Cornerhouse History

Throughout this weeks reading on Chapter 4, we focus in on the Progressive Era and the establishment of urban America. The industrial revolution was at its peak and the United States was developing rapidly. Immigration, manufacturing output, and urban development grew faster than any other time in the nation’s history. Not only that, but scientific developments changed lives and revolutionary theories challenged traditional beliefs. As Rury suggests, “ . . . it is probably safe to say that there was a greater degree of social change at the point than any other, simply because of the magnitude of economic expansion an population movement” (Rury 136). It was a time of globalization, when there was movement around the world on an unprecedented scale. Even when compared to

Manchester is described as an ugly city that has no beauty and is so filthy and foul it can turn a good man into a savage[doc 2&5].One person questions if the progress was worth the physical suffering [doc 7]. Document 11 shows a painting from The Graphic of the horrible pollution in Manchester where the peasants live.

Before reforms were made to fix factory conditions, wages, and hours, workers “acquired a dangerous spirit of discontent with the Government [and] protest against the triumphs of machinery” (Doc 4). However, this account was written by a dramatist in 1830, so they may be biased in how dramatic their account was of the situation. According to a visitor to Manchester in 1835, everything within the city was filthy and the overall vibe of the city is “somber and uncouth” (Doc 5). Less than twenty years later, in 1852, Manchester’s “energetic exertions and enterprising spirit… is mainly indebted to its elevation as a seat of commerce and manufacture…” (Doc 9), making it one of the most distinguishable cities in the world. By 1868, however, Manchester not only implemented reforms in order to stop people from dying from a young age, but built public parks, baths, and libraries for the people to live healthier, fulfilled lives. In 1868, journalist William Abram wrote, “Far seldomer than before do we hear the murmur of popular discontent” (Doc 10). This means that Manchester citizens were very much happier than they had been in previous

The short story house on mango street contains portrays told by Esperanza, the main act in the novel. She tells stories about her surroundings, family and gives us an insight into her dreams and goals. Esperanza has to deal with a lot racism and poverty which is ruling in the community they are staying in. The illustrations of the story show different sides of Esperanza and how she uncovers different things and the kind of adjustment she went through during her stay in Mango street. The story starts when the family of Esperanza relocates to a new house located on Mango street. Esperanza has dreams of staying in a good house and is not gratified with the house they moved into on Mango st. Before they moved, they used to live in Chicago, an impoverished neighborhood. The house in Chicago was dirty and very tiny. Esperanza feels ashamed of the structure and setting of her home and is not comfortable with the way the house looks. Esperanza also has concerns with

Designed for his elderly mother, Robert Venturi used the house – The Vanna Venturi - as a canvas to demonstrate some of the “complexities and contradictions” in modern architecture. With the Vanna Venturi house, his desire to challenge modern orthodoxy is apparent in the home’s façade, which acts as a sort of billboard for a house, with its pitched roofline and functionless arch – both clear departures from modernist principles.

Johnson’s “The Ghost Map” gives a very detailed narrative of life in London during the mid-1850’s. We see a city full of growth on a massive scale. The population was growing exponentially, industrial technology allowed supply to keep up with demand, and Victorian ideas were bustling through the streets. However, the waste from this massive growth was piling up just as fast. London became the largest city in Europe all the while creating a breeding ground for disease. Johnson’s view of London allows us to critically examine the similarity and differences with other urban areas 150 years later. Political, social, and economic agendas within these urban areas have evolved as well. The accounts of John Snow and Henry Whitehead show how new ideas

The Industrial Revolution quickly and drastically altered the production of goods. Beginning in the mid-1700s, the Industrial Revolution shifted to the use of machinery and factory-based labor. Although the Industrial Revolution was a beneficial period for the production of goods, the detrimental effects, such as widespread pollution, horrible living conditions, and inhumane child labor, outweigh the benefits of the time period.

This allows the audience to be able to see the connection between the author and character. The comparison and contrast will show

The era commonly known the “Gilded Age” received this descriptive name for several reasons. One reason the term “gilded” was used was to describe how society appeared shiny and unblemished from the outside, however, the inside did not reflect the same condition. Jacob Riis’ novel, How the Other Half Lives, written amid the Gilded Age in 1890, explored the hardships of the unappreciated populations that embody the unpolished appearance responsible for the name, “the Gilded Age.” Riis used photojournalism to uncover the realities of living in the cramped tenements of New York City along with the causes of exploitation of these inhabitants. As a Danish-American, Riis was set on trying to improve the lives of the immigrants who populated the overcrowded

To keep pace with the growing demand of houses in the U.K, at least 250,000 houses should be built annually. However, bureaucratic engineering approvals, land restrictions, and stringent rules governing the design and construction of tall buildings including the Grenfell Tower, are drawbacks to the speedy construction of housing units (Scott p.1). After the inferno, the Friends of Richmond Park, and residents of the west London suburbs, actively campaigned against the construction of tall buildings. Although the restrictions and campaigns were meant to safeguard the safety of the occupants, they gradually contributed to the housing shortage currently

His ideas were the product of a diverse early career; all of his experiences pre-planning (pre-1958, essentially) informed his designs down the road. Having spent a lot of time farming, Olmsted was fond of, and personally felt a connection to, transcendental ideals. He valued man’s connection with nature as a divine and important part of life. Olmsted’s quintessential love of nature springing from his farming days was compounded, firstly, by his inspiration from Andrew Jackson Downing. Downing was a mid 19th century author who wrote best selling books about rural life. Marketed to those cramped in developing cities, Downing’s work spread pastoral ideals of small town living. His works included sketches of modest cottages surrounded by greenery and space. This work would have surely resonated with the urban middle and upper class, who had the means to commute and live this idealistic lifestyle, and it would have tugged at the heartstrings of the working class, who were stuck in the cities. These facets of inspiration directed how Olmsted thought individual ought to interact with parks and open spaces. On top of Downing’s work, Olmsted’s trip to England in 1850 heavily influenced his landscape design tendencies. Olmsted loved the naturalistic English landscape design. Additionally, Olmsted took walking tours of towns and witnessed the horrific living conditions of the working class. This inspired him to design parks and spaces accessible

The literature review will be reviewed the relevant literature and internet sources, the conceptual of public spaces and community spaces as well as the report of public space and social interaction in order to make a theoretical frameworks for knowledge and understand the problems of social interaction in modern world, especially in the high-rise building, the most common construction in urban area.

He encourages the reader to free oneself from official or commercial architecture which are influenced by the prejudice towards the late phases in architecture which are only concerned with a few selected cultures and turn a blind eye to underdeveloped countries and their alien architecture. He praises primitive architecture for its timelessness and its ability to serve its purpose to perfection with no room for improvement and regrets that the origin of these indigenous building forms and construction methods is lost in the past. Rudofsky then introduces Communal Architecture, ‘ art not produced by a few intellectuals or specialists but by the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting under a community experience.’ The beauty of primitive architecture is often dismissed as accidental, but today we should recognize it as an art that developed from human intellect that was applied to handling practical issues and our problems are rooted in our tendency to accredit specialists who may have exceptional insight but are largely concerned with business and prestige. He challenges his readers on a fundamental level and exposes alternate and endangered forms of urban development, lifestyle, social spaces and practicality which we have not learnt from. He

The objective of this essay is to examine the female character Nancy Astley in the Television Series ‘Tipping the Velvet’ in relation to theories of modernity, feminism and the expanding city. Originally a book by Sarah Waters and then adapted into a television series for the BBC

Kingsley Davis, who is said to have pioneered the study of historical urban demography wrote his “The Urbanization of the Human population” in 1965. In his essay, he states that the history of the world is in fact the history of urbanization and then begins with description of how tiny European settlements grew slowly through the Middle Ages and the early modern period. According to him, urbanization occurred mainly because of rural-urban migration and not the other factors that people believe. He discusses how the production levels of this time period, due to the feudal system, used to favor an agrarian culture and then how the process of urbanization intensified during the 1900s, especially in Great Britain. He then clarifies the difference between urbanization, which he describes as the process of a society becoming more urban-focused, and the growth of cities i.e. the expansion of their boundaries. Davis describes the urbanization process as occurring along an S curve, beginning slow, becoming fast, and then slowing down again. Based on this idea of S curve, he predicts an end to urbanization.