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Abstract
The ‘peace-walls’ of Belfast represent a widely acknowledged architectural legacy of the Troubles, the period between 1969 and 1994 when sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland was most extreme. This paper reveals a further crucial but unacknowledged architectural legacy. It is a Hidden City of unassuming inner-city architecture where everyday pervasiveness masks a capacity to perpetuate conflict-era forces in a post-conflict city. The first half of the paper presents a Foucauldian analysis of declassified government documents revealing the knowledge created through undisclosed systems of power-relations. Here a problematization of accepted norms reassesses the Troubles-era urban landscape and exposes the latent significance of its socio-material complexity. The second half of the paper illustrates the material consequences of related hidden policy practices on the contemporary post-conflict community. It borrows from Goffman to offer an exposition of the institutionalisation of movement and meaning at play in the Hidden City. A triangulation of interviews, photography and architectural fieldwork is used to theorise the Material Event, a construction of meaning derived from the interaction between people, architecture and the wider systems of power-relations. The paper concludes by demonstrating the complexity of the systemic challenges posed by the Material Events and how these help constrain conflict-transformation practices.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1053-1075 |
Number of pages | 23 |
Journal | Environment and Planning D: Society and Space |
Volume | 35 |
Issue number | 6 |
Early online date | 5 May 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 1 Dec 2017 |
Keywords
- Architecture
- Conflict
- Foucault
- Belfast
- The Troubles
- Security.
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Hidden Barriers: International Perspectives on Architecture, Territory and Conflict
Coyles, D. (Speaker)
17 May 2018Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
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Implementation and Reconciliation Group, Stormont House Agreement: widening perspectives. British-Irish Secretariat.
Coyles, D. (Participant)
9 Nov 2016Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participating in a conference, workshop, ...
Profiles
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David Coyles
- Belfast School of Architecture & the Be - Senior Lecturer in Architecture
- Faculty Of Computing, Eng. & Built Env. - Senior Lecturer
Person: Academic