Another History - 136 Kingsland road

Another History

136 Kingsland Rd.

Between memory and site ...

A site of memory

136 Kingsland Rd.

Bartlett School of Achitecture, UCL MA Architecture

Memory takes root in

BENVGAH4: Theorising Practices YANG XUE | 16095690

Preface

| 1998

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From memories of a site, to a ' site of memory ', to ' another history ' of a site.

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... We have seen the end of societies that had long assured the trans­mission and conservation of collectively remembered values, whether through churches or schools, the family or the state; the end too of ideologies that pre­pared a smooth passage from the past to the future or that had indicated what the future should keep from the past — whether for reaction, progress, or even revolution ... 1 *

... lieux de memoire, where memory crystallizes and secretes itself has occurred at a particular historical moment, a turning point where conscious­ness of a break with the past is bound up with the sense that memory has been torn -- but memory in certain sites where a sense of historical continuity persists.

There are lieux de memoire, sites of memory ... 2 *

' Another History ' rises from searching for a question, a question I asked

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myself when I first encountered the site: " How can it survive, from the passing of 300 years, and seems still kept its own identity ? "

This is an experiment of representing ' another history' of a site - Kingland 136,

| 1714

or the Geffrye Museum, as what it is knowned today.

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| 1950

Then later I realized the question of its physical longevity might be answered from another perspective - the longevity of its memory and the memory it contains - through perveiving the site from the idea of lieux de mémoire.

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" | 2017

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... Our relation to the past, at least as it reveals itself in major historical studies, is something entirely different from what we would expect from a memory : no longer a retrospective continuity but the illumination of disconti­nuity ... 3 *

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Memory doesn't have temperality, as it can always be resuscitated by an stimultion - a metaphor.

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' Another History ' is an attempt to materialized the ' memory ' of a site - a process of rememoration, through the visual/physical metaphors found on the site - the written words, the physical exhibits, the spatial geometry as :

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| 1914

... Memory takes root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures, images, and objects ... 4 *

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through the space of a book. It tries to form its narrative according to the

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... the materialisation of memory has been tremen­dously dilated, multiplied, decentralized, democratized, but never social/collective, all-encompassing ... ... voluntary and deliberate, experienced as a duty, no longer spontaneous; psychological, individual, and subjective; 6 *

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... lieux de mémoire are simple and ambiguous, natural and artificial, at once immediately available in concrete sensual experience and susceptible to the most abstract elaboration ... 7 *

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... from a solid and steady past to our fractured past; from a history sought in the continuity of memory to a memory cast in the discontinuity of history ... 8 *

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| 1935

It is a representation of a ' site ' of memory - materialised the memory following :

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... Psychoanalysis recognizes the past in the present; treats the relation as one of imbrication (one in the place of the other of repetition (one reproduces the other in another form), of the equivocal and of the quiproquo what “takes the place” of what? Everywhere, there are games of masking, reversal, and ambiguity). 5 *

' Another History ' is trying to understand the spatiality of the site through interweaven of its fractured memories without refer to the temperality of the memories, and also leave an abstract, ambiguous answer - the book itself, to the question of our ideal relation to the past - which to me, represents in the architecture design of historic environments.

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" Opening Hours "

" These front gardens save the Geffrye almshouses from possible demolition. " As soon as the site is acquired by London County Council, the gardens are thrown open to the public, and have provided an open green space in the inner city ever since. | 1911 | 1

It is the homes for the elderly poor , with up to 50 pensioners living in the 14 almshouses at any one time. | 1714 | 2

Children who come regularly on Saturdays and during the holidays are of course, mainly from the immediate neighbourhood, though a good sprinkling travel for half an hour or more. | 1950s | 3

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" A good nucleus of the regular children come so continuously that they are well known in the museum and are counted by the staff as friends...

Many of these are the more pathetic types, those obviously lacking security and affection, to whom the friendly atmosphere of the museum and the encouragement and appreciation which they find there are particularly important. " | 1940s | 6

The Geffrye Museum remaines open throughout the Second World War, it relies on visits from schools and children during the war. | 1939 | 4

" One of the pensioner was recently assaulted, and it would appear that, whilst using the gardens, they are frequently subjected to insult and annoyance by the rough class inhabiting the neighbourhood.� a letter from Thomas Allchin, Charity Commissioner | 1907 | 5

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| fig 1

| fig 2

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" A good nucleus of the regular children come so continuously that they are well known in the museum and are counted by the staff as friends...

Many of these are the more pathetic types, those obviously lacking security and affection, to whom the friendly atmosphere of the museum and the encouragement and appreciation which they find there are particularly important. "

" If the almshouses had stood empty, no greater benefit could have been conferred on the poor of the district than their maintenance as a spot of restful beauty in the midst of a vast collection of squalid and ugly houses. " | 1910 | 7

" One day during the war when I took a group of the children to Kew Gardens to see the blossom. They all enjoyed it and said "how pretty" the trees were, but Harry saw magic which the others were not tuned to before one particularly lovely group, heavy pink and white, he stood in silence for a while, evidently remembering the streets round his home, and then, his bright little face twisted and sad, he burst out : "oh madam, it isn't fair, is it?" "

| 1940s | 8

" " If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern... " ILLIAM LAKE | 9

W

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" A good nucleus of the regular children come so continuously that they are well known in the museum and are counted by the staff as friends...

Many of these are the more pathetic types, those obviously lacking security and affection, to whom the friendly atmosphere of the museum and the encouragement and appreciation which they find there are particularly important. "

" If the almshouses had stood empty, no greater benefit could have been conferred on the poor of the district than their maintenance as a spot of restful beauty in the midst of a vast collection of squalid and ugly houses."

As soon as the site was acquired by London County Council, the gardens were thrown open tothe the war public.

One day during when I took a group of the children to Kew Gardens to see the blossom. They all enjoyed it and said "how pretty" the trees were, but Harry saw magic which the others were not tuned to before one particularly lovely group, heavy pink and white, he stood in silence for a while, evidently remembering the streets round his home, and then, his bright little face twisted and sad, he burst out :

"oh madam, it isn't fair, is it?"

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The Bradmore House Niche

When I am first there , I am really impressed by the aura of the place.

Suddenly you are there, unexpectedly enter in an open green, encompassed by old brick orange, and bathed in dappled sunlight yellow through late summer leaves. It feels like an nostalgic island, separate | 2017 itself from the outside turmoils of modern world. " It is like a salvage yard, documenting a disappearing material world, while aiming to maintain the skills needed to reproduce that world. " | 1914 | 10

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The children may keep their paintings and their clay models at museum or they may take them home if they wish and many take a pride in building up a personal collection.

Some of the poorer children do not wish to take any thing home.

Mother has no time or space for such rubbish", and throws the painting on the fire or the cherished model in the dustbin. And thus the essential affection and understanding which are lacking cannot even be compensated for by such small material possessions... For these children in particular the folios in which they keep their museum work and the cupboard for the clay models | 1950s | 11 have a special significance.

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" 25

The Bradmore House room installation is emblematic of the museum: a room that ceases to exist is reborn a year later, except that it is no longer the same room, it become a representation of what it used to be. A photograph of Bradmore House before its demolition hung in the gallery as a ghost of the orphaned room, while outside a brick niche from Bradmore House is reerected in the garden. | 1914 | 13

When I am first there , I am really impressed by the aura of the place.

Suddenly you are there, unexpectedly enter in an open green, encompassed by old brick orange, and bathed in dappled sunlight yellow through late summer leaves. It feels like an nostalgic island, separate itself from the outside turmoils of modern world. " Their standing before us is still indeed a consequence of, but no longer the same as, their former self-subsistence... the object-being of the works ... does not constitute their work-being. "

Martin Heidegger | 12

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| fig 5

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The Bradmore House room installation is emblematic of the museum: a room that ceases to exist is reborn a year later, except that it is no longer the same room, it become a representation of what it used to be. A photograph of Bradmore House before its demolition hung in the gallery as a ghost of the orphaned room, while outside a brick niche from Bradmore House is reerected in the garden.

I feel peaceful.

People are lying on the lawn chatting, having their take-away pizza, kids are running and chasing around, some adults are reading on the benches as if they are in a secluded reading room.

An urban sanctuary it is.

The Hackney Gazette reports that the public shelter dug into the Geffrye's lawn held up to 700 people - and the big piles of earth excavated leave lying around the gardens. | 1940 | 14

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The Bradmore House room installation was emblematic of the museum: a room that ceased to exist was reborn a year later, except that it was no longer the same room, it became a representation of what it used to be. A photograph of Bradmore House before its demolition hung in the gallery as a ghost of the orphaned room, while outside a brick niche from Bradmore House was re-erected in the garden.

When I first went there , I was really impressed by the aura of the place. Suddenly you are there, unexpectedly entered in an open green, encompassed by brick orange, and bathed in dappled sunlight yellow through late summer leaves. It feels like an nostalgic island, separate odern world. " A good nucleus of the regular children come so continuously that they are well known in the museum and are counted by the staff as friends...

Many of these are the more pathetic types, those obviously lacking security and affection, to whom the friendly atmosphere of the museum and the encouragement and appreciation which they find there are particularly important. " An urban sanctuary it is.

The children may keep their paintings and their clay models at museum or they may take them home if they wish and many take a pride in building up a personal collection.

Some of the poorer children do not wish to take any thing home. Mother has no time or space for such rubbish", and throws the painting on the fire or the cherished model in the dustbin. And thus the essential affection and understanding which are lacking cannot even be compensated for by such small material possessions... For these children in particular the folios in which they keep their museum work and the cupboard for the clay models have a special significance.

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The Statue Of Geffrye

Lena Baker, a daughter of the Almshouses chaplain, remembers a gift to her brother Cecil, when his pet goat died. The kind almshouse gatekeeper Mr Thear entered a raffle to win a life-sized donkey toy, and presented it to Cecil as a consolation gift: " One evening when Cecil and I were already in bed, there was a loud knock at the door, and there was old Thear holding up a large donkey on green wheels. " | 1800s | 16

Sir Robert Geffrye is the founder of the Almshouses.

He states in his will that the residue of his fortune, after bequests to family and charities, is to be spent on building and maintaining an almshouse for the poor. | 1703 | 15

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" These flowers are sent to the museum, sometimes in considerable quantities, by generous people in all parts of the British Isles who have responded liberally to letters written every spring to the editors of all the main magazines and periodicals. Both those who have published the appeals and those who have interrupted their busy life to pick, parcel up and post flowers from their gardens or fields have contributed a great deal to the welcoming and attractive atmosphere which is so pleasing to every visitor. " | 1950s | 17

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Sir Robert Geffrye was the founder of the Ironmongers’ Almshouses.

He stated in his will that the residue of his fortune, after bequests to family and charities, was to be spent on building and maintaining an almshouse for the poor. " Geffrye in his acre-and -a- quarter has given them not only a museum but also a playground. On goodly wooden benches they may sit and breathe and see the sky. Here also is a band-stand, and once a week shoreditch dances ‌ Over the door is a be-wigged statue of Geffrye.

Dancers, as you foot it, turn your eyes to him once, and say: " Thank you, Sir Robert. "

| 1979 | 18

Resident Lydia Thompson left money in her last wish to the almshouses.

She left one guinea to all the residents " as a small acknowledgement of my friendship for them and as a token of my esteem and regard for that | 1792 | 19 noble and praiseworthy institution. "

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Reverend Baker was the chaplain of the Almshouses.

He and his family lived in the almshouses. Lena Baker, one of the daughters, remembers a gift to her brother Cecil, when his pet goat died. The kind almshouse gatekeeper Mr Thear entered a raffle to win a life-sized donkey toy, and presented it to Cecil as a consolation gift: " One evening when Cecil and I were already in bed, there was a loud knock at the door, and there was old Thear holding up a large donkey on green wheels. "

Sir Robert Geffrye was the founder of the Ironmongers’ Almshouses.

He stated in his will that the residue of his fortune, after bequests to family and charities, was to be spent on building and maintaining an almshouse for the poor. " Geffrye in his acre-and -a- quarter has given them not only a museum but also a playground. On goodly wooden benches they may sit and breathe and see the sky. Here also is a band-stand, and once a week shoreditch dances ‌ Over the door is a be-wigged statue of Geffrye.

Dancers, as you foot it, turn your eyes to him once, and say: " Thank you, Sir Robert. "

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These flowers are sent to the museum, sometimes in considerable quantities, by generous people in all parts of the British Isles who have responded liberally to letters written every spring to the editors of all the main magazines and periodicals. Both those who have published the appeals and those who have interrupted their busy life to pick, parcel up and post flowers from their gardens or fields have contributed a great deal to the welcoming and attractive atmosphere which is so pleasing to every visitor.

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The Corridor

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... Progress and decadence, the two great themes of historical intelligibility at least since modern time, both aptly express this cult of continuity ... 9 *

... Memory is life, borne by living societies founded in its name.

It remains in permanent evolution, open to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting, unconscious of its successive deformations, vulnerable to manipulation and appropriation, susceptible to being long dormant and periodically revived. 10 *

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The existing spaces are considered too small for a museum. Substantial internal alterations are made in converting the buildings, including a corridor cut through the party walls, a continuous passage links the rooms from one side till the end of the almshouse, except the chapel in the centre, with an external walkway built around the apse at the rear to connect the two sides. | 1913 | 20 A continuous space is created for a discontinuity of the function in the almshouse.

How urban colonisation evolves represents the evolution of site memories. The new colonizers decides what can be remember - what should be kept and what should be erased.

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The residents move to their new almshouses in Mottingham, Kent.

| 1912 | 23

The future of the vacated almshouse buildings are being debated until a petition for the founding of a ‘central museum and exhibition room’ is presented to the london county council, argue for a central museum dedicated to craft training. | 1911 | 21 It echoes the arguments that has been put forward in the 1836 report from the select committee on arts, and their connection with manufactures that informed the founding of the victoria and albert museum - namely, to improve craft skills and the quality of manufactured goods, as well as to bring art and crafts to the wider public in order to educate and enhance modern life.

The idea of a museum is supported. | 1911 | 22

A member of museum staff lived in almshouse no. 14.

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| 1996 | 24

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There was once a playground and open-air theatre behind the museum.

On this space today is the Geffrye’s Branson Coates wing. | 2014 | 27

Only the chapel is spared. In the hierarchy of representation, a religious space carried priority over a museum space, which in turn took precedence over former residential space. | 25

The Geffrye Museum is granted Independent Charitable status, with direct funding from central govemment, and it has been redirected from children’s education to focus on the representation of the middle class.

The Periods Rooms are kept as the base of the display, focus only on “ the representation of the tastes and values of people from the middle ranks of urban society ”. | 1992 | 26 Today the Geffrye’s front gardens are used for activities, public events and for locals to enjoy. These are not new ways in which the gardens have been used. | 2014 | 28

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There was once a playground and open-air theatre behind the museum, used. On this space today is the Geffrye’s Branson Coates wing, opened in 1998. It showcases the museum’s 20th century period rooms and learning spaces for families, schools and events.

In 1912, the residents move to their new almshouses in Mottingham, Kent.

alterations are made in converting It echoes t

it has been redirected from

A continuous space is created for a discontinuity of the function.

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Today the Geffrye’s front gardens are used for activities, public events and for locals to enjoy. These are not new ways in which the gardens have been used.

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The Chinese Plate

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... An order is given to remember, but the responsibility is mine, and it is I who must remember ... 11 *

... The atomization of a general memory into a private one has given the obligation to remember a power of internal coercion.

It gives everyone the necessity to remember and to protect the trappings of identity; when memory is no longer everywhere, it will not be anywhere unless one takes the responsibility to 12 * recap­ture it through individual means.

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" Many familiar products have their origins in other parts of the world, such as porcelain from China and rugs from Turkey. The English and their homes are drawn from many cultures. " | 2008 | 30 I am from China, and I am studying Arcihtecture in London.

It is not so much different, my life here compared to my life in China.

The scale of the urban fabric actually reminds me of Shanghai, where I spent four years as an undergraduate student. You can find historic British architecture at the Bund, where used to be the leased-territory. " For the middling sort, these imitations would have been affordable and fashionable, and indicate a desire to furnish the home with objects and materials which would have been seen by their peers as modern, expensive and smart ... " | 2008 | 31

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" ... The illustrations on the following pages give tentative suggestions of some of the ways in which the methods used with children in the museum could be adapted to other material other circumstances, other ages and types of people. ... The intention is simply to sketch a variety of possibilities in the hope that these may be of interest to people working, or planning to work, along parallel lines... " | 1950s | 33

" Visitors from abroad are very frequently brought to the museum by the British Council and other bodies whose function is to further overseas a knowledge of new developments in this country. Letters are often received from foreign museum workers, teachers, students and others, and it is no exaggeration to say that the direct contacts made since the end of the war are with practically every country in the world." | 1950s | 32 There are also differences, of the social values and architecture practices in historic urban environments between Chinese and Britsh. My reason for studying here is to understand the differences and reflect on my own cultural context.

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" After the heart is cultivated the body will become regulated, After the body becomes regulated there will be order in the family After the family becomes orderly the country will become governed.

After the country becomes governed there will be peace under the heavens."

Confucius | 34

| fig 14

| fig 15

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along parallel lines...

and it is I who must remember ... origins in other parts of the world

often received from

frequently brought to direct contacts

I am from

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The Period Rooms

Almshouse residents cook and eat in their rooms. Most would have boiled their food, as there is no oven, and may have taken pre-prepared pasties, pies and bread to a bakery in Hoxton, or simply buy ready| 1714 | 36 made ones from sellers on Kingsland Road.

The Geffrye Museum became a Grade I listed building . | 1950

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... For if we accept that the most fundamental purpose of the lieu de mĂŠmoire is to stop time, to block the work of forgetting, to establish a state of things, to immortalize death, to materialize the immaterial- just as if gold were the only memory of money -- all of this in order to capture a maximum of meaning in the fewest of signs ...

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" The displays cover the period from 160o to the present day and focus on the main living-room used by the family and their guests. " | 2008 | 35

" One can imagine the hall being a busy place for most of the day. The main meal was taken at midday, when the family, servants and employees would have eaten together... Friends and special guests would... The housewife would ... the children...

Much of this activity would have taken place in the hall, which was the hub around which the household was run. " | 2008 | 37

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There is no trace of the light on the floor of the period rooms, as the windows are blocked and the artificial light left only the shadows of the exhibits. At here, you don’t perceive the actual flow of time - as you can perceived in some other spaces of the museum, namely the conservatory passage or the cafe, through the torned light on the floor - but the fake time manipulated in the rooms.

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... if history did not seize upon memories in order to distort and transform them, to mold or turn them into stone, they would not turn into lieux de mĂŠmoire ...... without commemorative vigilance, history would soon sweep them away ... 14 * "

" The radical changes severed the relationship between exterior and interior. The exterior was privileged on aesthetic grounds as a representation of the beauty of the past. " Through its facades it represented an image of the past... The 'preservation' of the almshouse buildings thus represented " the preservation of an external image of the past, divorced of its social reality... " | 39

"... the architectural details of the museums' display are copied from a house built in 1686 in Denmark Street, Soho." | 2008 | 40

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" The Geffrye's challenge is to ensure that these displays are not simply evocative and, occasionally, nostalgic; they must accurately represent the changing homes of London's middle classes. This can only be achieved after 105 years of intensive research. " | 2008 | 41

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... In the history-memory of old, accurate perceptions of the past were characterized by the assumption that the past could be retrieved. The past could always be resuscitated by an effort of 15 * recomemoration ...

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Our relation to the past is now formed in a subtle play between its intractability and its disappearance, a question of a representation... radically different from the old ideal of resurrecting the past. As comprehensive as it may have wished to be, in practice such a ressurection implied a hierarchy of memory, ordering the perspective of the past beneath the gaze of a static present by the skillful manipulation of light and shadow ...

16 *

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flow of time

the torned light The Geffrye Museum became a Grade I listed building .

fake time

... For if we accept that the most fundamental purpose of the lieu de mĂŠmoire is to stop time, to block the work of forgetting, to establish a state of things, to immortalize death, to materialize the immaterial- just as if gold were the only memory of money -- all of this in order to capture a maximum of meaning in the fewest of signs ... ... if history did not seize upon memories in order to distort and transform them, to mold or turn them into stone

ressurection

hierarchy memory " One can imagine the hall being a busy place for most ofof the day. The main meal was taken at midday, when the family, servants and employees would have eaten together... Friends aand special guests would... The static present housewife would ... the children... light and shadow Much of this activity would have taken place in the hall, which was the hub around which the household was run. "

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The Branson Coates Extension

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... lieu de memoir are simple and ambiguous, natural and artificial, at once immediately available in concrete sensual experience and susceptible to the most abstract elaboration. Indeed, they are lieux in three senses of the word -- material, symbolic, and func17 * tional.

It is feels like the “extension “ of the temperal corridoor is a loop that brings you back to the present life space, where the sunlight pour from the glass roof, where the cafe, the shop, the secular life are taking place.

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| 1998

It looks like a cave carved out of the present brick wall before you, like at some distance in the future. " It is arranged like a theatre, with stage and audience swapped so that the visitor can peruse the audience of temporal rooms. " | xxxx | 40 " It is staged like a retail space, which is the ultimate space of consumption. " | 2008 | 42

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... Just as the future -- formerly a visible, predictable, manipulable, well-marked extension of the present -- has come to seem invisible, unpredictable, uncontrollable, so have we gone from the idea of a visible past to an inisible one. 18 *

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... It is also clear that lieux de mĂŠmoire only exist because of their capacity for metamorphosis, an endless recycling of their meaning and an unpredictable proliferation of their ramifications ...

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The Branson Coates extension reconfigures the museum ‘s narrative through " turning " the existing symbols of the site. Seemingly a transformation of the " past ", while experienced as a different implication of the relationship with the "past ".

The almshouses is turning into a museum. The museum is designed to educate furniture industry employees. | 1913 The chronological sequence of Periods Rooms forces a trajectory of history. The curator of the narrative, Mrs Harrison also aspired to extend the trace to the present time. It was an idea that remained un| 43 filled until the Branson Coates extension.

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The Ironmongers' Company place an advertisement in The Times for the sale of the site. | 1906 | 44

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... Just as the future -- formerly a visible, predictable, manipulable, well-marked extension of the present -- has come to seem invisible, unpredictable, uncontrollable, so have we gone from the idea of a visible past to an inisible one ... 20 *

... Since no one knows what the past will be made of next, anxiety turns everyting into a trace, a possible indication, a hint of history ... the loss of a single explanatory principle, while casting us into a fragmented universe, has promoted every object - even the most humble, the most improbable, the most inaccessible to the diginity of a historical mystery... 21*

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The Ironmongers' Company advertise in The Postman newspaper that | 1711 | 45 they are looking to buy land to build the almshouses.

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ir arsimple and ambiguous, naturalandartificial, at once immediately available iffffffffffffn concrete sensual experience and sabstractaaa elaboration. Indeed, they are lieux in three senses of the word -- fffffffffff ffffggggggggggggggggggggggmaterial, symbolic, and functional.

a fragmented universe

every object

the diginity of a historical mystery

invisible, unpredictable, uncontrollable, looks like arranged like

feels like

a trajectory of history

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' View Of The Garden '

The Geffrye's gardens used to slope from east to west. To level out the front garden the Geffrye Charity Committee decides the cheapest way to solve this problem is to ask locals to bring their rubbish and dump it on the front gardens. Over 2 years 600 wagon loads of earth are brought to level the garden. | 1714 | 47

The architect Nigel Coates has described the new extension as a ‘sympathetic partner with a spirit of its own’... “ The extension is a bold and modern building which creates an exceptional addition to the urban landscape. The design is challenging and contemporary, but the use of traditional materials and the modelling of the interior spaces reflects the scale and intimacy of the existing 18th century buildings. " | 1998 | 46

The back yards is by residents for growing vegetables, drying laundry and keeping livestock such as chickens and rabbits .

Mrs Young, the Matron works at the Ironmongers’ almshouses has a pet. She has a dog called Nat who lived in a kennel in the back garden of the Geffrye almshouses. | 1712 | 48

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... In the same way that we owe our historical overview to a panoramic distance, and our artificial hyper-realization of the past to a definitive estrangement, a changing mode of perception returns the historian, almost against his will, to the traditional objects from which he had turned away, the common knowledge of our national memory... 22*

" 81

The museum plans to build an £18 million-plus extension by architect David Chipperfield. It involves demolishing a late Regency-style corner pub at the back of the building, and locals and conservationists launch a noisy campaign to save the watering hole, which has been closed for 20 years. They win, the council refuses planning permission. | 2011 | 49

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... The passage from memory to history has required every social group to rede­fine its identity through the revitalization of its own history ... ... The less extraordinary the testimony, the more aptly it seems to illustrate the average mentality ... ... The quest for memory is the search for one's history ... 23*

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The almshouses are not designed by an architect.

The Ironmongers’ Company invites tenders to build them at the lowest possible price. In the end two contractors were asked to build the almshouses: Robert Burford and Richard Halsaul. | 1714 | 50

The approach of Clare Wright, the partner in charge of the project, is a kind of “slow” architecture that would add further layers to the Geffrye.

“It is anti-iconic architecture,” she says. The layers are simple but it creates something complex. | 2011 | 51

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“It is the mood of the times. The Chipperfield scheme wasn’t touchyfeely and people’s appetite for change is lower; they cling to the familiar. We are still in austerity and it’s not a time for a big new building — it is make-do and mend.

Ernest Baker is one of the almshouse chaplain Reverend Henry Baker’s 9 children.

When he is 14 his father gave him a diary, and between he writes about family life in these almshouses and London. | 1882 | 54

" We are losing a piece of iconic architecture, but [this] is future-proofing the museum better, it is kinder to the building and we are gaining a lot." | 2014 | 52

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... How can we fail to read, in the shards of the past delievered to us by so many microhistories, the will to make the history we are reconstructing equal to the history we have lived? We could speak of mirror-memory if all mirrors did not reflect the same - for it is difference that we are seeking, and in the image of this difference, 24* the ephemeral spectacle of an unrecoverable identity ...

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" ... but Chipperfield’s proposal, while much bigger wasn’t ' iconic ', in the sense of it being flash and attention-seeking architecture. It was quiet in its own way — quiet to the point of weakness in its massing on the pub’s corner site. " Robert Bevan | 2014 | 53

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chaplain Reverend Henry Baker

Ernest Baker children locals and conservationists the council

ask locals to bring their rubbish Mrs Young, the Matron

The arcihtect Nigel Coates residents

David Dewing, the director Robert Burford and Richard Halsaul

Clare Wright

we owe our historical overview to a panoramic distance Robert Bevan the common knowledge of our national memory

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The Guidebook

| 1800s

"

... Two strategies of time thus confront one another. They do, however, develop in the context of analogous problems: to find principles and criteria to serve as guides to follow in attempting to understand the differences, or guarantee the continuities, between the organization of the actual and the formations of the past; to give the past explanatory value and/or make the present capable of explaining the past ...

25*

" We aim to show how these rooms have changed over time, how domestic life has evolved and how furnishing and decorating choices have increased with new materials, styles, colours and patterns. " | 2008 | 56

"

" ... the mechanical and scientific progress of the present century threatens to injure the tradition and simplicity of English country life. "

| 2008 | 57

A report is drawn up for the conversion of the buildings.

It declares: it is important that in any scheme to adapt these buildings for the purposes indicated there should be the least possible interference with the old work, either as to taking from it or adding to it ... | 1912 | 55

" The purpose of the museum was thus revealed as nothing less than the preservation of national identity. In including tools alongside the furniture and other objects, the museum was concerned with preserving not just the artefacts but also the traces of their production. It was interested in a return to the organic ideal of craftsmanship in defence against industrialisation and thus represented an attempt to preserve certain social identities." | 2008 | 58

| 1700s

| 1900s

90

91

The Council's intention, as explained in the guidebook produced that year, was to "link the schools more closely with the museums so that, in effect, the latter should become extra classrooms.” | 1939 | 57

| 1700s

It is Mrs Harrison's belief that a museum should be "a centre from | 1950s | 58 which the children's interests can radiate to wider fields...

"

... Imagine a society entirely absorbed in its own hostoricity. It would be incapable of producing historians. Living entirely under the sign of the future, it would satisfy itself with automatic self-recording processes and auto-inventory machines, postponing indefinitely the task of understanding itself. By contrast, our society - torn from its memory by the scale of its transformations but all the more obsessed with understanding itself historically is forced to give an increasingly central role to the operations that 26* take place within the historian.

"

"

... lieux de mémoire have no referent reality, or, rather, they are their own referent: pure, exclusively self-referential signs. This is not to say that they are without content, physical presence, or history, it is to suggest that what makes them lieux de mémoire is precisely that by which they escape ftom history. In this senses, the lieux de mémoire is double: a site of excess closed upon itself, concentrated in its own name, but also forever open to the full range of its possible significations ... 27*

"

| 2000s

| 1900s

92

The design and renovation of a historic building, which can be seen as creating a lieu de memoire, could possibly escape from entirely absorted from its own historicity - like copy its past that is no longer authentic from the moment it is forgotten. Rather, it could redefine its own " materiality, symbolicity, functionality " through the enlightment of significance derives from invisible threads linking apparently unconnected memories.

93

Notes * with

"

"

Pierre Nora(1989), Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire,Representations, No.26, Special Issue:Memory and Counter-Memory.

1 *.Ibid p. 7

2*. Ibid p. 7

3*.Ibid p. 16

4 *.Ibid p. 9

6 *.Ibid p. 14 7 *.Ibid p. 18 8*

.Ibid p. 16

9 *.Ibid p.

16

10*.Ibid p. 8 11*.Ibid p. 15

12*.Ibid p. 16 13*.Ibid p. 19

14*.Ibid p. 12

15 *.Ibid p. 16

16 *.Ibid p. 17 17 *.Ibid p. 18 94

18*.Ibid p. 17 19*.Ibid p.

19

20 *.Ibid p. 17 21 *.Ibid p. 17

22 *. Ibid p. 18

23*. Ibid p. 13-15 24 *. Ibid p. 17 26 *. Ibid p.

27 *. Ibid p.

18 24

Michel de Certeau(1986), Heterologies: Discourse on the Other, Theory And History Of Litterature, volume 17, sixth printing,2000, The University Of Minnesota Pres, pp 3-5

5*.Ibid p. 4

25*. Ibid p. 4-5 95

Notes 1. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum.

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

2. Ibid.

3. Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.52 4. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum. http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

5. a letter of December 1907, from Thomas Allchin, Charity Commissioner, to The Right Honourable Lord Balcarres, (SPAB Buildings Archive) 6. Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.52 7. “The destruction of the Shoreditch Almshouses”, The Times, 26.3.1910, p.4 8. Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, pp.147-148 9. Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.32 10. Jason Vir, The Geffrye Museum: constructing the past for the future(2008), Thesis (M.A.)--University of London, p.19 11. Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.126 12. Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art” (1935), Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (London and New York: Routledge, revised edition 1993), p.166 13. Jason Vir, The Geffrye Museum: constructing the past for the future(2008), Thesis (M.A.)--University of London, p.19 14. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum. http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

15. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum.

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

16. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum.

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

17. Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.32 18. Quoted in Neil Burton, The Geffrye Almshouses (London: Inner London Education Authority for the Geffrye Museum, 1979), p.33 19. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum. http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

20. Quote in Neil Burton, The Geffrye Almshouses (London: Inner London Education Authority for the Geffrye Museum, 1979), p.32 21. Ibid. p. 66-7 22. Jason Vir, The Geffrye Museum: constructing the past for the future(2008), Thesis (M.A.)--University of London, p.14 23. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum. http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

24. Ibid.

25. Jason Vir, The Geffrye Museum: constructing the past for the future(2008), Thesis (M.A.)--University of London, p.15 26. David Dewing(2008), A guide to the museum, London: The Geffrye Museum, p.7 27. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum. http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

28. Ibid.

29. David Dewing(2008), A guide to the museum, London: The Geffrye Museum, p.7

96

30. Ibid. p.20 31. Ibid. p.20 32. Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.152 33. Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.166 34.Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.163 35. David Dewing(2008), A guide to the museum, London: The Geffrye Museum, p.7 36. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum.

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

37. David Dewing(2008), A guide to the museum, London: The Geffrye Museum, p.13 38. Jason Vir, The Geffrye Museum: constructing the past for the future(2008), Thesis (M.A.)--University of London, p.16 39. Jason Vir, The Geffrye Museum: constructing the past for the future(2008), Thesis (M.A.)--University of London, p.16 40. David Dewing(2008), A guide to the museum, London: The Geffrye Museum, p.14 41. Graham Spicer quoting Geffrye Museum director David Dewing in ‘Geffrye Museum’s New At Home Galleries open November 14’, http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART41211.html (published 31.10.2006, accessed 26.6.2008)

42. Jason Vir, The Geffrye Museum: constructing the past for the future(2008), Thesis (M.A.)--University of London, p.52 43. Jason Vir, The Geffrye Museum: constructing the past for the future(2008), Thesis (M.A.)--University of London, p.37 44. The advertisement ran twelve time in The Times from August to September 1906: 4.8.1906, p16 ; 7.8.1906, p.12; 16.8.1906, p.12; 18.8.1906, p.14; 21.8.1906, p.12; 23.8.1906, p.12; 25.8.1906, p.12; 30.8.1906, p.12; 1.9.1906, p.13; 11.9.1906, p.12;15.9.1906, p.15; 18.9.1906, p.12.

45. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum. http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

46. Quoting from ‘Geffrye Museum New Branson Coates Extension’, The Geffrye Museum Website, http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/aboutus/press/releases/extension/

47. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum.

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

48. Ibid.

49. Robert Bevan(2014), Exclusive look at plans for the Geffrye Museum’s new extension, EveningStandard, http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/exhibitions/exclusive-look-at-plans-for-the-geffrye-museums-new-extension-9808220.html

50. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum.

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

51. Robert Bevan(2014), Exclusive look at plans for the Geffrye Museum’s new extension, EveningStandard, http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/exhibitions/exclusive-look-at-plans-for-the-geffrye-museums-new-extension-9808220.html

52. Quoting from David Dewing, the director at the time, Ibid.

53. Ibid.

54. Geffrye ‘s Young People, Centenary Celebrations Timeline(2014), The Geffrye Museum.

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/228141/CENTENARY-CELEBRATIONS-TIMELINE/#vars!date=1713-11-22_03:36:55!

55. The Times, 16.12.1912, p.3 The report was completed in December 1911 by the Council’s Architect’s 56. David Dewing(2008), A guide to the museum, London: The Geffrye Museum, p.7 57. Handbook to the Geffrye Museum (London: London County Council and P.S. King& Son, 1931),p.5 58. Jason Vir, The Geffrye Museum: constructing the past for the future(2008), Thesis (M.A.)--University of London, p.18 59.E.M. Rich (Education Officer), “Foreword”, Handbook to the Geffrye Museum london : London County Council, 1939), p.5 60. Molly Harrison(1950), Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.139

97

Credits

1. Archive photograph of the entrance to the Geffrye Museum (Geffrye Museum of the Home) by Geffrye Museum of the Home (flickr) 2. Photograph of Geffrye pensioners in the almshouse grounds, 1901-3 (Geffrye Museum of the Home) by Geffrye Museum of the Home (flickr) 3. Ibid.

4. Bradmore House, Brick Niche. Measured Drawing by London County Council.

5. Children wait for an afternoon holiday session to begin at the Geffrye, April 1961 (Geffrye Museum of the Home) by Geffrye Museum of the Home (flickr) 6. ‘Plate 55: Portrait of Sir Robert Geffrye’, in Survey of London: Volume 8, Shoreditch, ed. James Bird (London, 1922), p. 55.

7. ‘Plate 46: Geffrye Almshouses, views, plans and elevations’, in Survey of London: Volume 8, Shoreditch, ed.

James Bird (London, 1922), p. 46.

8. Children working in the museum during the school holiday, by L G. Taylor, illustration from the Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.88 9. video printscreen from ‘Ways The Geffrye Museum Has Changed’, the Geffrye Museum’s Centenary Celebrations Youth Heritage Project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guuEr7Unw2o 10. Ibid.

11. Display board in the Geffrye Museum’s garden herb garden 12. Plate VII,”this woman” completed by a girl of 12, from The Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.72] 13. Fig.14 Duplicated sheet or charts as one of a series on everyday life in other lands,from The Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.167 14. Porcelain teapot, tea bowls and saucers, Chinese, Kangxi period, illustrations from David Dewing(2008), A guide to the museum, London: The Geffrye Museum, p.20 15. Fig.16. Geographical “Hppy Families“ game, illustration from The Museum Adventure, London: University Of London Press, Ltd, p.167 16. A view through the window into the garden at 14 St. James Bristol, Illustration on the display board of Geffrye Museum, 17. Garden designed by Percy Cane, Paintings in the Geffrye Museum,

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Memory take root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures, images and objects ...