#plotlands

[thealdersgateoffice]

I’ve been looking for this mini series that Saskia was in for aaaaages and someone has finally uploaded it!

It’s called Plotlands and its such a lovely watch ☺️

There are six episodes - the first three and the last three are together below. Enjoy!

[david-sankey]

Plotlands of Shepperton - out Now!  -- available from [email protected] £10 before Christmas, incl. p&p

Book Information Sheet - Publication date 10 October 2020

Plotlands of Shepperton

by Stefan Szczelkun

with a Foreword by Judith Tucker and an Introduction by Chris Saunders.

27 thumbnails, 38 full page photographs all in premium colour. 52pp 165mm x 165mm Pbk. £12.95 Global availability through English speaking world ISBN  978-1-870736-24-4

A unique artist’s book on on a massively under researched area of the history of housing. A stream of commentary reveals the houses to be haunted by their radical history. Do they contain a key to the ‘housing problem’ that the establishment dare not countenance?

Previews:

‘In ‘Plotlands of Shepperton’, Szczelkun explores the improvised architecture of a Thames-side community. By subverting the normal conventions of captions and footnotes, he compels us to more closely examine the photographs, while conjuring a winding narrative stream which places them in a broader context.’  Nick Barber, Museum Visiting Group, London

‘What starts with a simple proposition, to take photographs and make notes, becomes an incredibly rich exploration of a self-made architecture and its culture and politics.  This is a subtly joyous and thoughtfully appreciative book; in many ways a celebration of a thousand quiet victories.’  Matthew Fuller, Professor of Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London

‘Plotlands of Shepperton is both delightful and disquieting in the best possible way.  An important photographic enquiry into almost forgotten Thames-side, ad-hoc, plotland architecture… It is fascinating to see these traces of working-class culture stubbornly remaining amongst contemporary affluent suburbia.’ Dr Judith Tucker University of Leeds, artist and winner of the Jackson’s Painting category prize 2020

‘I am a big fan. I love both the design which gives lots of space to the photographs. The long captions work perfectly; on top of being very informative one feels the attachment the author has to the place and houses. And it really makes me want to go there. ‘ Elisabeth Blanchett, Photographer and author of ‘Prefabs: A social and architectural history’ 2018

http://stefan-szczelkun.blogspot.com/2020/10/new-book-plotlands-of-shepperton.html

  https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanszczelkun

[nicethingsthose]

Dunton Plotlands in Essex (1930s).

[annathejane]

The Jaywick Sands Resort lies on a small strip of land on the east coast of Essex, next to Clacton on Sea. A bus ride of about an hour takes you there from the station in Clacton, along winding roads which pass supermarkets glowing with neon signing; cafes, restaurants, shops; and rows and rows of the uniform cream painted Victorian houses which make up the majority of Clacton’s residences. As the journey continues, the neat methodical arrangement of houses gives way to empty roadside restaurants with vast, swelling car parks, isolated churches housed in squat red brick buildings of 1980s construction, a sprawling golf green, and odd collections of hotels and inns. As you travel yet further away from the extreme ordinariness of Clacton, the familiar buildings and signs of life become increasingly infrequent. Now the bus speeds past vast tracts of empty land bordered by narrow concrete pavements, separated from the road with high wire fencing. Disused fields flash by one after the other for miles until, in the distance; a house becomes visible. As you draw nearer to the house, more appear beyond it, until you are travelling down what looks like a road in a 1930’s London suburb. Careful topiary adorns the garden of each residence, many of which are painted in sickly pastel tones, or otherwise covered with a thick layer of anaemic grey toned pebble dash. Beyond this street are more stretches of houses; similarly decorated. However, the further you get into the centre of Jaywick; the more frequent the signs of disrepair and neglect become. After the neat regularity of the first streets on the outskirts, the dwellings become less consistent in style and construction,more ramshackle, more uncontrolled. Intermittent plots house the burnt out remnants of wooden shacks which have been destroyed by arsonists. These empty sites sit alongside compact clapboard bungalows to which have been added precarious verandas and porches; dotted with pots housing ferns, geraniums and pansies. Piles of abandoned furniture litter the streets: a mustard yellow velvet headboard leans sadly against the porch of a house; next to it is a large pothole in the rough tarmac road filled to the brim with murky rainwater. A white stone greyhound reclines languorously on a concrete wall. Dogs barking in the distance and the calling of birds nesting in the gutters of empty buildings are accompanied by the sound of the sea nearby, which produces a low roaring hum which infiltrates every part of the town.

[welcometopiceseia]

First rushes. 

[anthropologicalurbanism]

Colin Ward - The Hidden History of Housing

Great to find this Colin Ward paper earlier...

In the post-war decades popular mythology held that every acre of Britain was precious in the interests of agriculture. Farmers were free to destroy woodlands and hedges, drain wetlands and pollute rivers and water supplies in the interests of increased production. Now that the bubble of over-production has burst, the same people are subsidised for not growing and for returning habitats to what is seen as nature. This results in golf courses and publicly-financed set-aside.

Unofficial settlements are seen as a threat to wildlife, which is sacrosanct. The planning system is the vehicle that supports four-wheel-drive Range Rovers, but not the local economy, and certainly not those travellers and settlers seeking their own modest place in the sun. These people have bypassed the sacred rights of tenure, but still find their modest aspirations frustrated by the operations of planning legislation. Nobody actually planned such a situation. No professional planner would claim that his or her task was to grind unofficial housing out of existence, and nor would any of the local enforcers of the Building Regulations.

Colin Ward was an anarchist who sadly passed away in 2010, he wrote on many topics including anarchism, urban issues and education.

> Colin Ward on Libcom.

> Anarchist Views of the City on Libcom.

Image above from Bollops on Flickr.