Visions of urban mobility: The Westway, London, England

Cultural Geographies

Volumn 14, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 74-91

  Robertson, Susan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Elevated highway; Landscape; Urban architecture; Urban mobility

Indexed keywords

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN; INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT; LANDSCAPE CHANGE; MOBILITY; ROAD CONSTRUCTION; TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE; URBAN AREA; URBAN GEOGRAPHY;

ENGLAND; EURASIA; EUROPE; LONDON [ENGLAND]; UNITED KINGDOM; WESTERN EUROPE;

EID: 33846509919     PISSN: 14744740     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474474007072820     Document Type: Article

References (96)

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4. A notable exception is J.M. Jacobs, 'A geography of big things', Cultural geographies 13 (2006), pp. 1-27. In developing some conceptual tools to advance further a geography of architecture, Jacobs looks at the various networks of association that go into the making, and unmaking, of 'big things' such as the modernist high-rise.
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15. Recent literature includes the themed journal issue on auto-mobilities in Theory, culture and society 21 (2004), including articles by J. Urry, 'The "system" of automobility', wherein Urry considers the small changes that could have a big impact in a 'post-car system';
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19. and M. Bull, 'Automobility and the power of sound', in which Bull argues that sound is used to make intimate the impersonal urban space of automobility.
20. See T. Cresswell, On the move (London, Routledge, 2006) for a recent overview.
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23. and see Sheller, 'Automotive emotions';
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26. In the writing on car cultures, the space and experience of driving have somehow been largely left in the realms of literature and cinema. See Dimendberg, 'The will to motorization';
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35. and M. Crang, 'Rethinking the observer: film, mobility, and the construction of the subject', in T. Cresswell and D. Dixon, eds, Engaging film: geographies of mobility and identity, pp. 13-31 (Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002) on the use of film and the relationship between observer, eye, apparatus and subject.
36. M. Augé, Non-places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity (London, Verso, 1995);
37. W. Schivelbusch, The railway journey: trains and travel in the nineteenth century (Oxford, Blackwell, 1980).
38. Augé, Non-places. This separation is in part a source of alienation, but in common with other landscapes of mobility is also explored and appropriated by literature and film to express ideas of freedom and rebellion;
39. see C. Croft's introduction to On the road, pp. 7-11.
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41. Gandy, Concrete and clay.
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46. Robert Moses, quoted in Holtz Kay, 'The asphalt exodus'.
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48. Gandy, Concrete and clay.
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53. Greater London Council, 'Western Avenue extension Westway to Paddington Green and to Holland Park Avenue: general information' (Sept. 1966).
54. John Laing Construction Ltd., 'Our contribution to better east-west communications', advertisement in The Times (29 July 1970).
55. J. C. Perkins and M. Mepham, 'White City to Paddington - the fast way', London Electricity (Sept. 1970), pp. 12-15.
56. 'Tenants protest at opening of motorway', The Times (29 July 1970), p. 3.
57. P. Moir with drawings by K. McDonough, 'Commuting by computer', Illustrated London News (10 June 1967), pp. 22-23.
58. J. Grigg, 'Why the transport museum mustn't travel', Evening Standard (28 July 1970), p. 11;
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61. G. Wilkins, 'London's three-ring motorway', Illustrated London News (1972), p. 31. This desire to prove that Britain was at least equal to other European nations came at a time when Britain's entry to the EEC had been turned down twice by a French veto.
62. St. Marylebone and Paddington Mercury (13 Sept. 1968).
63. Greater London Council, 'Westway and West Cross route', leaflet (1970).
64. Gold, The experience of modernism, p. 4.
65. C. Booker and C. Lycett Green, Goodbye London: an illustrated guide to threatened buildings (London, Fontana/Collins, 1973).
66. St. Marylebone and Paddington Mercury (13 Sept. 1968).
67. G. Maunsell and Partners with H. Bennett and F. M. Fuller, 'London County Council Western Avenue extension report on section between Westway and Holland Park Avenue' (London, June 1963);
68. G. Maunsell and Partners with H. Bennett and P. F. Stott, 'London County Council Western Avenue extension report on section between St Mark's Road and Paddington Green' (London, Aug. 1964).
69. J. W. Baxter, D. J. Lee and E. F. Humphries, 'Design of Western Avenue extension (Westway)', ICE Journal (1972), pp. 177-217.
70. M. E. Thaxton and R. W. Gray, 'Western Avenue Extension landscaping proposals and implementation', Civil engineering and public works review (July 1970), pp. 727-9.
71. M. Lovell and J. Morgan, 'Where to go from Westway: a paper for the Market Research Conference' (Mar. 1971).
72. Greater London Council, 'GDLP inquiry background paper no. 494, Westway: an environmental and traffic appraisal' (July 1971).
73. A. Duncan, Taking on the motorway: North Kensington Amenity Trust 21 years (London, Kensington and Chelsea Community History Group, 1992).
74. G. Clark, 'The lesson of Acklam Road', New Statesman (7 Aug. 1970), pp. 139-40.
75. 'Tenants protest at opening of motorway', The Times (29 July 1970), p. 3.
76. D. Mason, 'The western front', New Society (30 July 1970), pp. 185-7.
77. Lowell and Morgan, 'Where to go from Westway', p. 13.
78. A notable example of this emphasis is Iain Borden's work on skateboarding: 'skateboarding and the creation of super-architectural space', in J. Hill, ed., Occupying architecture (London, Routledge, 1998), pp. 195-216;
79. 'Another pavement, another beach: skateboarding and the performative critique of architecture', in I. Borden, J. Kerr, J. Rendell and A. Pivaro, eds, The unknown city: contesting architecture and social space (London, Routledge, 2001), pp. 178-99.
80. See also P. Merriman for a discussion on the magical visual development of the M1 as seen from the air; P. Merriman, 'M1: a cultural geography of an English motorway, 1946-1965'(PhD thesis held in Hallword Library, Nottingham University, 2001).
81. 'Laing's undercut estimate for £15m road job', Contract journal (21 July 1966), p. 272.
82. This was in marked contrast to the cinematically recorded progress of Hitler's Autobahns in Germany from 1933, where the representation of labour was a key function; see Dimendberg, 'The will to motorization'.
83. Maunsell, 'London County Council Western Avenue extension report' (1963), p. 11.
84. G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, A thousand plateaus (London, Continuum, 2002), p. 141.
85. M. Gandy, 'Cyborg urbanization: complexity and monstrosity in the contemporary city', International journal of urban and regional research 29 (2005), p. 30.
86. D. Wilcox and V. Drees, 'The snake of concrete that opens up London', Evening Standard (23 July 1970), p. 3.
87. See Gandy, Concrete and clay.
88. See also P. Merriman, '"Operation motorway": landscapes of construction on England's M1 motorway', Journal of historical geography 31 (2005), pp. 113-33.
89. Petit views the film as about (dis)connection and the mismatch of language in a world full of methods of communication; see L. Dick, 'a-z of cinema: r road', Sight and sound (Nov. 1997), pp. 22-6.
90. Merriman, 'M1'.
91. See Sheller, 'Automotive emotions'.
92. Schivelbusch, The railway journey.
93. Recently captured by Petit and Iain Sinclair in their film London orbital (2002) by long, mesmerizing stretches of real-time footage driving along the motorway.
94. D. Gosling, Gorden Cullen: visions of urban design (London, Academy, 1996).
95. D. Appleyard, K. Lynch and J. R. Myer, The view from the road (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1964).
96. Ibid., p.18.