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Architecture MSci’s third year is based on individual design research investigations around a specific annual theme. This year’s topic was chosen because London’s status and condition as a globalised city, while not new, is becoming ever more critical in its relationships to the rest of Britain and to the world. How does this affect cultural groups within London and what new or emerging architectural and urban potentials are being created by this globalising process?
There are of course many theories about globalisation, the most plausible being that it refers to the socio-economic, geo-political and cultural changes that have spread across the world since the end of the Cold War. Globalisation is not simply synonymous with neoliberal capitalism or digital communication networks, although those are obviously part of the condition. A broader definition is given by the German social philosopher Jurgen Habermas:‘By ‘globalisation’ is meant the cumulative processes of a worldwide expansion of trade and production, commodity and finance markets, fashions, the media and computer programs, news and communication networks, transportation systems and flows of migration, the risks engendered by large-scale technology, environmental damage and epidemics, as well as organised crime and terrorism.’
Cultural theorists such as Stuart Hall talk of alternative processes of ‘globalisation from below’, due to mass migration, whereas philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy suggests that we are only at the start of a globalising process that could take centuries to work through. It is also vital to note that, as geographers such as Doreen Massey point out, the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ are now interlinked in every place on earth – London included – and no amount of new building will alter this reality. As the philosopher Henri Lefebvre says: ‘No space disappears in the course of growth and development: the worldwide does not abolish the local’.
As a result of this dualistic interplay, London has already changed hugely over recent decades and seems set to do so further. What is the impact on architecture, urban forms and spatial practices, and how should architects analyse and respond to these transformations? Our Year 3 students selected their own route to explore this question.