A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
This paper discusses an unrealized urban plan from the 1960s that proposed to build a network of tunnel motorways and monorails underneath central London. By reframing this plan as a work of fiction, I want to underscore how literary geography perpetuates a limited tradition that merely focuses on fiction produced in or about the city, and not literature produced by or for the city. In the process of re-reading and, to an extent, reclaiming these plans from the National Archives, I argue that these abandoned visions provide an interesting text for literary geographers to access a genre of literature that bisects the built environment and fiction. The scope for this tactic is potentially vast, but a renewed look at unbuilt, unrealized or abandoned architectural texts and similar unconventional forms, would allow for literary scholars to perform a greater, more active role than before: from connecting their analysis directly to the built environment and the contemporary moment in urban space, to discovering new unbuilt works that disrupt established cultural narratives.
This paper discusses an unrealized urban plan from the 1960s that proposed to build a network of tunnel motorways and monorails underneath central London. By reframing this plan as a work of fiction, I want to underscore how literary geography perpetuates a limited tradition that merely focuses on fiction produced in or about the city, and not literature produced by or for the city. In the process of re-reading and, to an extent, reclaiming these plans from the National Archives, I argue that these abandoned visions provide an interesting text for literary geographers to access a genre of literature that bisects the built environment and fiction. The scope for this tactic is potentially vast, but a renewed look at unbuilt, unrealized or abandoned architectural texts and similar unconventional forms, would allow for literary scholars to perform a greater, more active role than before: from connecting their analysis directly to the built environment and the contemporary moment in urban space, to discovering new unbuilt works that disrupt established cultural narratives.
Fictions from the underground
Harle, Matthew (author)
City ; 19
2015
Article (Journal)
English
| Taylor & Francis Verlag | 2015
| Online Contents | 2009
| British Library Online Contents | 2008
| Wiley | 2022
Online Contents | 2010