Journal articles on the topic 'Post WWII architecture'

The building of the Urban Planning Institute in Belgrade, designed by architect Branislav Jovin, is one of the most significant achievements of the post-WWII architecture in Belgrade. In the personal oeuvre of the author, the building is his magnum opus and one of the showpieces of Brutalist architecture in Serbia. This paper will examine the architectural and artistic values of the Belgrade Urban Planning Institute building, designed in late 1960s and completed as early as 1970. The significance of the structure was reviewed in the context of its architectural, cultural and historical values, but also by analysing social circumstances and the development of architectural scenery in the post-WWII Yugoslavia and the city of Belgrade. By considering the building in the framework of the post-WWII architecture, we can get the clearer picture of tendencies and aspirations in the architectural treatment of masses and forms, of the material used, but also of European and global influence on the development of Yugoslav architecture of the time.

Ceramic materials may have multifarious applications, the visual arts being one of them. Furthermore, they have been often used in architecture for decorative purposes. In Poland, the application of ceramics in architecture reached its peak of popularity in the post-WWII period. It was used in mosaics, reliefs, architectural and sculptural details, as well as combined with other materials, like glass or stone. Ceramics was applied for creating various small decorative forms but also large compositions that covered even several dozen or several hundred square metres, in buildings that served various functions, and were situated either indoors or on their external facades. Amongst these, there are buildings which were both important for local communities and became landmarks for particular sites, like modern hotels, railway stations, theatres, museums or academies. The paper is focused on compositions executed for such prestigious edifices.

The paper investigated the history of the development of Nowa Huta the key achievement of the post-WWII urban planning and architecture in Kraków and Poland focusing on the rise of the Centre E Estate, the late 1980s part of the ensemble. The history of one housing complex helps to understand the reasons for the rise and development of postmodern aesthetics in the local architecture of Krakow during the last years of the domination of the communist regime.

This article argues that a radical reconceptualization of the notion of neighborhood was introduced by architects in the United States during WWII in response to the new political, cultural, and economic conditions of the war. The efforts of architects and planners like Oskar Stonorov and Louis Kahn contributed to reconfiguring the organizational principle of the “neighborhood unit” model envisioned by Clarence Perry during the 1920s, transferring the discourse from the domain of urban sociology and technical planning to the realm of the American profession. This article revolves around the unexplored and intense period of architectural experimentation during WWII, when the neighborhood emerged as a vibrant platform for the efforts of professional circles to question the values of American democracy and introduce new participative practices in neighborhood and community design, fostering new forms of collaboration between citizens, governmental agencies, and speculative builders under the leadership of architects. Neighborhood design appeared as the testing ground to renegotiate the role and social responsibility of American architects and a foundational value of post-war American society, while its new meanings were to be renegotiated in post-war city planning and built communities.

The focus of this contribution is on the importance of tropical architecture in the work of Leandro V. Locsin, in the context of post-WWII in Asia. Based in the Philippines, Locsin is immersed in the Christian tradition – the main religion of a country that was dominated by the Spanish crown from the mid 16th-century to 1898, and where the Catholic Church remains powerful across much of the archipelago today. Attention is focused on Locsin’s religious buildings and projects, where he succeeded in giving a new treatment to the tropical architecture of faith-based structures, through the integration of climate considerations and the reinterpretation of vernacular architecture of the Philippines.

Parallel to the discourse of Tropical Architecture and the work of UK architects in the British colonial territories in the Middle East, Africa, and India after the WWII, climate adaptation designs or devices such as brise-soleil, perforated cement bricks, sun shading screens, courtyards, etc., started to emerge in modernist buildings in Asia. This article is a preliminary survey of these cases in Hong Kong and Macau since the 1950s. It discusses how tropicality was used in response to the post-war revisionism of Modern Movement that placed emphasis on local identity and culture.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the connection between cultural traditions and house form which, according to scholars, is in danger of being lost, and so contribute to the revival of critical interest in such a connection. This paper does not intend to focus on the exploration of the relation between culture as a way of life and the spatial form of the house. Instead, the main objective of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of vernacular architecture in a precise context: this study will be focusing on the architectural form of vernacular houses built in Brisbane in the post WWII period by first generation Italian migrants, namely upon the way the house’s structure, materials and construction technique, decorative feature on the façade, were influenced by migrants’ cultural traditions.

Mass construction of cooperative homes in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia at the end of the WWII represented a first step in the general socialist transformation of villages. As the engines of social and cultural life in rural regions, these facilities were situated in central locations in settlements. These were the first multi-purpose buildings, and their architecture reflected the values of socialist ideology that was supposed to be adopted in the following period. Later, when these values became obsolete, it was considered that all principles of the socialist model of planned organization of rural settlements should be rejected, thus letting the heritage of this period of time, regardless of its contribution, fall into disrepair. Cooperative homes represented the linchpin of the planned organization of rural settlements, belonging to the practice of fast and reckless urbanization of villages. A large number of these buildings built throughout ex-Yugoslav republics today represent a specific challenge from the aspect of their repurposing. This research paper, hence, aims to review the options for their potential redeployment and inclusion in modern social trends.

The aftermath of WWII not only marked the beginning of a new geopolitical order but also once again brought discourses of architecture and planning back to the frontline of the confrontations between the West and the Soviet blocs. Although the immediate need for post-war reconstruction left almost no time for contextual theoretical development in architectural and planning principles, the “occupied” and “liberated” territories became laboratories in which the new concepts of urban form, domestic architecture, and forms of life were tested. During 1945–1967 Tehran became one these experimental grounds in which these planning principles were tested and implemented; a battleground where the socialist and the capitalist ideologies met. The key to this urban development project was an ideologically charged repercussion of the CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) discourse, specifically on Existenzminimum (1929) and Rationelle Bebauungsweisen (1930). While the CIAM’s agenda had already found its way to Iran through one of its founding members, Gabriel Guevrekian, it became operative through the activities of the Association of Iranian Architects who were in charge of major housing developments in Tehran since 1945. Thus, CIAM guidelines were translated into building codes, regulations, and protocols that had the fundamental role in shaping the Middle East’s first modern metropolis. New housing models were developed and proposed by the Association of Iranian Architects that cut ties with the traditional typologies and proposed a radically new urban form, architecture, and forms of life. This project at large, of course, was not politically neutral. This article reviews the role of two protagonists in introducing and revisiting the CIAM discourse in shaping the post-war neighbourhoods and housing typologies in Tehran.

With a focus on art donations, this article explores several case studies of Jewish Italian patrons such as Sforni, Uzielli, Sarfatti, Castelfranco, Vitali, and others who supported artists of movements that were considered modern at their time: the Macchiaioli (1850-1870), the Futurists (1910s), the Metaphysical painters (1920s), the Novecento group (1920-1930s), and several post WWII cases. It reflects on differences in art donations by Jews in Italy and other European countries, modes of reception, taste, meanings and strategy of donations, thus contributing to the social history of Italian and European Jewry and the history of collections and donations to public museums.

Architect Milosav Mitić figures prominently among numerous authors who contributed to the emancipatory and artistic development of the post-WWII architecture in Serbia. Recognised even in his student years as a talented and artistically inclined author, in the years to come Mitić became a member of the renowned Belgrade 5 group, together with his colleagues Mihailo Čanak, Leonardo Lenarčić, Ivan Petrović, and Ivan Simović, submiting designs to numerous public competitions and designing major housing areas and related facilities in Novi Beograd. Although his prolific professional engagement earned him timely acknowledgement of his contemporaries, a thorough historiographic evaluation that would put the life and work of this author in the limelight for both professional and general public is still missing. That is the very reason behind this comprehensive analysis of the life and work of architect Mitić, aimed at interpreting his Belgrade oeuvre as coherently as possible.

Buildings preservation by the conversion of their function has become a domain of interest in the field of industrial heritage. Due to the need to expand existing housing capacities in urban areas, a large number of industrial buildings are nowadays converted into multi-family and single-family housing. The paper deals with the analysis of the functional and aesthetic internal transformation of industrial into housing spaces. The research goal is to determine the principles of conceptualization of housing functional plan within the framework of the original physical structure of the industrial building, at the architectonic composition level and housing unit (dwelling) level. Besides, the paper aims to check the existence of common patterns of the aesthetic transformation of converted spaces, examined through three epochs of the development of industrial architecture: the second half of the XIX century, the first half of the XX century and the post-WWII period.

It was an event that rarely happens in this part of the world: the construction of a brand-new capital city in a country which was not famous for its achievements in city building. Furthermore, it was in a country ravaged by WWII, rural and mostly agricultural, with modest industrial capacities. Today, 70 years after the beginning of its construction, New Belgrade is still one of the most contentious topics of architecture and urban planning in Serbia. It is the most beloved and the most hated, biggest success story and biggest failure, most beautiful and ugliest architecture of the city — all at the same time. It is not just a question of contested beauty: like many other post-war cities based on the Athens Charter, New Belgrade is a vast infrastructurally equipped urban territory, soaked in conflicted interests and interpretations of its past and its future. As we approach the saturation point of its available construction land — at least per original and many consecutive plans — the question of its future development, its reconstruction and/or restoration is looming out of every document and every conversation about New Belgrade.

The Functional City principles steered the development of Latin American cities post WWII, but their influence in current urbanisation in LA has not been acknowledged or studied, due to the presumption by planners that contemporary planning operates within a very different planning paradigm to the earlier modernist one. In contrast, this paper argues that contemporary urban planning practices in Colombia are still dependent today on functionalist urbanism. Through a case study of three of the 28 approved Planes Parciales (sectorial plans) in Medellin, Colombia, based on primary data sources, I argue how the Functional City principles have been overshadowed by and formulated from a socio-economic perspective which creates discrepancies between local planners and academics regarding their application. This study contributes to a better understanding of current urbanisation patterns in Latin America. Furthermore, this study will invite reflection and public debate over questions such as: urbanization for whom/against whom and who decides?

On the eve of the celebration of the 90th anniversary of 1929’s CIAM, the city of Frankfurt is again the center of international attention thanks to a project related to housing and the city, which represents, however, the opposite of the experience of Das neue Frankfurt. I refer to the Dom-Römer, the heart of the historical city, destroyed by bombing during WWII, replaced in the post-war period by the Technisches Rathaus, and now “rebuilt” in total adherence to the historical parcel plan as a new residential and commercial district. Regarding mass public housing, with minimal individual dwelling cells and standardized construction conceived by Ernst May, an equally public intervention is now opposed, but with a few individual houses and owned apartments for upper-middle-class customers, unique in their exceptionality, constructed with traditional techniques and finished with craftsmanship, case by case. The modernistic idea of low-density monofunctional satellite neighborhoods on the edge of the consolidated city, based on repetition of typed elements and on correct orientation of buildings in order to grant air and light, at the expenses of a clear definition of public space, is replaced today, in the core the city, by the medieval plan, with its irregular parcels and the narrow, winding dark alleys, high density and multifunctional buildings, and a strongly characterized public space. The positions are of course diametrically opposed also with respect to the roof dispute, which animated architects at the beginning of the 20th century: strictly flat roofs in the new Frankfurt of the 1920s and pitched roofs in the gabled houses of the ancient contemporary Frankfurt. From the parallel between these two experiences, so different from one another that they are almost incomparable, important elements emerge to understand the current debate on the architecture of the European city, particularly in Germany.

This article aims to underline the necessity of including historical enquiry in reaching the complex goals of sustainable development of urban riverscapes. Its proposed method is a survey conducted through selection, interpretation and systematization of the relevant historical data that consider the Belgrade cityscape, and specifically, the New Belgrade public spaces at the river confluence. The theoretical framework, which relies on the concepts of ‘landscape urbanism’ and ‘critical practice of landscape architecture’, has affected the selection and interpretation of dense historical layers of modernization, formed in diverse socio-economic and political conditions. We have distinguished five historical strata that contribute significantly to comprehension of the present state. By looking at the traces of the formative period of Belgrade urban landscape, the moments of New Belgrade’s inception, inerasable impacts of war, vigorous post WWII socialist transformation and, finally, the series of Danube riverscape revisions, we intend to depict the complexity of the modern city legacy and thus stress the interconnectedness of past and future endeavours. As a counterpoint to globalizing tendencies in re-designing city riverfronts, this work is conceived as a lateral contribution to a broader investigation that informs, supports and constitutes more ecologically viable practices.

When the construction of Dobrović's Army Headquarters in Belgrade, Serbia was finally finished in 1965, at a location continuously designated for the Army, it was thought that it would serve its purpose in a secured future, the socialist one. And it was thought that it would house the leadership of the Army, which was seen as the rightful heir of the most glorious examples of military tradition from the Second World War. With his building Dobrović filled the void left by the WWII, but he also left a true mystery – how to interpret it. Long after the date of inception, in 1960, he offered two clues, the philosophical one – through the Bergson's dynamic schemes and the void as the central dynamizing element of the composition and the symbolically appropriate one – through the story of the Sutjeska canyon. In this way he allowed everyone to find a reading suitable for them. But when the system changed, followed by a decrease in size of both the State and the Army, the question of the dual reading, which functioned so perfectly, suddenly became the cause of conflicts, conflicts of a more profound nature than ever before. Even in these changed circumstances the building performed its function, until the 1999 NATO aggression, when it was, although empty, bombed several times. The history repeated itself and this location once again experienced bombardment which left disturbing ruins, voids and shattered identities, in need of renegotiation. How to interpret a building from a socialist period in a society which is both post-socialist and post-conflict? How to find peace with the ghosts of the past, present and future, which permeate both the location and the building? How to approach different narratives surrounding the physical structure destroyed by war and considered as heritage even before those events, although officially listed only after the ruination and cessation of use. Those are the main subjects of this article.

Abstract India has a very prominent traditional board game culture, which is evident through numerous game boards and game pieces that are surviving. The spectrum of game board variations documented displays its association with the rich culture of crafts in India. Apart from these sets, there are ample examples of game board graffiti's present in various public spaces, temples being one of the most prominent of them. Many scholars, just to name a few, I. Finkel, R.K Bhattacharya, and L.K. Soni (published in 2011); Vasantha (2003); Fritz and Gibson (2007); Rogersdotter (2015), have documented and/or commented on these appearances of game boards in spaces. Most of these documentations are from the region of Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh. There are game board surveys from the states of Punjab (Gupta, 1926), Gujarat (Soni and Bagchi, 2011), Marwad (Samanta, 2011), Haryana (Sinha and Bishwas, 2011). Nevertheless, for some reason, there is very little work on board games in the state of Maharashtra. Though the literary documentation of sedentary games of Maharashtra is found in a book by ‘Anant Babaji Deodhar’ named ‘Marāṭhī Khēḷān̄cē Pustaka’ published in 1905; which mainly is anthropological documentation. It does not touch upon the references of this game information. Sāripata (chausar), pat Songtyā (asta chima) existed in the Marathi household until the earlier generation (Pre WWII) in form of cloth boards and wooden pieces. However, it does not show its appearance as game board graffiti's in spaces in the post-Yadav period (14th century). Few games like mancala, Indian hunt games do show their presence in graffitis but seldom in literature. Literary pieces of evidence of regional literature remain untraced. No specific research has happened in literature in this era in the context to board games and thus the paper tries to throw light on evidence of board game mentions in medieval Marathi language literature. During the same time, the game board graffiti's shows its existence in Karnataka, Rajasthan until the 17th century. So what happened to the board game culture in Maharashtra? Where did the games go? Did it acquire a different form? The paper tries to inquire about the presence/absence of board games in the 13th - 17th century Marathi literature and architecture.

The neighborhoods of Olivais Norte (1960), Olivais Sul (1963) and Telheiras Sul (1974) are paradigmatic examples of the Portuguese State’s response to the housing shortage that was acknowledged in Lisbon, in the period of the post-WWII. Featuring a varied catalogue of architectural trends, this series of projects demonstrated extensive structural, formal, and spatial experimentation that revealed the concerns and quest by their designers to respond to the need for “housing for the greatest number”. What all three projects shared was that they were large scale, publicly financed, started out with similar programs, and that various architectural teams were involved in each of them. The fact that they succeeded one another chronologically enables a critical reading to be made of the evolving interpretation of the Modern Movement in Lisbon, and the pursuit of modernity as an attitude that valued universality, rationality, and a fair response to new social orders.

As in furniture and product design, the handling of features such as junctions of street facades is a matter worthy of consideration. The article considers the role of the corner and corner buildings in the architectural relations of the street. It examines the role of corners in the urban structure and the reasons why they are no longer much used. A typology of corner building arrangements is proposed. Referring to affordance, legibility and Weber᾽s (1995) psychological approach to perceived architectural space, the paper discusses the value of clearly articulated corner constructions using selected examples. The dominant modes of building in the post-WWII period tend towards two extremes: high rise/high density and low rise/low density, both often characterised by disconnected building masses. Both modes reject the well-developed formats generally used up to the 1920s. These relied on moderate density, moderate height and conjoined buildings to create clearly defined, legible streets characteristic of an integrated urban fabric. This paper argues that certain morphologies make for better corner designs leading to more understandable street layouts. It also argues that quantitative recommendations in planning guidance are insufficient to ensure desirable outcomes in street design.

Charles Fulton (1905-1987) was an Australian architect who applied influences of European Modernism, particularly the civic architecture of Willem Dudok, into the design for several hospital projects in regional towns across Queensland, at the same time adapting a climatic responsive rationale to the projects. As with many remote contexts that have been overlooked by a European and American centric focus upon Modern architecture, the account of Australian Modernism has not been widely acknowledged outside its borders, despite a local momentum to effectively document and publish its achievements. Compounding this predicament, Queensland has suffered from its own exclusion relative to the southern states of New South Wales (Sydney) and Victoria (Melbourne), which have always been the dominant centers of the national profession, its conferences and publications. This paper seeks to address these schisms through the presentation of the work of Fulton, demonstrating how even in remote areas of Queensland, thousands of kilometers from major cities, the reach of Modern architecture found a place. Mobilized by the national federal body, the Office of Health and Home Affairs, drive to improve health services across the country post WWI, Fulton became a leading architect to modernize health facilities and brought about a cultural shift in the reception of Modern architecture across the regions.

The mixture of neo-Renaissance and neo-Classical forms of the National Assembly in Belgrade was to become a visual paradigm of the democratic course and national sovereignty of the Kingdom of Serbia, affirming the status of this newly born nation-state in nineteenth-century Europe. Yet, the interpretation of political messages associated with the building's nineteenth-century architectural features is still in progress. The aim of this paper is to explore how the image of the National Assembly developed into the visual repository of different ideological connotations depending on the character of public events being organized, in the building or in the space in front of it either to support state ideologies or to fight against them. In addition to ideological settings of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this research will focus on political meetings and public gatherings of the post-WWII state constructs, from the socialist federation of Marshal Tito to the more recent emanations of Serbian statehood. Along with analyzing the architectural forms of the building serving in different political contexts, this discussion will illuminate the appropriation of space in front of the building by examining the overall staging of public events which have become embedded in the contrasting layers of a collective memory associated with the same image: the National Assembly as the backdrop.

Gillo Dorfles is one of the main reference authors on modern international architecture studies, particularly in the post WWII period. In his article “Attualità del barocco” published in 1946, the Italian critic pointed out new categories of modern design, well beyond aesthetics based on a prerogative of functional exclusivity in architecture. In his essay “Barocco nell’architetturamoderna” (1951), Dorfles pointed to the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and Alvar Aalto as virtuous expressions of the balance between form and function. Dorfles’ perception of Brazilian architecture derives from his interest in the architectural design of the Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro, of the Brazilian Pavilion at the World Fair in New York, of Pampulha in Minas Gerais and other works by Niemeyer in Brazil, disseminated in Europe in the catalog of the MoMA exhibition titled “Brazil Builds”. Dorfles viewpoint was integrated by the trend of that time, that emphasized a type of architecture well detached from Bauhaus’ functionalist model. Dorfles found newconcepts to interpret this new wave in architecture that developed in the first phase of the Cold War in Europe, and his position on Brazilian art was very attentive to changes in modern architecture.

In 1926, women’s rights activist Marie-Elisabeth Lüders (1878-1966) gave a speech at the annual meeting of the German Institute for Norms (DIN) right after a talk by architect Walter Gropius' (1883-1969) on "norming and housing shortage." Claiming the improvement of household regimes as essential to conquer the pressing post-WWI housing shortage and impending economic catastrophe, Lüders saw the mission at hand to be one of an "urgent collaboration" between "producers, traders, housewives and architects, one just like the DIN strives toward." Her task list named the standardization of pots and pans alongside that of architectural elements such as doors, windows and stairs, rendering the improvement of the household (hence, of female labor) a decidedly architectural challenge—even necessity. As member of the "Reichsforschungsgesellschaft" (a research comittee for cost-efficient building) alongside Gropius, Lüders steered what became known as the modernist "Siedlung" into existence: not as architect, but as managerial expert. This article aims to extend the techno-scientific (and male) histories of both standardization and the New Architecture with a reframing of what constituted "architectural elements" from the viewpoint of the very "housewives" who shaped modern architecture from the pot-lid outward.

Introduction: Brutal?The word “brutal” has associations with cruelty, inhumanity, and aggression. Within the field of architecture, however, the term “Brutalism” refers to a post-World War II Modernist style, deriving from the French phrase betón brut, which means raw concrete (Clement 18). Core traits of Brutalism include functionalist design, daring geometry, overbearing scale, and the blatant exposure of structural materials, chiefly concrete and steel (Meades 1).The emergence of Brutalism coincided with chronic housing shortages in European countries ravaged by World War II (Power 5) and government-sponsored slum clearance in the UK (Power 190; Baker). Brutalism’s promise to accommodate an astonishing number of civilians within a minimal area through high-rise configurations and elevated walkways was alluring to architects and city planners (High Rise Dreams). Concrete was the material of choice due to its affordability, durability, and versatility; it also allowed buildings to be erected quickly (Allen and Iano 622).The Brutalist style was used for cultural centres, such as the Perth Concert Hall in Western Australia, educational institutions such as the Yale School of Architecture, and government buildings such as the Secretariat Building in Chandigarh, India. However, as pioneering Brutalist architect Alison Smithson explained, the style achieved full expression by “thinking on a much bigger scale somehow than if you only got [sic] one house to do” (Smithson and Smithson, Conversation 40). Brutalism, therefore, lent itself to the design of large residential complexes. It was consequently used worldwide for public housing developments, that is, residences built by a government authority with the aim of providing affordable housing. Notable examples include the Western City Gate in Belgrade, Serbia, and Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada.Brutalist architecture polarised opinion and continues to do so to this day. On the one hand, protected cultural heritage status has been awarded to some Brutalist buildings (Carter; Glancey) and the style remains extremely influential, for example in the recent award-winning work of architect Zaha Hadid (Niesewand). On the other hand, the public housing projects associated with Brutalism are widely perceived as failures (The Great British Housing Disaster). Many Brutalist objects currently at risk of demolition are social housing estates, such as the Smithsons’ Robin Hood Gardens in London, UK. Whether the blame for the demise of such housing developments lies with architects, inhabitants, or local government has been widely debated. In the UK and USA, local authorities had relocated families of predominantly lower socio-economic status into the newly completed developments, but were unable or unwilling to finance subsequent maintenance and security costs (Hanley 115; R. Carroll; The Pruitt-Igoe Myth). Consequently, the residents became fearful of criminal activity in staircases and corridors that lacked “defensible space” (Newman 9), which undermined a vision of “streets in the sky” (Moran 615).In spite of its later problems, Brutalism’s architects had intended to develop a style that expressed 1950s contemporary living in an authentic manner. To them, this meant exposing building materials in their “raw” state and creating an aesthetic for an age of science, machine mass production, and consumerism (Stadler 264; 267; Smithson and Smithson, But Today 44). Corporeal sensations did not feature in this “machine” aesthetic (Dalrymple). Exceptionally, acclaimed Brutalist architect Ernö Goldfinger discussed how “visual sensation,” “sound and touch with smell,” and “the physical touch of the walls of a narrow passage” contributed to “sensations of space” within architecture (Goldfinger 48). However, the effects of residing within Brutalist objects may not have quite conformed to predictions, since Goldfinger moved out of his Brutalist construction, Balfron Tower, after two months, to live in a terraced house (Hanley 112).An abstract perspective that favours theorisation over subjective experiences characterises discourse on Brutalist social housing developments to this day (Singh). There are limited data on the everyday lived experience of residents of Brutalist social housing estates, both then and now (for exceptions, see Hanley; The Pruitt-Igoe Myth; Cooper et al.).Yet, our bodily interaction with the objects around us shapes our lived experience. On a broader physical scale, this includes the structures within which we live and work. The importance of the interaction between architecture and embodied being is increasingly recognised. Today, architecture is described in corporeal terms—for example, as a “skin” that surrounds and protects its human inhabitants (Manan and Smith 37; Armstrong 77). Biological processes are also inspiring new architectural approaches, such as synthetic building materials with life-like biochemical properties (Armstrong 79), and structures that exhibit emergent behaviour in response to human presence, like a living system (Biloria 76).In this article, we employ an autoethnographic perspective to explore the corporeal effects of Brutalist buildings, thereby revealing a new dimension to the anthropological significance of these controversial structures. We trace how they shape the physicality of the bodies interacting within them. Our approach is one step towards considering the historically under-appreciated subjective, corporeal experience elicited in interaction with Brutalist objects.Method: An Autoethnographic ApproachAutoethnography is a form of self-narrative research that connects the researcher’s personal experience to wider cultural understandings (Ellis 31; Johnson). It can be analytical (Anderson 374) or emotionally evocative (Denzin 426).We investigated two Brutalist residential estates in London, UK:(i) The Barbican Estate: This was devised to redevelop London’s severely bombed post-WWII Cripplegate area, combining private residences for middle class professionals with an assortment of amenities including a concert hall, library, conservatory, and school. It was designed by architects Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon. Opened in 1982, the Estate polarised opinion on its aesthetic qualities but has enjoyed success with residents and visitors. The development now comprises extremely expensive housing (Brophy). It was Grade II-listed in 2001 (Glancey), indicating a status of architectural preservation that restricts alterations to significant buildings.(ii) Trellick Tower: This was built to replace dilapidated 19th-century housing in the North Kensington area. It was designed by Hungarian-born architect Ernő Goldfinger to be a social housing development and was completed in 1972. During the 1980s and 1990s, it became known as the “Tower of Terror” due to its high level of crime (Hanley 113). Nevertheless, Trellick Tower was granted Grade II listed status in 1998 (Carter), and subsequent improvements have increased its desirability as a residence (R. Carroll).We explored the grounds, communal spaces, and one dwelling within each structure, independently recording our corporeal impressions and sensations in detailed notes, which formed the basis of longhand journals written afterwards. Our analysis was developed through co-constructed autoethnographic reflection (emerald and Carpenter 748).For reasons of space, one full journal entry is presented for each Brutalist structure, with an excerpt from each remaining journal presented in the subsequent analysis. To identify quotations from our journals, we use the codes R- and N- to refer to RB’s and NC’s journals, respectively; we use -B and -T to refer to the Barbican Estate and Trellick Tower, respectively.The Barbican Estate: Autoethnographic JournalAn intricate concrete world emerges almost without warning from the throng of glass office blocks and commercial buildings that make up the City of London's Square Mile. The Barbican Estate comprises a multitude of low-rise buildings, a glass conservatory, and three enormous high-rise towers. Each modular building component is finished in the same coarse concrete with burnished brick underfoot, whilst the entire structure is elevated above ground level by enormous concrete stilts. Plants hang from residential balconies over glimmering pools in a manner evocative of concrete Hanging Gardens of Babylon.Figure 1. Barbican Estate Figure 2. Cromwell Tower from below, Barbican Estate. Figure 3: The stairwell, Cromwell Tower, Barbican Estate. Figure 4. Lift button pods, Cromwell Tower, Barbican Estate.R’s journalMy first footsteps upon the Barbican Estate are elevated two storeys above the street below, and already an eerie calm settles on me. The noise of traffic and the bustle of pedestrians have seemingly been left far behind, and a path of polished brown brick has replaced the paving slabs of the city's pavement. I am made more aware of the sound of my shoes upon the ground as I take each step through the serenity.Running my hands along the walkway's concrete sides as we proceed further into the estate I feel its coarseness, and look up to imagine the same sensation touching the uppermost balcony of the towers. As we travel, the cold nature and relentless employ of concrete takes over and quickly becomes the norm.Our route takes us through the Barbican's central Arts building and into the Conservatory, a space full of plant-life and water features. The noise of rushing water comes as a shock, and I'm reminded just how hauntingly peaceful the atmosphere of the outside estate has been. As we leave the conservatory, the hush returns and we follow another walkway, this time allowing a balcony-like view over the edge of the estate. I'm quickly absorbed by a sensation I can liken only to peering down at the ground from a concrete cloud as we observe the pedestrians and traffic below.Turning back, we follow the walkways and begin our approach to Cromwell Tower, a jagged structure scraping the sky ahead of us and growing menacingly larger with every step. The estate has up till now seemed devoid of wind, but even so a cold begins to prickle my neck and I increase my speed toward the door.A high-ceilinged foyer greets us as we enter and continue to the lifts. As we push the button and wait, I am suddenly aware that carpet has replaced bricks beneath my feet. A homely sensation spreads, my breathing slows, and for a brief moment I begin to relax.We travel at heart-racing speed upwards to the 32nd floor to observe the view from the Tower's fire escape stairwell. A brief glance over the stair's railing as we enter reveals over 30 storeys of stair casing in a hard-edged, triangular configuration. My mind reels, I take a second glance and fail once again to achieve focus on the speck of ground at the bottom far below. After appreciating the eastward view from the adjacent window that encompasses almost the entirety of Central London, we make our way to a 23rd floor apartment.Entering the dwelling, we explore from room to room before reaching the balcony of the apartment's main living space. Looking sheepishly from the ledge, nothing short of a genuine concrete fortress stretches out beneath us in all directions. The spirit and commotion of London as I know it seems yet more distant as we gaze at the now miniaturized buildings. An impression of self-satisfied confidence dawns on me. The fortress where we stand offers security, elevation, sanctuary and I'm furnished with the power to view London's chaos at such a distance that it's almost silent.As we leave the apartment, I am shadowed by the same inherent air of tranquillity, pressing yet another futuristic lift access button, plummeting silently back towards the ground, and padding across the foyer's soft carpet to pursue our exit route through the estate's sky-suspended walkways, back to the bustle of regular London civilization.Trellick Tower: Autoethnographic JournalThe concrete majesty of Trellick Tower is visible from Westbourne Park, the nearest Tube station. The Tower dominates the skyline, soaring above its neighbouring estate, cafes, and shops. As one nears the Tower, the south face becomes visible, revealing the suspended corridors that join the service tower to the main body of flats. Light of all shades and colours pours from its tightly stacked dwellings, which stretch up into the sky. Figure 5. Trellick Tower, South face. Figure 6. Balcony in a 27th-floor flat, Trellick Tower.N’s journalOutside the tower, I sense danger and experience a heightened sense of awareness. A thorny frame of metal poles holds up the tower’s facade, each pole poised as if to slip down and impale me as I enter the building.At first, the tower is too big for comprehension; the scale is unnatural, gigantic. I feel small and quite squashable in comparison. Swathes of unmarked concrete surround the tower, walls that are just too high to see over. Who or what are they hiding? I feel uncertain about what is around me.It takes some time to reach the 27th floor, even though the lift only stops on every 3rd floor. I feel the forces of acceleration exert their pressure on me as we rise. The lift is very quiet.Looking through the windows on the 27th-floor walkway that connects the lift tower to the main building, I realise how high up I am. I can see fog. The city moves and modulates beneath me. It is so far away, and I can’t reach it. I’m suspended, isolated, cut off in the air, as if floating in space.The buildings underneath appear tiny in comparison to me, but I know I’m tiny compared to this building. It’s a dichotomy, an internal tension, and feels quite unreal.The sound of the wind in the corridors is a constant whine.In the flat, the large kitchen window above the sink opens directly onto the narrow, low-ceilinged corridor, on the other side of which, through a second window, I again see London far beneath. People pass by here to reach their front doors, moving so close to the kitchen window that you could touch them while you’re washing up, if it weren’t for the glass. Eye contact is possible with a neighbour, or a stranger. I am close to that which I’m normally separated from, but at the same time I’m far from what I could normally access.On the balcony, I have a strong sensation of vertigo. We are so high up that we cannot be seen by the city and we cannot see others. I feel physically cut off from the world and realise that I’m dependent on the lift or endlessly spiralling stairs to reach it again.Materials: sharp edges, rough concrete, is abrasive to my skin, not warm or welcoming. Sharp little stones are embedded in some places. I mind not to brush close against them.Behind the tower is a mysterious dark maze of sharp turns that I can’t see around, and dark, narrow walkways that confine me to straight movements on sloping ramps.“Relentless Employ of Concrete:” Body versus Stone and HeightThe “relentless employ of concrete” (R-B) in the Barbican Estate and Trellick Tower determined our physical interactions with these Brutalist objects. Our attention was first directed towards texture: rough, abrasive, sharp, frictive. Raw concrete’s potential to damage skin, should one fall or brush too hard against it, made our bodies vulnerable. Simultaneously, the ubiquitous grey colour and the constant cold anaesthetised our senses.As we continued to explore, the constant presence of concrete, metal gratings, wire, and reinforced glass affected our real and imagined corporeal potentialities. Bodies are powerless against these materials, such that, in these buildings, you can only go where you are allowed to go by design, and there are no other options.Conversely, the strength of concrete also has a corporeal manifestation through a sense of increased physical security. To R, standing within the “concrete fortress” of the Barbican Estate, the object offered “security, elevation, sanctuary,” and even “power” (R-B).The heights of the Barbican’s towers (123 metres) and Trellick Tower (93 metres) were physically overwhelming when first encountered. We both felt that these menacing, jagged towers dominated our bodies.Excerpt from R’s journal (Trellick Tower)Gaining access to the apartment, we begin to explore from room to room. As we proceed through to the main living area we spot the balcony and I am suddenly aware that, in a short space of time, I had abandoned the knowledge that some 26 floors lay below me. My balance is again shaken and I dig my heels into the laminate flooring, as if to achieve some imaginary extra purchase.What are the consequences of extreme height on the body? Certainly, there is the possibility of a lethal fall and those with vertigo or who fear heights would feel uncomfortable. We discovered that height also affects physical instantiation in many other ways, both empowering and destabilising.Distance from ground-level bustle contributed to a profound silence and sense of calm. Areas of intermediate height, such as elevated communal walkways, enhanced our sensory abilities by granting the advantage of observation from above.Extreme heights, however, limited our ability to sense the outside world, placing objects beyond our range of visual focus, and setting up a “bizarre segregation” (R-T) between our physical presence and that of the rest of the world. Height also limited potentialities of movement: no longer self-sufficient, we depended on a working lift to regain access to the ground and the rest of the city. In the lift itself, our bodies passively endured a cycle of opposing forces as we plummeted up or down numerous storeys in mere seconds.At both locations, N noticed how extreme height altered her relative body size: for example, “London looks really small. I have become huge compared to the tiny city” (N-B). As such, the building’s lift could be likened to a cake or potion from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. This illustrates how the heuristics that we use to discern visual perspective and object size, which are determined by the environment in which we live (Segall et al.), can be undermined by the unusual scales and distances found in Brutalist structures.Excerpt from N’s journal (Barbican Estate)Warning: These buildings give you AFTER-EFFECTS. On the way home, the size of other buildings seems tiny, perspectives feel strange; all the scales seem to have been re-scaled. I had to become re-used to the sensation of travelling on public trains, after travelling in the tower lifts.We both experienced perceptual after-effects from the disproportional perspectives of Brutalist spaces. Brutalist structures thus have the power to affect physical sensations even when the body is no longer in direct interaction with them!“Challenge to Privacy:” Intersubjective Ideals in Brutalist DesignAs embodied beings, our corporeal manifestations are the primary transducers of our interactions with other people, who in turn contribute to our own body schema construction (Joas). Architects of Brutalist habitats aimed to create residential utopias, but we found that the impact of their designs on intersubjective corporeality were often incoherent and contradictory. Brutalist structures positioned us at two extremes in relation to the bodies of others, forcing either an uncomfortable intersection of personal space or, conversely, excessive separation.The confined spaces of the lifts, and ubiquitous narrow, low-ceilinged corridors produced uncomfortable overlaps in the personal space of the individuals present. We were fascinated by the design of the flat in Trellick Tower, where the large kitchen window opened out directly onto the narrow 27th-floor corridor, as described in N’s journal. This enforced a physical “challenge to privacy” (R-T), although the original aim may have been to promote a sense of community in the “streets in the sky” (Moran 615). The inter-slotting of hundreds of flats in Trellick Tower led to “a multitude of different cooking aromas from neighbouring flats” (R-T) and hence a direct sensing of the closeness of other people’s corporeal activities, such as eating.By contrast, enormous heights and scales constantly placed other people out of sight, out of hearing, and out of reach. Sharp-angled walkways and blind alleys rendered other bodies invisible even when they were near. In the Barbican Estate, huge concrete columns, behind which one could hide, instilled a sense of unease.We also considered the intersubjective interaction between the Brutalist architect-designer and the inhabitant. The elements of futuristic design—such as the “spaceship”-like pods for lift buttons in Cromwell Tower (N-B)—reconstruct the inhabitant’s physicality as alien relative to the Brutalist building, and by extension, to the city that commissioned it.ReflectionsThe strength of the autoethnographic approach is also its limitation (Chang 54); it is an individual’s subjective perspective, and as such we cannot experience or represent the full range of corporeal effects of Brutalist designs. Corporeal experience is informed by myriad factors, including age, body size, and ability or disability. Since we only visited these structures, rather than lived in them, we could have experienced heightened sensations that would become normalised through familiarity over time. Class dynamics, including previous residences and, importantly, the amount of choice that one has over where one lives, would also affect this experience. For a full perspective, further data on the everyday lived experiences of residents from a range of different backgrounds are necessary.R’s reflectionDespite researching Brutalist architecture for years, I was unprepared for the true corporeal experience of exploring these buildings. Reading back through my journals, I'm struck by an evident conflict between stylistic admiration and physical uneasiness. I feel I have gained a sympathetic perspective on the notion of residing in the structures day-to-day.Nevertheless, analysing Brutalist objects through a corporeal perspective helped to further our understanding of the experience of living within them in a way that abstract thought could never have done. Our reflections also emphasise the tension between the physical and the psychological, whereby corporeal struggle intertwines with an abstract, aesthetic admiration of the Brutalist objects.N’s reflectionIt was a wonderful experience to explore these extraordinary buildings with an inward focus on my own physical sensations and an outward focus on my body’s interaction with others. On re-reading my journals, I was surprised by the negativity that pervaded my descriptions. How does physical discomfort and alienation translate into cognitive pleasure, or delight?ConclusionBrutalist objects shape corporeality in fundamental and sometimes contradictory ways. The range of visual and somatosensory experiences is narrowed by the ubiquitous use of raw concrete and metal. Materials that damage skin combine with lethal heights to emphasise corporeal vulnerability. The body’s movements and sensations of the external world are alternately limited or extended by extreme heights and scales, which also dominate the human frame and undermine normal heuristics of perception. Simultaneously, the structures endow a sense of physical stability, security, and even power. By positioning multiple corporealities in extremes of overlap or segregation, Brutalist objects constitute a unique challenge to both physical privacy and intersubjective potentiality.Recognising these effects on embodied being enhances our current understanding of the impact of Brutalist residences on corporeal sensation. This can inform the future design of residential estates. Our autoethnographic findings are also in line with the suggestion that Brutalist structures can be “appreciated as challenging, enlivening environments” exactly because they demand “physical and perceptual exertion” (Sroat). Instead of being demolished, Brutalist objects that are no longer considered appropriate as residences could be repurposed for creative, cultural, or academic use, where their challenging corporeal effects could contribute to a stimulating or even thrilling environment.ReferencesAllen, Edward, and Joseph Iano. Fundamentals of Building Construction: Materials and Methods. 6th ed. 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The hotel architecture around the Kvarner bay represents a specific Austro-Hungarian response to the Riviera phenomenon, made possible by the railway connections to the continental capitals of the Empire with the port of Rijeka. Through a detailed comparison between different investments and realisations, the article explores the ways of dealing with the hotellerie in the coastal area administratively divided between Austria, Hungary and Croatia in the last decades of the 19th century and the years leading to WWI.

Introduction Over the past two decades the Cairns landscape has transformed from a remote tourist town beside the Great Barrier Reef to an international, tropical city with a new focus on culture and the arts. A number of important urban design projects have enabled this transformation, including key waterfront redevelopments, the addition of a large shopping mall and convention centre, a renovated museum, and now a new performing arts precinct and proposed ‘gallery precinct’ for the people of Cairns to access new art forms and events. Anderson and Law (556) depict recent developments as a kind of “mayor’s trophy collection” or set of “must have” attractions Cairns needs to stay ‘competitive’. More generally they might be interpreted as ‘entrepreneurial urbanism’ (Harvey) and the attractors for Richard Florida’s creative class, although there is now more scepticism about how these projects fuel property speculation and benefit the middle classes rather than the ‘bohemians’ Florida saw as key to urban growth and transformation (Wainwright). The renovation of Munro Martin Park discussed here is a culture infrastructure project helping transform Cairns into the ‘arts and culture capital of the north’. Here we interrogate the winners and losers of the renovation, with a specific focus on how its heritage values are preserved. The identity of Cairns as an arts and culture hub is not new or unfounded, but the debate changed in emphasis with a proposed Cairns Entertainment Precinct (CEP) in 2011/2012. The then Mayor Val Schier had secured federal and state funding for the development of a $155 million arts precinct on the waterfront near the Cairns Port, as the city had outgrown its existing facilities at the nearby Cairns Civic Theatre and the venue was unable to host large performances. The CEP was to be a key cultural infrastructure project marking a new era of arts and culture activities in Cairns. The subsequent election became a referendum on the precinct, with its location and need being questioned. Bob Manning became the new Mayor with a mandate to scrap the CEP and instead renovate the existing Civic Theatre as part of a scaled-down vision. In 2016, the Cairns Civic Theatre was demolished to make way for a new Cairns Performing Arts Centre. The original Civic Theatre was constructed in the 1970s and was one of a small handful of buildings in Cairns designed in late Brutalist architectural style: its exterior walls were made of fluted grey concrete blocks. Popular from the 1950s to the 1970s, brutalist architecture celebrated Modernism translated into raw, exposed concrete. Despite a renewed popular interest in Brutalist buildings in many western cities, many “are being demolished and new, … homogenous (often glass and composite-clad) towers [are being] erected in their place” (Mould 701). The Cairns Civic Theatre was no exception. Munro Martin Park, directly across from the Cairns Civic Theatre, was folded into the plans for the area and the two were imagined together to form a new Cairns Performing Arts Precinct (CPAC). Munro Martin Park History Munro Martin Park (originally Norman Park) was gazetted as a recreational reserve for Cairns in 1882. The park was set aside soon after European settlement and became a space for outdoor recreation. Community attachment to the park grew over time as the park became known as a meeting place for sporting events, community celebrations, parades, and political rallies. Circuses began annual visits to the park from 1891 as it was the closest large area of open ground to the inner city. These physical features also facilitated other community events, such as public holiday celebrations including May Day and ANZAC Day. Attempts to beautify the park and create shade were made in the early 1880s and again in 1892. Trees were planted with the aim of establishing a botanical reserve, although many did not survive. Those that did – mangoes, figs, and other tropical species – created shade, provided fruit for eating fresh or making chutneys and sauces, and became roosts for local flying foxes and bats. A major change of use occurred when the park was taken over by the military during WWII, and it became a space for accommodation huts and military training. An Air Raids Precautions control centre was erected (today one of the few remaining examples, and heritage listed), and a radio tower. After the war the local authority had no control over the park until it was returned from the military. The park’s war infrastructure was mostly removed, and after the war the parkland was in decline and underutilised (Grimwade 21). Most sporting clubs had moved to new grounds and community gatherings were no longer associated with sporting events (Cairns Regional Council 804). In 1954 the Cairns community saw substantial redevelopment of the park with a bequest from well-regarded local philanthropists: the Munro Martin sisters. The Cairns City Council redeveloped and beautified the park and on completion it was renamed Munro Martin Park in recognition of the sisters. It quickly renewed its status as a place for community gatherings and organised events, and as a rallying point for parades and political protests. Although the park continued to be used, it was no longer the focus of sports, with the development of purpose-built sporting fields on the southside of town. Much of the passive activity in the park began moving to the Cairns Esplanade in the early 1960s, with multi-purpose recreation areas and a large open saltwater swimming baths. This trend continued as the land along the Esplanade was reclaimed from mudflats and turned into areas for recreation and swimming (McKenzie et al. 113). By 2014 no major work had been undertaken in the park for some time, and it again became underutilised. A report by Grimwade evaluating the park’s condition found much of the infrastructure in disrepair. While it was still used by circuses, festivals, May Day celebrations and political rallies, the group most often found there were homeless Indigenous people. Plans to redevelop the park once again occurred in 2015, and these were folded into the CPAC vision. Fig. 1: Aerial image of Munro Martin Park, 1970. (Source: Cairns Historical Society image P291110.) Fig. 2: Aerial image of Munro Martin Park, 2018. (Source: Creative Life – Cairns Regional Council.) Winners and Losers After its renovation and re-opening in 2016, Munro Martin Park became a new public space with an art focus for the Cairns community. It is beautifully landscaped and entices new audiences to enjoy the arts, including families who find it a safe and secure environment for leisure. The barriers often associated with entering arts and culture venues are displaced by egalitarian outdoor seating on blankets, and programming and casting are demographically inclusive, which in turn entices a diverse audience. In this way the park is important to community life, offers health benefits and social interactions, and is a place that welcomes regardless of social standing (Slater and Koo 99). At the same time, the new space reflects neoliberal sensibilities in regard to safety and anti-social behaviour, as the park reflects a wider city branding exercise for Cairns (Mercer and Mayfield 508). The need for controlled ticketing, for example, means the park is now fenced with restricted access. Prior to its renovation the park was a safe haven and meeting and waiting place for those travelling from Indigenous communities in Cape York and the Torres Strait Islands to Cairns. It was frequented by Rosie’s, a local charity providing meals for the homeless, and many used it as a place to sleep (Dalton, Cairns Post). These communities are now locked out during performances and every night at sunset (CCTV ensures they do not remain). This is unfortunate as the park is underutilised on a day-to-day basis as performances are sporadic; this is partly because it is costly to rent and access for community events. In this way the public space of the park has become commodified as part of a new political economy of the city and displaced its use as a refuge for the alienated or excluded. In other words, the park’s renovation raises familiar questions about the ‘right to the city’ (Marcuse). The park had been a place where people could just ‘be’ or dwell, but this was inevitably associated with homelessness (Mitchell 123). It is not uncommon for different groups of people to claim the same site at different times of the day. The important thing is that the users feel a strong enough connection and that it reflects their cultural or social needs so that they are likely to use the place (Barnes et al.). In addition to the displacement of a homeless community, the park also lost significant heritage trees that had survived from the late 1800s. Local environmental activists protested by sitting in – and refusing to come down from – some of the trees as the renovation commenced (Power, Cairns Post). The trees expressed heritage value but were also home to endangered bat colonies (Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management). Although Munro Martin Park trees are not the only flying fox habitats, their loss has contributed to their demise. On the other hand, and through the park’s addition of new trees, tropical plants and elaborate vined arbours, the park is an award-winning showcase of tropical urban greenery evoking civic pride. This revitalisation and beautification creates opportunities for new community attachments to place through new sensory perceptions (Hashemnezhad et al. 7). Community attachment to Munro Martin Park and its related social value has thus changed over time. The park’s social value, as understood by the Burra Charter, is the social quality which makes it a focus for spiritual, political, national, or other cultural sentiment. Jones (21) defines social value as encompassing “the significance of the historic environment to contemporary communities, including people's sense of identity, belonging and place, as well as forms of memory and spiritual association” (see also Johnston, 1). Fond memories of sporting days, school excursions, and the circus are held by the older community, but after 1970 these positive associations diminish as the park became known for anti-social behaviour and was avoided. The heritage value and community associations are now remembered with interpretive panels that recall political rallies, circuses and celebrations, and the military takeover – making this history more accessible to younger audiences. While the park is no longer a rally point for the start of the annual May Day march, and the circus has shifted outside the city centre, portrait panels remember the stories of people who had a connection with the park. An obelisk created in the memory of the Munro and Martin sisters has been restored, which is also a reminder of Eddie Oribin’s and Sid Barnes’s joint work as influential Cairns-based architects (who built the former neighbouring brutalist Cairns Civic Theatre). The World War Two Air Raids Precautions control room, which coordinated all the air raid wardens in the city, remains and is listed on the Queensland Heritage Register. It was reused as a Scouts shop and has a large fibreglass scout hat put on top. The redevelopment thereby acknowledges the past and makes it more accessible than it was from the 1970s to the 2000s. Old places need new uses and new uses need old places, as urban activist Jane Jacobs famously said (Chang 524). These new uses become a part of a new city narrative and imaginary, creating new community attachments as a part of an evolving story. As it the case with other parts of the city’s history, however, some histories of Cairns are silenced in urban renewal (Law), reflecting the multiple and sometimes conflicting social values at play. Fig. 3: Munro Martin Park as a WWII Command Centre, n.d. (Source: Cairns Historical Society, image P08730.) Fig. 4: WWII Command Centre as Scout Hut with hat, 2016. (Source: Cairns Historical Society, image P20692.) Conclusion The revitalisation of places through arts-led gentrification is well documented and understood. This article builds on critiques of gentrification, asking slightly different questions about memory, history, and the contested meanings of heritage in urban renewal. The social value of Munro Martin Park is situated in time and space and by different users, and community attachment has evolved over time. For older generations the park evokes memories of sports, circuses, political rallies, and the closeness of the war. These histories have been remembered and curated through new park signage reflecting a conservative middle-class past: No Sports on Sundays; Circuses and Celebrations; Rallying at the Park; Military Takeover. For younger generations, for whom the park was a place to be avoided – a dangerous place on the edge of the city centre inhabited by the homeless – the park is now a new cultural space promoting accessibility to the arts. The mangoes that were once shelter for the flying fox population have given way to a new venue, tropical vines and foliage, and new signage and programming will produce new social value over time. Whether its redevelopment will “herald a renaissance in Cairns cultural life” by delivering “fresh performing arts and botanic experiences” (Cultural Services 8) remains to be seen in the shadow of COVID-19. What we do know is that the history and social significance of the park as a space for the homeless or a stopover and waiting place for Indigenous people from the Cape and the Torres Strait Islands has been erased, and that the now dispersed homeless population is difficult to reach except for food trucks and shelters. Their use of the park, whether as shelter or meeting place, is now highly constrained to a small, unfenced corner of the park at the corner of Sheridan and Minnie Street (which is rarely used). Although the redevelopment of Munro Martin Park is part of a vision for Cairns as a hub for arts and culture activities, it is important to ask at what cost. The controlled and surveilled nature of the park no longer permits the use of the space for rough sleeping or informal community events, although its redevelopment has increased visitation and created a safe and inclusive public space for middle class residents to enjoy the arts and contemplate the city’s history. With Marcuse and Mitchell we think it is important to ask larger questions about whose right to the city, and to see the remaking of urban sites as ongoing struggles over public space. 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