own specific logic” (Bakhtin, 1982). In alleys and other passageways, there could be conflicts. Conflicts are unexpected, but it does not always have a negative connotation. It becomes a form of motivation in the passage, a catalyst to an event.
Corridors and alleys always have that element of uncertainty. The corridor
portrayed in Stanley Kubrick’s film ‘The Shining’ (1980) is repetitive and unchanging for a period of time while the boy cycles through the hotel hallway and turning around into more enfilades of doors in the hallway. It causes the audience to get curious and anticipate the situation. Kubrick then breaks the monotonous scene with a sudden change of event such as the boy encountering the peculiar room or the appearance of the twin girls around the corner. The sudden change that disrupts a normal course of time in the space motivates the event and the space itself. It also engages the audience, or in the case of alleys and corridors, the users, to pursue and continue along the path.
× 38
conflict: sequence of events and spaces occasionally clash and contradict each other.
Monotonous rhythm of the corridor in The Shining (1980)
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7 Of escape
Alleys, passageways or corridors has long been an instrument of speed. The
etymology of the word ‘corridore’ originated from the Latin word ‘currere’, meaning ‘to run’. In Europe, ‘corridore’ is referring to a person who could run fast to transfer messages. Corridors then progressed from becoming an instrument of speed to device of egress. The first instance was the Passetto di Borgo in Rome that connects the Vatican City to Castel San’tAngelo via an elevated aqueduct structure. The 800m long corridor was used for the evacuation of several Popes during wars and other traumatic events. The compact space is only the width of a single body, the Pope’s, and allows the movement in a single direction, outwards. Now, corridors have become a major architectural element for fire escapes in buildings. The width corridors have also been revised to adapt to two lines of body width, the body of the fleeing occupants and the body of the infiltrating fire fighters (Koolhaas et al., 2014).
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As for alleys in London, robbers found these as opportunities for escape routes.
A string of cases concerning thieves and robbers on mopeds have increased for the past few years (Calver, 2018). The gang moped robbers found these to their advantage. The smash and grab robbery of a jewellery store, Boodles, in Knightsbridge happened in less than a minute, and they escaped through alleys to outrun any police cars. The nature of robbers is constantly looking for any opportunities that will help them achieve their goal. They equipped the special skill of reading the city by constantly observing. In any crime, they will often leave traces and clues. This is compared closely to alleys. Clues are left in the names and signs of an alley (Refer Appendix B). With the clues, they can know the shape of the route, the length and width of the route, thus giving a clue to the activities or the traffic of the route, and whether the route connects to another route or is a dead end.
It is exciting to think about robberies that might happen in these tight spaces.
Dickens in the City of Absent re-inhabits the City through the mindset of the criminal classes who have been successfully excluded from it. It arouses the imagination with a sense of rush and intrigue.
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“Calling these things to mind as I stroll among the Banks, I wonder whether the other solitary Sunday man I pass, has designs upon the Banks. For the interest and mystery of the matter, I almost hope he may have, and that his confederate may be at this moment taking impressions of the keys of the iron closets in wax, and that a delightful robbery may be in course of transaction.
About College-hill, Mark-lane, and so on towards
the Tower, and Dockward, the deserted wine-merchants’ cellars are fine subjects for consideration; but the deserted money-cellars of the Bankers, and their plate-cellars, and their jewel-cellars, what subterranean regions of the Wonderful Lamp are these!� - Charles Dickens, City of Absent
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Apart from the inhabitants escaping through the alley, there is an interesting
account of an alley almost escaping the law. In the 17th century. Ely Court (known as Ely Place in the past) near Farringdon was deemed to be extra-parochial – that is outside the authority of the local parish church (IanVisits, 2019). The local parish that surrounded Ely Place didn’t seem to take over the affairs of the area. It was noted in a court hearing in 1832, that when officers of the surrounding liberty were on patrol, they wouldn’t enter Ely Place, and if they attempted to do so, would be turned away (Delane, 1834). Although that happened in the 18th century, it would be great to imagine the intensity of the area and the consequences that could happen.
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8 Of relief
Streets symbolises of speed and of a restless area. The street is only an artery
passing through a cluster of active spaces and the concept of “speed limit” exists within the bustling city to remind us of the constant motion and displacement. Virilio discussed of the street as a place of revolt and revolution. “In every revolution there is paradoxical presence of circulation. The revolutionary contingent attains its ideal form not in the place of production, but in the streets, where for a moment it stops being a cog in the technical machine and itself becomes a motor (machine of attack), in other words a producer of speed” (Virilio, 2006). The traffic is the performance of the street. Most marches and parades of any events happen on the street. Such is shown in the anime Paprika (2006) of a spectacle parade happening on the streets to blur between a dream and the reality. Amidst the busy and hectic environment, you will always resort for a space that can provide relief. Walking through the London street, you will then turn into a passage or an alley for respite. The act suggests a significant occasion and development in a city, happening in small and compact spaces.
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On the contrary, corridors in buildings are used as a device for removing traffic
from rooms. For manor and mansions in the Victorian era, the corridors, regarded as the circulation space of the building, serves to keep the servants out of the gentlemen and ladies’ way. Robert Kerr’s The Gentleman’s House is a precedent for a building that is entirely obsessed with corridors to safeguard the middle-class private life (Evans and Association, 2003). Unlike the alleys of the city, the corridors provided relief for the inhabitants of the rooms by diverting the traffic and is used as the circulation space instead. Since then, the corridors often regarded as the cause for class distinction and social separation.
The concept of passage and corridors also appears in wars and combats. The
First World War suggests of corridors of new meanings and purpose at a totally different scale. The soldiers innovated a system of semi-subterranean corridors, to provide shelter and protection during the war. The corridors spreads across the battlefield like roots underground and connects from one place to another. They fought from inside these corridors and they inhabited it for so long that the corridors are adapting to the circumstances. Shelves and beds are built as rooms branching off from the muddy passageways (BBC, 2020). The soldiers adapted and designed the corridors to conform to the dangerous living situation at the moment.
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The dialogue of programs in the Word War 1 corrdiors. Courtesy of Imperial War Museum
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REACHING THE HORIZON
These stories and observations in the alleys and corridors are presented and
compared to theatre stages as they are scattered as pockets spaces in the city. We discovered that alleys change and adapt to different extent of time and space, as well as to the variation of programs and functions around it. However, they are not merely stages to present these events, they are the fields that shapes these conflicts with the involvement of the inhabitants that inaugurate dialogues and discussions through the catalyst of different narratives. Ian Mackintosh describes a sense of dialectic in the space of events where he describes the primary purpose of theatre architecture as to “provide a channel for energy.” He mentioned of the presence of reciprocity and the importance of exchange in a theatre. “The energy must flow both ways so that the two forces fuse together to create an ecstasy” (Mackintosh, 1993). The act of exchange in theatres corresponds to the discourse developed in the alleys and corridors. “Architecture is does not simply contain and accommodate scenes and events, but it also generates it by establishing its meanings, conventions and aesthetics.” (Copeau, 1990) 49
The concept of a theatre and idea of performance in a traditional play celebrates
the audience as they would influence the delivery of the play, the live presence of the spectators and the performers by being in a mutual field of time and space. Unlike the description by David Cole of the actor that inhabits a world within its own exclusive capsule with its own rule (Carlson, 1989), the performers and the audiences are engaged in a two-way discourse that is not treated as a passivity. However, they both would “actively – sometimes violently – shape incidents and events around them” (Tschumi, 1996). For Tschumi, ‘violence’ as mentioned, represents the metaphor for the strength of a relationship between individuals and their surrounding spaces. This similar discord is also noticeable in the early design of the Old Bailey where the building plan was open to one side, completely exposed to the weather and vulnerable the intimidating influences of the crowds that it would sometimes effect the outcome of the court (Emsley, Hitchcock and Shoemaker, 2018).
The open air design of the Old Bailey, c.1673 Courtesy of Walter Thorbury, University of Sheffield
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The word “theatre” does not only imply the relationship between the space and
the observer, or the space of the observed, but it reinforced the act of observing in a space. The act suggests of a current action examining a current event, happening in the present and at the time. When an audience watches a play, he/she is there, observing, in that specific time in space. On the other hand, the act of investigating could happen concurrently, but it is an event of the past. “Each observer is certainly organising and inventing his description of past events in a different way, but for each of them the events so described are unambiguously past, since no observer can have knowledge of a distant event until it is in his past light cone” (Polkinghorne, 2008).
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The spaces of alleys and corridors has thickened across time as a result of the
various active events and narratives. There could be an act or an explicit narrative to alleys and corridors that considers and analyses former events while also evaluating from the act of the present, resulting in a reaction that could engage the individuals in the exchange and discourse of a space. “An individual’s movement through space, his pilgrimages, lose that abstract and technical character… The space becomes more concrete and saturated with a time that is more substantial; space is filled with real, living meaning, and forms a crucial relationship with the hero and his fate. This type of space saturates this new chronotope that such events; meeting, separation, collision, escaped and so forth take on a new and markedly more concrete chronotopic significance.” (Bakhtin, 1982) The act would demand commitment and immersion to the dialogic of a space, challenging the inhabitants to not only to observe and investigate, but to fantasize and reconstruct a new field within the familiar space. “We can even allow ourselves to dream.” (Perec, 2008)
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Alphose Bertillon’s camera could help frame the idea. The new set-up introduced
by Bertillon in the 19th century to photograph and document crime scenes is a thoughtprovoking technique. He devised a camera that is mounted on a tripod and that it will capture the victims on the crime scenes from above. The set-up was very peculiar and intriguing at the time, as photography was a newly introduced technique. The method leads to the development of the “metric photography” that applies grid to the photograph to record the specific dimension of the object in the space. Since then, the optical technique for forensic investigations has evolved and progressed to a more complicated but inventive way of analysing criminal evidence (Refer Appendix C).
The unfamiliar arrangement gave us a new point of view as well as a new field
of view. It is also very specific and accurate that the crime scene could be re-imagined and reconstructed in a different space at a different time. Bakhtin suggested that time could be stripped of its unity and wholeness where it is chopped up into segmented episodes from the everyday life (Bakhtin, 1982). Italo Calvino also mentioned that “the dimension of time has been shattered, we cannot function except in fragments of time” (Calvino, 2002).
53
Bertillon’s Photography Method. Courtesy of Préfecture de police de Paris, Service de l’Identité judiciaire.
54
Photographs, or even diagrams, suggests of the documentation of the
fragments of time and that we are studying the events in frames. We filter only the things that we wanted to see. Here, the drawing of the alley is a form of reconstruction of the observations and investigations carried out through the whole research of the thesis. The drawing was constructed and is supported by stories, accounts, notes of observations as well as various theories that have been fragmented to only the frame and the field of view of the alleys and corridors and are then being composed and presented in the thesis.
“Partial control is exercised through the use of the frame. Each frame, each part of a sequence qualifies, reinforces, or alters the parts that precede and follow it. Plurality of interpretations rather than a singular fact.� Bernard Tschumi, Architecture & Disjunction
Ă—
55
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Appendices
65
Appendix A - Alleys in Knightsbridge, London
West of Brompton Road:
East of Brompton Road:
Paxton Head Yard/Park Mansion Arcade
/Garden Row
Rutland Yard
Landon Place/Little Exeter Street
Trevor Street/Charles Street
/Exeter Place
/Tullett Place
Walton Place
Lancelot Place
Pont Street Mews
Trevor Place/Hill Street
Brompton’s Place/Lloyds Place
Trevor Square/Arthur Street
Rysbrack St/Charlotte Street
Montpelier Mews
Cross St/Stackhouse Street
Cottage Place & Trevor Place
Harriett Walk/Mews
Rutland Gardens
Cottage Place (now end of Harriett Walk)
Relton Mews
Duplex Ride
Raphael Street
Studio Place/College Place /Kinnerton Place North Capeners Close /Kinnerton Yard Frederic Mews Wilton Crescent Mews/Wilton Row Wilton Place Old Barrack Yard Grosvenor Crescent Mews
66
Appendix A - Alleys in Knightsbridge, London
(Data by Author)
Diagram of Knightsbridge alleys. (Drawing by Author)
Appendix A - Alleys in Knightsbridge, London
67
Lancelot Place (Greenacombe, 2000f)
Maintains the line of a driftway which once led to the Rose and Crown inn on Knightsbridge.
Lancelot Place takes its name from Lancelot Edward Wood, the stonemason involved in the development of houses in Trevor Square. The roadway itself originated as a driftway from the Brampton road to the back of the Rose and Crown on the Kensington road, and dates back to the eighteenth century or earlier. The southern end was taken up by the Trevor Chapel, the site of which was redeveloped in 1953 with a row of neo-Georgian houses designed by Jack E. Dallin. North of the chapel, Lancelot Place was built up with small cottages and shops c. 1819-20, much of it being included in leases of houses on the east side of the square. None of these survive, and this part of the street is now occupied by post-war houses and lock-up garages, the most recent building being Lancelot House at the north end. Sloane Place (Greenacombe, 2000a) Finally, a small piece of infilling occurred in about 1809-10 on the site of the Hollands' timber-yard, which by then was the property of Henry Holland's nephew, Henry Rowles the builder. Under an agreement of 1809 with Rowles, the young James Bonnin took the yard, which was renamed Sloane Place, and built a series of six small houses on its eastern side, accessible from North Street A small Wesleyan place of worship was built, known as the Sloane Place Chapel. Little is known of this chapel, which held only a hundred people. William Pepperell, visiting it in about 1871, pronounced it dwarfed, dingy and situated in about the lowest part of 'a very low neighbourhood'.
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Appendix A - Alleys in Knightsbridge, London
(Information taken from British History Online)
English slangs for alleys 1. Drang/drangway 2. Ope 3.
Gas/gasse (german)
4.
Shutts: narrow passages between blocks of buildings on the main street via which access may be obtained to a parallel street
5. Snickelway 6. Jetty 7. Gulleys 8. Slip 9. Entry 10. Opportunity 11. Tchure 12. Jigger
(Compiled by The Guardian (2016))
Appendix B - Other terms for alleys
79
80
Appendix C - Optical Techniques in Criminal Investigations & Photography
(Diagram by Author)
Appendix C - Optical Techniques in Criminal Investigations & Photography
81
Appendix D - Field notes taken in Knightsbridge Green
Friday : 21st February 2020 : Knightsbridge Green : overcast string wind from west
1:45 pm -
The rainwater on the ground is guided by a fold on the floor. I noticed it stopped in front of the watch shop. The fold is gone as the floor tiles is flushed for the other half of the alley. Turns into a line of crease
-
This fold on the floor, it divided the alley into two. Somehow, the two halves have very distinct characters.
-
The line of the fold on the floor is not centered to the alley, the line of the lamppost is.
-
The crease on the floor ended to a small curb ramp.
-
The north end is higher than the south end.
-
There are distinct material changes as I traverse from the road curb to the ‘start’ of the alley, along the alley, and at the end of the alley back to the road curb.
-
The lampposts break conversation, couple holding hands, people walking in groups.
-
The lampposts initiate negotiation, demand compromise
-
The doorway to the mobile and vape shop becomes a space, blocked by a movable counter. The space inside is only the width of one person.
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Appendix D - Field notes taken in Knightsbridge Green
Data by Author.
2:13 pm -
The Bridges newsstand is only about 1.5m wide. Saw the guy at the counter, about 3 meters in, sitting in the center of the shop viewing out. As long as he is sitting at the counter looking out, he only has a small viewing window of the alley. Quick snippets/ fragments of the events/burst of moments that is happening outside.
-
A man came out of the service door next to me, I see a glimpse of the inside.
-
Standing opposite of the entrance to an Italian Restaurant. There are a lot of people coming in for lunch. I noticed the entrance has two layers of doors. A buffer area (an apparatus at the end of a railroad car, railroad track, etc., for absorbing shock during coupling, collisions, etc.)
-
The fire escape of the Bulgari hotel is behind me.
-
Café Knightsbridge is closed today. However, a few people entered the café door occasionally. At the moment, the front of the café is used as the smoking are.
-
Two women, about average height tiptoeing to see a display in the window of the watch shop.
-
Standing right in front of the money exchange, I see a woman at a counter at the end of the entrance of the Bulgari Hotel restaurant.
-
Could not see well into the Samer Halimeh Diamond shop. The inside is dark, distracted with reflections from mirrors and the double glass window. The jewelries on display are in lighted up glass boxes, big enough to hide the interiors. The entrance is closed shut. I thought it was closed, but the silhouette of the people inside proved that it is not.
-
Contrasting to the diamond shop, Yoko London, another jewelry shop is very open. The glass window is wide, and the interiors are bright and clear. You can see the other jewelry on display in the shop.
-
The fold ends and the pavement start.
Data by Author.
Appendix D - Field notes taken in Knightsbridge Green
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forensic
Forensic Investigation of Alleys and Corridors
• RMS • Research Method Statement
narratives
Abstract. The thesis re-orients the term ‘forensic’ to the relationship of architecture and its inhabitants, and applies it to the observational exercise performed in alleys and corridors.
Thesis Contents: The content of the thesis is structured as an alley, where the reader will enter and traverse through different narratives and will arrive at the edge of the thesis where they they will reflect, speculate and construct on their experience through frame of events and memories.
Entering the Passage
Field of Research
Mindsetting
The Journey; Of entrance Of service Of exchange Of mystery Of intensity Of the unexpected Of escape Of relief
Narratives
Reaching the Horizon
Action plan
Key Theories: • Events in alleys as theatrical performances
Issue Alleys and corridors have been treated as passive spaces. It has been neglected and underappreciated.
• The crucial involvement of time in alleys
Research Question: Could there be a different type of narrative, unique and explicit to alleys and corridors?
• The thesis looked at Bakhtin’s theory of chronotopes, • Bernard Tschumi’s concept of events and ‘violence’
Thesis Objectives: Revise the practice of observation and investigation. Change the perception alleys and corridors.
towards
HIghlights the ‘performance’: the events happening in alleys.
Potential for topic: There are opportunities as they are very adaptive and dynamic when viewed through a different field of view. The thesis highlights the importance and the impact of the user to a space.
Field research: Knightsbridge Green, Knightsbridge, London Time frame: The thesis considers historical accounts and reflects upon them, as well as speculating and discussing on to the consequences that is happening currently.
Methods Constraints The act of observation, investigation, and the engagement and commitment to explore the alleys demands a much longer time period.
Field visits and taking observational notes.
When time, events and the space are fragmented and observed through different lenses with different field of views, alleys could be explored as energetic spaces activated by causal dialogues.
Juxtaposing & superimposing: alley names and maps as an archaelogical exercise.
The act of traversing through an alley requires time, similar to how the issues in thesis would require time to be properly discussed.
Collecting fragments of information and composing them as an evidence wall, to identify the relationship and the connection between them.
Hogenberg’s Map 1572 William Morgan’s Map 1676 & 1682 John Roque’s Map 1746 Hogg’s Map 1784 Horwood’s Map 1799 Reynolds’s Map 1847 London Map 1893-6
Different opportunities of events occurs during different condition of the alleys and corridors. Learning from optical techniques used in photography or in the forensic investigation of crimes.
Research context
It associates the reciprocal discourse happening in the alleys to the performance of theatres. The thesis also observes events and conflicts as concentrated narratives framed along the site of investigation.
Site of research: Alleys and corridors in London,
Roger Luckhurst’s Corridors of Modernity
Reconstruction of events and memories based on fragments of notes and words
Corridors in Media Theory of theatres and performance Other mode of observations: bird watching Police’s practice and principles in investigation
Method & Methodology
performance
“Forums” (The Discussion)
fields & forums
“Fields” (Site of investigation)
historical accounts, own observation, other people’s stories and experiences
Terms used in the thesis:
Thesis form: The thesis simulates a notebook, embracing the constant act and concept of taking notes during an observational exercise. Observating and investigating is a subconcious phenomenon that should be highlighted and encouraged.
Secondary Research:
Impact of research
•
Historical maps
•
British History Website
Analysing the space that we inhabit as a dynamic site by looking through different lenses and ‘depth of field’.
•
Corridors of Modernity, Roger Luckhurst
•
Architecture and Disjunction, Bernard Tschumi
•
Places of performance: The Semiotics of Theatre Architecture, Marvin Carlson
Primary Research: • Short experiences and observations while discovering alleys around London - Warwick Passage - Harrods’ network of corridors - Knightsbridge’s alleys and mews - RA’s corridors and vertical alley - Sadie Coles HQ Gallery - Horse Hospital - alley near Hawksmoor’s St. George - Burlington Arcade • Site visits and taking field notes @ Knightsbridge Green, London that was done is a longer time period
Conclusion & Speculation Alleys are dynamic and adaptive. Events in alleys and corridors has theatrical values that has a reciprocal relationship between the inhabitants and the space.
