We are still in the Renaissance: How the art, culture and politics of Florence helps us understand how this city has shaped the West and what could come next

Europe, its ideals, its history, its culture and its politics is contained within Florence. There is a lot you can learn from visiting the city and learning about its past and present.

Florence is a European city with a population just shy of 400,000 in the centre of Italy. It’s a very popular travel destination and is known worldwide for its art, history, food, wine, architecture and leather. The word Florence is a placeholder for the city’s history and culture. Hearing or reading the name brings all this complexity to mind, but how do we unpack exactly what we think about when we think about Florence?

The best place to start is with what Florence is best known for: its Renaissance art history. Through these works of art, we can see how the city presented itself in the past and the present.

Art and Florence’s museums

There are some staggeringly famous paintings in the collections of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. This includes works by Sandro Botticelli, such as The Birth of Venus and Spring. Botticelli had a very distinctive style. As well as embodying the emerging style of the Renaissance, his work draws on Mediaeval tapestries and the art of the ancient world.

His paintings convey a delicate beauty, seen most clearly in The Birth of Venus. Although this is a painting of a scene from Roman mythology, the fragile beauty with which Botticelli painted these figures was not a feature of ancient art. It was something introduced to Western art by Mediaeval paintings of the Madonna.

There are many other incredibly beautiful pieces of art that fill the halls of Florence’s museums, which have been made in the city over the years. This includes Venus of Urbino by Titian, a painting so sumptuous that you could almost step into the room it depicts, and Michelangelo’s sculpture of David, the perfect incarnation of Florentine confidence during the Renaissance. The key thing about all these famous works of art is that they show the beauty of the physical world, not the perfection of the spiritual world.

The architecture of Florence

The other aspect of Florence that both shows the beauty of the physical world and is a key element of the Renaissance is the city’s architecture. There are so many beautiful buildings in Florence, it’s hard to know where to start when looking at the city’s architecture. I would recommend beginning with one of the smaller buildings, although it’s no less interesting than the famous landmarks.

The Pazzi Chapel is a small chapel in the Basilica di Santa Croce designed by the iconic Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi. Here is where Renaissance architecture began, as the chapel marks a break with the previously dominant gothic style of religious architecture. The art historian and broadcaster Kenneth Clark (not to be confused with the Tory politician, he spells Clarke with an “e”) described the Pazzi chapel as possessing the architecture of humanism, a building made in proportion to humans. This humanist approach is essential to understanding the art of Florence and the Renaissance.

Of course, the most famous and most striking building in Florence is the Duomo, Florence’s Cathedral; also designed by Brunelleschi, later in his career than the Pazzi chapel. This huge cathedral possessed at one point the tallest dome in the world and is both an artistic and engineering marvel. Its distinctive tall dome is a technical innovation that distinguishes it from the flatter domes of the ancient world, found on the Pantheon for example. The interior is decorated with beautiful frescoes, mainly on the inside of the huge dome.

New architecture drawing on the ancient world

Brunelleschi was the founding father of Renaissance architecture, and the Duomo is his masterpiece. Brunelleschi incorporated elements of Ancient Greek and Roman architecture into his designs. He used porticos, arches and domes, which are Roman, but added Greek columns making Renaissance architecture a fusion of both Ancient Greece and Rome.

This was a new style of architecture for a new Renaissance culture, incorporating elements of the past but to create something new. There was a harmony between the interior and exterior aspects of Brunelleschi's buildings. This was a break with gothic architecture where buildings were made on an inhuman scale, which made people feel small and insignificant next to the power of the divine. By contrast the Pazzi chapel is almost cosy. It’s reassuringly human and its human proportions reflect the dignity that humans are entitled to, which was emphasised in Renaissance philosophy.

Much of Renaissance architecture was inspired by Vitruvius's book on architecture, the only treatise on architecture to survive from the ancient world, where he emphasises that architecture should be based on the proportion of the human body. His views inspired many Renaissance buildings, as well as another iconic symbol of the Renaissance: Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

Humanism as the Renaissance knew it

Vitruvian Man is a drawing, but it unites both Renaissance art and architecture in that it contains the two key philosophical elements of Renaissance thinking: humanism and anthropocentrism.

Humanism, in this sense, is the idea that all human beings have dignity and the right to self-determination and happiness. Also, that there should be a striving for human excellence. It is a belief that the world was created for humans and the existence of humans adds beauty to the world; beauty not found in God’s creation. This isn’t humanism in the Richard Dawkins sense, a denial of God’s existence or his moral authority, but humanism as an emphasis on human exceptionalism.

The concept is best embodied by the Humanist hive in Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota novels. The hive is a collection of individuals committed to human achievement in all fields, from the arts to science to sport, and the fact that the Humanists’ entire society is geared towards advancing human excellence in all fields is a perfect encapsulation of Renaissance humanism. Palmer herself is a historian of the Renaissance, when she is not writing science fiction novels.

What is anthropocentrism?

Anthropocentrism, the other crucial Renaissance value seen in the art of the period, is the idea that humans, and not God, are the philosophical centre of the universe. God is still the creator of the universe, but humans can change it to something that suits them. This is again reflected in Renaissance art’s focus on humans.

These two philosophical concepts are best summed up by Ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras saying that “man is the measure of all things,” which Kenneth Clarke used as the title for his film on the early Renaissance in his landmark art history TV series Civilisation.

These philosophical concepts are the foundation of our modern world. We still put humans at the centre of our culture and politics, despite attempts to suggest that putting the planet at the centre might be more sustainable in the long term. We believe that humans can remake the world and that humans bring beauty to the world.

We are still in the Renaissance

The humanist drive for excellence can be seen today in our attraction to great works of art, or in the hero worship of artists, sports people or scientists. Similarly, humanism’s emphasis on the dignity of people can be seen in our modern concepts of civil rights and social justice.

We are still in the Renaissance, on some level. It was a philosophical shift we have not escaped. Even modernism’s attempts to tear down all that came before to build something better, ultimately led to the concept being layered on top of Renaissance philosophy, rather than replacing it. Our thinking is still governed by humanism and anthropocentrism, which is the legacy that Florence has given to the world.

New writing and new ways of thinking

The stunning culture produced over the centuries in Florence also includes writing. Dante Alighieri lived here and wrote his Divine Comedy in the city. In doing so, he not only changed the Christian understanding of hell, purgatory and heaven, but also created his own world through the power of his writing.

Francesco Petrarch, an iconic thinker and writer of the Renaissance, was also from Florence. Petrarch is regarded as the first humanist and his work spans both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He was also the first person to read and understand ancient literature and led a revival of the Latin language. As Clarke said in Civilisation, Petrarch championed the idea of a “revival under the influence of classical [antique] culture.”

Renaissance philosophy began with Petrarch and Dante. They came up with new ways of thinking that reached back into the Ancient World, but also responded to the times they lived in. They created the literary and philosophical values of the Renaissance. Philosophy became related to humans rather than God.

Science and philosophy in a religious age

This was still a very religious time, but the achievements of people were seen as the greatest praise of humanity’s creator. Ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras’s pronouncement that “man is the measure of all things” became the phrase that summed up the time, just as Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man was the image.

What we might describe as modern science began through the Renaissance’s philosophical investigations. During the Renaissance philosophers wanted to understand how the world worked. They became less interested in questions like "how many angels are there" and more interested in questions about the world around us.

There was also an increase in interest in ethics, as this was the dawn of the era of humanism. Renaissance values dominated writing and thinking. Even Dante’s writing is less focused on the Mediaeval glorification of God, and more focused on how human life can be better lived (within the context of a divine judgement).

Florence as a modern city

These key people, from Brunelleschi to Dante to Botticelli, helped create the modern world. They are all connected to Florence and all from the early Renaissance, a time where art, writing and thinking reconnected with the Ancient World. Florence was the centre of this movement, and it has left its mark on the city and the world.

Is Florence best summarised by its Renaissance history and the contribution it has made to our thinking? Florence is a modern city with modern amenities, not just old buildings and art. During a recent trip, I visited the area around the University of Florence’s School of Architecture. This is a Shoreditch-like area of the city complete with craft beer bars and casual dining restaurants.

The middle-class culture of places such as this is found all over the world, from Bed–Stuy to Budapest. It was once described as hipster, but it’s now mainstream. It both transcends and embraces local culture. I ate at Nugolo, whose sparse almost industrial interiors and menu featuring unusual modern takes on classic Italian dishes was reminiscent of places I have eaten in London, Berlin and San Francisco. You could pick up this part of Florence and drop it in East London and everyone would carry on as they were.

Hipster culture in Florence

Is this to say that this area of Florence is the same as everywhere else? At least in terms of contemporary culture? Partly, yes. The internet and globalisation have spread a standardised Western middle-class culture - let’s call it Hipster for want of a better word - all over the world and Florence is no exception.

Like most cultures, Hipster culture is not a monolith and in Florence, like everywhere else, it’s adapted to the local environment. It has grown into the city’s culture and not flattened it. Tuscan wines and the region's notoriously good meat are adapted to the modern Hipster tastes.

All this is to say that Florence is not just history, art and things that happened a long time ago. There is a vibrant modern culture to the city, which is more representative of how people live now and is thus a better way to understand Florence.

From culture to politics

Culture is merely one competing means to investigate the nature of Florence as a place. There are many others: sport, language and, of course, politics. I will focus on politics as I know next to nothing about sport.

Shortly after my visit to Florence, Italy had a general election where the far-right politician Giorgia Meloni became Prime Minister. Italian politics has been through a period of severe instability. The turmoil has been so extreme it makes British politics look positively dull. The country overall has become significantly poorer since the 2008 financial crash and people are increasingly angry about it.

All sorts of coalitions have been tried, from an alliance of the populist right with the populists centre (that was the League and Five Star government), to a government led by the self-styled Tony Blair of Italy Matteo Renzi, to one led by former President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi and now this far-right government.

Italian politics is a microcosm of the problems of 21st century Europe. Low wage, low growth, low productivity, an ageing population (Italy has the highest median age in Europe and the second highest in the world, behind Japan), rising populism, extremes of all kinds and a lack of consensus as to how to tackle the problems. Italy has tried everything, but nothing makes a difference.

What can Machiavelli teach us?

When investigating politics, a famous Florentine provides some useful insights. Perhaps the most famous, or infamous, writer on politics was from Florence, Niccolo Machiavelli.

Machiavelli’s writing is foundational for many peoples’ thinking about politics. Rory Stewart quotes extensively from Machiavelli in his book, Occupational Hazards, about being a coalition governor in post invasion Iraq. Machiavelli has a lot to teach us about politics, but it’s worth remembering his writing comes from a world before our modern understanding of the state or our modern politics. The Florence where Machiavelli lived and was buried - I saw his tomb whilst I was there - is almost beyond our understanding today.

Machiavelli is often quoted and often misunderstood. His central point is that politicians should be effective, not nice, and defend the state from external and internal threats. People with a cynical view of politics often use Machiavelli as a justification for strongman rule or brute force. This is an oversimplification. Machiavelli did endorse the use of violence, but he thought a good leader shouldn’t use violence too much, or he will get a reputation for excessive cruelty.

An age of violence

Machiavelli thought a leader should be tough, but not too tough. He wrote that being a good politician is not the same as being a good person. Modern democratic politicians and voters can learn from this. Expecting our leaders to be perfect is too high a standard for them to live up to.

Above all, when looking at Machiavelli and what he can teach us, it should be remembered that he came from a very different time. The level of violence that Machiavelli was comfortable with would be considered extremely brutal by all except the most cruel and bloodthirsty of today’s rulers.

He lived in an age, despite the noble humanist views of the Renaissance, where the sort of violence that would make even the most gore loving horror movie fan vomit, was commonplace. Fear and brutal efficiency were a means to wield power in such a world, but the lessons from such a time should always be viewed in this context.

The dignity of humanism

The far-right is now in control of Italy. It’s worth remembering that the Renaissance, which made Italy prosperous and famous, emphasised humanism and the dignity of all people. How much dignity will the far-right give the people they don’t like? They could stand to learn something from the values that made Italy a leading philosophical and cultural light in the past.

Another way to understand Florence is through my own experience. The knowledge of firsthand experience can be more complex than what we learn at a distance from reading or other research.

Accessibility of art in modern bourgeois society

Renaissance Florence was the beginnings of a recognisably modern city. It was bourgeois and was filled with shops, which is what you find in Florence today. What we experience in our everyday lives in modern towns and cities, a bourgeois and commercial culture, brings us closer to what Florence in the Renaissance was like for the few who lived through the dawn of this new age.

By visiting Florence today, what you can experience of the Renaissance is much greater than what most people living in Renaissance Florence could experience at the time. Our museums make art and culture much more accessible to a wider range of people today than at any point in our past. The Renaissance was limited to wealthy merchants and courtiers, it was not something experienced by the everyday Florentines, but you CAN experience the beautiful art it left behind (for an admission fee).

The glories of the past and the challenges of the present

A place with a history as long and complicated as Florence is difficult to unpack even with a series of tools, including art history and politics, at our disposal. The complexity of such a place defies easy explanation, however, if I were to condense all I have learned down to a hot take, then it is that we should not be so distracted by the glory of the past that we overlook the challenges of the present.

Our liberal humanist civilisation, which was shaped in many ways by the art and politics of Renaissance Florence, is not as permanent as the marble and stone of Brunelleschi’s buildings. It can be broken down and replaced with the type of naked brutality that was the backdrop of Machiavelli’s life.

The election of people like Meloni is a step down the road that leads to destroying the humanism that Florence is famous for, a humanism that gave the world great art as well as the concept of universal human dignity. We tear all this down at our peril.

Defending it or tearing it all down

Let the past of Florence serve as an example of what can be done and let the present serve as an example of how this can all be lost and replaced with something much darker. Italy’s problems aren’t unique to that country; an ageing population, low wages, ineffective governments that don’t solve people’s problems exist all over Europe and the world. We need radical change to address these issues.

At the end of this journey, I’m left thinking of a famous German and not an Italian. Rosa Luxemburg said society faces a choice between socialism or barbarism and this is nowhere more apparent than in Italy. If socialists defend the humanism and dignity of the Renaissance and the far-right is against it, then they are the forces of violent barbarism; the leaders that Machiavelli warned us against.

Civilisation in all its glory existed in Florence, but Italy warns us that if we’re not careful it can all be torn down and replaced with barbarism.

What do we think about when we think about Derry?

What do you think of when someone says Derry? Most likely the excellent sit com Derry Girls, but try and think about the place not the show. Invoking the name of any place brings certain thoughts to mind. It’s worth taking some time to examine these thoughts to make sure that our thinking isn’t guided by stereotypes or outdated information. 

So how can we think about Derry? We can think of Derry as a historic British city. It has plenty of history and is in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It has around the same population as Carlisle, a comparison that invokes a place of a certain size and character. Also, like Carlisle, Derry is a regional hub and the only large city in a large rural area. 

Other British cities around the same size as Derry are Gloucester, Winchester and Exeter. This company conveys a different image of a city. A place that is historic, metropolitan but not too metropolitan, picturesque, big enough to have more than one Tesco and several microbreweries. All these things are true about Derry, but the way we think about Derry is not the same as how we think about Carlisle, Gloucester, Winchester and Exeter. 

A historic British city 

So, why don’t we think about Derry in the same way that we think about other historic British cities? Derry has beautiful historic buildings such as the Guildhall and Medieval Town Walls. It dates to the Plantation of Ulster, when Protestants moved over from Scotland to Northern Ireland. 

Derry was originally a monastery in the Middle Ages, involved in the Tudor conquest of Ireland, the Siege of Derry took place here in 1689 and the city was important during the Second World War. During the war, Derry was the UK and the Allies’ most Westerly port and thus where American conveys would arrive. Derry was also key to the Northern Ireland civil rights movement.

A modern British city

When thinking about Derry we shouldn’t let it be defined by its history. We can think of Derry as a modern, urban hub in a largely rural part of the country. Here the comparison to Carlisle is apt. Derry has good restaurants, bars and nightlife. Craft beer has yet to take off, but a range of enjoyable local ales as well as an interesting selection of beers from the Republic of Ireland are available in most bars.

Like most regional centres, Derry has interesting pieces of public art and modern architecture. There is the Hands Across the Divide sculpture, by Maurice Harron, and three impressive bridges across the River Foyle. There’s the Craigavon Bridge the oldest, the Foyle Bridge, which looks majestic when viewed from the river bank, and the Peace Bridge a striking curved footbridge that neatly complements the city centre. There are also murals and other pieces of public art, including the Derry Girls mural, as well as a striking modern train station.

Culture and celebrations

As a regional centre of culture, Derry hosts festivals and celebrations. Halloween is enjoyed more enthusiastically in Derry than anywhere else in the UK. When I was there every single shop, pub and hotel foyer were meticulously decorated for the occasion.

Screens around the city projected videos of Halloween characters that also reflected Celtic mythology. These were pitched at the right level of creepiness so that they weren’t naff but also weren’t too scary for most children. Music was played in public squares, whilst Halloween markets and club nights took place over an entire weekend of celebration. There is even a skeleton on the city’s shield.

Recent history

Using these parameters, we can think about Derry in the same way as any other historic or modern British City. So why don’t we? When I first asked you to think about Derry, I doubt that historic buildings, modern bridges or festivals came to mind.

When thinking about Derry it feels like a mis-categorisation or unfair to the city to include it in the same bracket as Exeter, Gloucester or even Carlisle. True, all cities are unique, but Derry stands apart from its British counterparts.

The reason is simple, Derry’s recent history casts a long shadow over any thinking about it as a place. Its medieval history and modern architecture are equal to that of Exeter or Carlisle, but it seems to be a betrayal of its recent history to foreground these when discussing the city of Derry. 

The totality of history

When we think about Derry, do we think about the demonstrations of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association being first banned and then blocked by the force of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1968? Do we think about the 1969 Battle of the Bogside, between Catholic residents and the police, which according to some accounts was the start of the Troubles? Do we think about the shooting dead of 14 unarmed civilians by paratroopers on Bloody Sunday in 1972?

These events took place before I was born, but this is what first comes to mind when I think about Derry. Do population, historic buildings, landmarks and nightlife cease to be relevant when weighted against such events? No place should be defined by one aspect of its history.

I am not for a moment suggesting that we forget about the Troubles. What I’m asking is when we’re thinking about Derry, or are thinking about how we think about Derry, are such events to be the totality of what we consider? Should we focus on what makes Derry different, rather than what makes it like other British cities?

Wildfire

Derry’s recent past is never far away. Driving through the suburbs I spied graffiti saying “No Irish Sea Border” and “Fuck Boris” on suburban walls. Recent tensions lurk beneath the surface, like the painful collective memories of the sisters in 2020’s Wildfire (set in a community on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland).

In the film, the buried trauma of sisters Kelly and Lauren is stirred up by Kelly’s return from a period of vagrancy and her disruptive presence upsets the fragile stability of Lauren’s life. Set to a backdrop of news stories about Brexit possibly creating a hard border on the Ireland of Ireland and with flashbacks to the sister’s childhood during the Troubles, the trauma of the family’s past and the disruption that Kelly causes serve as a metaphor for Northern Ireland’s fragile peace and tested constitutional arrangements. It shows how this sits atop painful recent history that can be sent tumbling out of control by unexpected chaotic forces.

Different and the same

It’s easy to think of Derry as different to other British cities. In many ways it is. The cities I mentioned above, Carlisle, Exeter, etc., are different because – and you have probably been yelling this at the screen for a while - they’re English and not in Northern Ireland. However, in many ways, the city is the same as the rest of the country and other cities in the Western world. There’s still Guinness and chain supermarkets, which have touched every corner of the Earth.

A recent Unite Against Racism rally demanding open borders after the drowning of migrants shows that Derry is having the same debates as the rest of the Western world. What to do about refugees and borders in the age of looming climate disasters? How do we be less racist in the 21st century? The debate continues from Derry to Doncaster to Denver.

Everywhere has history 

Every city is full of contradictions, controversies and has a complex identity. In Derry they are closer to the surface as they draw on recent history. I’m from Leicester, where we never stop reminding visitors that a King was found in a car park here - apart from when we win the odd football tournament.

We forget that this event was the culmination of a traumatic and bloody civil war that divided communities and killed huge numbers of people. The pain has faded over the centuries to the point it has been buried, resurfaced, propagandised, memorialised, romanticised, debated and finally turned into a novelty mug sold in a gift shop. Is this the fate that eventually awaits Derry’s history? Maybe, if the way that every other city treats its own complex history is anything to go by.

How we think about a place when we think about a place

Derry is a more complex place to be characterised by its most famous sitcom or most well-known historic events. Is it important to acknowledge what makes every place special and not to forget the tragedies of recent history, but it’s also important to remember what we all have in common, which can easily be forgotten when considering the highly charged emotional events of living memory.

We should be conscious of how we think about a place when we think about a place so that we don’t get trapped into the same endless cycle of historic thinking, and never to open our minds to new possibilities or a place’s ever-evolving identity.

The pandemic has shown what’s wrong with our urban environment

A month or so ago I took a walk through Wood Green. In any other week of the ten plus years that I have been living in London, this would be thoroughly unremarkable, however, in these strange days of Covid-19, it was the closest thing to “traveling” I have done since the pandemic began.

For the last 13 months, I have barely strayed further than the park around the corner from my house. Walking through a different part of London was something of a treat. I was instantly transported back to all the other times I have walked through Wood Green, going to or from The Green Rooms or The Toll Gate, visiting friends, or watching a film at Vue Wood Green (hands down the best place in London to watch any of the Fast and Furious movies).

This time, all of Wood Green’s many shops were closed. On what would have been a busy shopping afternoon any day of the last ten years, the high street was practically empty. I felt as if I were walking through occupied territory. Not territory occupied by an enemy who had set up checkpoints and pillboxes to suppress the locals, but a crawling infectious enemy that transforms the land it occupies into a twisted parody of itself. Something more like Command and Conquer’s Tiberium or the creeping weirdness unleashed in Annihilation.

The shattered ruins of our former lives

For me, staying home for the last 13 months has been a manageable challenge. I’m surprised at how quickly - given beer deliveries from local breweries and the endless volume of films on Netflix - I have adapted to not going out. I found a routine that has sustained me for the last year and a bit. It involves pretending that the outside world doesn’t exist and spending as much time on my sofa as possible. It also involves not thinking about all the theatres, cinemas and museums that I can’t visit.

Being outside and walking previously familiar streets reminded me of what we have all collectively lost. Outside is the shattered ruins of the lives we had before the pandemic. I walked through urban centres designed entirely around shopping, which isn’t possible during the lockdown. Everywhere I went I saw useless urban spaces, built for the glorification of the god of retail. A god that Covid-19 has killed.

The embourgeoisement of the inner city

These large shopping centres that now stand silent are part of a specifically designed urban environment. A lot of them were parts of elaborate regeneration schemes that were designed to boost the local economy. The idea that underpinned this was that shopping would move away from the soulless American style out of town shopping centres, with acres of car parks surrounding grey warehouse-sized shops, towards something more French: inner city spaces where we could live, shop and do leisure in the same few streets.

Writer on urbanism Jonathan Meades describes this as the “embourgeoisement of the inner city” in his book Museum Without Walls. Meades says that this embourgeoisement, when combined with the decline in social housing has resulted in a demographic change around our town centres.

Walking through Wood Green I can see the evidence of the embourgeoisement of the inner city, the fancy coffee shops and craft beer bars, but these are closed alongside the Wetherspoons and the Argos. Embourgeoisement of an urban space didn’t protect it from Covid-19.

From life to death

The embourgeoisement of the inner city was supposed to breathe life into these spaces. Instead, it was just another wave of the commercialisation of all public space. Embourgeoisement created shops, shops, shops, more shops and the occasional branch of Costa Coffee where you can take a break from your shopping. Before embourgeoisement, Wood Green had shops, shops, shops, more shops of a different kind and the occasional non-brand cafe where you can take a break from your shopping. This is now all pointless.

We would like our urban centres to look like the modern day equivalent of a painting by L. S. Lowry when viewed from a nearby hill. Small brightly coloured people move between home and industry, part of a larger community. Now they resemble a painting by Giorgio de Chirico, deserted and life-less, populated by huge structures that have a disturbing absence of purpose. This is architecture without industry. Urbanism without community.

We need a new way of thinking about our urban environment. Putting large shopping centres in the middle of former industrial areas and expecting everything to turn into the prettier parts of Paris or New York is hopelessly naive. In a world where shopping is online and a pandemic can close us off from most of our urban environment, we need to ask the question: is our surroundings contributing positively to our lives?

Accessible to all

A different vision of our urban environments would include more green spaces, more places to meet people that weren’t based around buying either goods or coffee, and more leisure spaces. It goes without saying that these spaces should be inclusive for disabled people, people of different income levels or social classes, and people of different racial or cultural backgrounds.

This mustn’t be some corporate vision of people shopping and living together in a “mixed use urban development” or a world inhabited by the indistinct, characterless people who appear on the awnings that cover new developments of luxury flats. These need to be places that real people, all real people, can use. Even in a pandemic.

An opportunity for change

The pandemic is an opportunity to change and looking at our urban spaces dominated by rows of closed shops the case for change is obvious. Even if we can go back to the way things were - Saturdays given over to shopping and the occasional quick refreshment break - our urban environments are still not suitable for us.

They are too dominated by private commercial spaces that you need to spend money in to be allowed to use. They should be accessible for public transport and contribute towards the solution to the environmental challenges we all face.

We won’t be able to change our urban spaces as quickly as we were able to close them down, but we can start thinking about the different urban environment we want post-pandemic. Then when we know what it is we want, we can make it real.

"Empty Shopping Centre" by delcond is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Austerity bites in Haringey parks

Several parks in Tottenham have regained their Green Flag Awards in August after they were temporarily suspended in late 2018. 

The parks include Bruce Castle Park, Downhills Park and Markfield Park. Keep Britain Tidy, who administer the Green Flag Award, said in their Mystery Shopper reports that Bruce Castle and Markfield parks did not: "currently meet the minimum standard for the Green Flag award and the flag should be removed.” The report on Downhills Park said that: “standards on site fall well below the standards expected of a Green Flag Award site.” Criticism in the reports included the need for “an increase in horticultural standards” and that “benches need some maintenance.”

David Morris, chair of Haringey Friends of Parks, said that funding cuts were behind the temporarily suspension of the Green Flags. In a deposition to the council on 9th July he said: “Despite the essentiality of parks, there is a growing underfunding and understaffing crisis back from when budgets were cut by 50% in 2011. This situation is deteriorating year on year,” he said.

The Green Flag Awards were regained after the council implemented an action plan for the parks. Throughout 2019, regular park inspections have rated “hard assets” such as signage, paths, play areas, fountains, raised beds and other park features on a scale from A (excellent) to E (emergency repair required). Items rated E are repaired within 24 hours. A detailed plan of regular maintenance has also been worked out for each park.

Haringey Council has had its budget cut by 59% in real terms since 2010, which is a reduction of £122m. The cuts have fallen across a wide range of council services and the council have 45% fewer staff. Klaus Kuerner from Friends of Bruce Castle Park said that: “The cuts are really biting.” Adding that: “If you save the money here it will bite you later,” and that “in a city like London, you cannot ignore green spaces.”

Haringey Friends of Parks want the council to honour its manifesto commitment to increase spending on parks and to seek additional sources of public funding for parks such as money from TfL or Public Health budgets.

David Morris said that: “Every public green space should be achieving Green Flag and it’s a minimum standard that they should be achieving.” He added that parks are: “essential, therefore they have got to be properly managed.”

The Notre-Dame fire is a tragedy, but so was Grenfell

The cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris is a wonder to behold. Paris is a city with arguably the most famous landmark in the world, but Notre-Dame offers some strong competition to the global icon of Frenches. Situated on Île de la Cité in the Seine, the 12th-century Gothic cathedral shows Medieval architecture at its finest. The building is covered in sculptures, arches, spires and buttresses; everything you could want for a building to mentally transport you back to a time when people marveled at stain glass and colonnades. To stand inside Notre-Dame is to be joined to an artistic continuum that stretches back from today to medieval Europe. 

The fact that such a beautiful building, that has been an integral part of what must have been thousands of peoples’ lives over the centuries, has been damaged is a tragedy. Notre-Dame is a beautiful work of art and as it’s a building, it’s a work of art that we can all enjoy unlike a painting locked away in a vault somewhere to appreciate in value. When a historic building burns we not only lose the building, but we lose our connection to the people who lived and died in its shadow. The countless dead who lives have been shaped by Notre-Dame, never really die while it endures as a permanent connection to their collective memory. When something old is lost, many people are lost with it.

This is a tragedy, but it is a tragedy that has to be put into a political context. No art exists in a political vacuum. In art and architecture, as in all other things in life, systems of power and privilege come into play around Notre-Dame. 

Grenfell Tower

When Grenfell Tower burned in 2017 more people died, but so far more money has been raised to restore Notre-Dame then to help the victims of the fire. The French government has pledged to rebuild Notre-Dame (as they should; to preserve our connection to history) but many former Grenfell Tower residents remain living in temporary accommodation and it is within the power of the British government to find them a home. Is this because these people were poor, generally not white and many of them born overseas? The Grenfell Fire is the greater tragedy, but it has not produced the same reaction.

In America, three historically black churches in Louisiana were burned by arson attacks recently. These churches are much poorer than the Catholic Church and don’t receive the same level of funding from the state, but there has been no pledge to rebuild these. Is this because their congregations were black and poor?

Already the wealthy are volunteering their money to save a great work of art and a national symbol of France. The support of the uber-wealthy is appreciated, so that the burden of restoring this monument doesn't completely fall on the French taxpayer, but surely it would be better if they paid their taxes in the first place so that the state can be well funded and there is enough for welfare and to protect important pieces of history.

The NHS

In Britain, the NHS is on its knees and an injection of money (or properly paid taxes) would be very helpful in saving this national symbol of Britishness. If it’s a building the super-rich want to save, then the neo-Gothic British icon of the Palace of Westminster is in danger of falling down, and will need a huge quantity of public money that it will have to compete for against the NHS. Why can’t the uber wealthy pay for that?

Injustice and inequalities are also tragedies, but they are frequently unacknowledged. They happen every day, big and small, while no one notices. Social forces such as race, immigration status and wealth prevent millions of people from reaching their potential or from living fulfilling lives but there is no major energy to tackle these problems. There has been an explosion of energy to restore a historic building and this cannot be separated from these big social forces.

Louisiana churches

There is some good news to come out of all these tragedies. Enough people online pointed out the double standard of people being willing to donate to rebuild Notre-Dame, despite the wealth of the Catholic Chruch, but not to poor historically black churches in Louisiana that the GoFundMe page for the three Louisiana went viral. This led to $1.9 million in donations to these churches. Internet whataboutery finally did some good, and many people did acknowledge the inequality of wealth and power in this situation and then decided to do something about it.

We should be angry over what happened with Grenfell. We should be angry about the injustice, the inequality and loss of life. Something should be done to make Grenfell never happens again and also something needs to be done for the millions of people living in dangerous and substandard accommodation.

The fire that burned Notre-Dame is still a tragedy as something that was beautiful and meant a lot to a lot of people over a lot of years was damaged. But we should still care about the Grenfell survivors. We should look after both our history and the poor. The two are not mutually exclusive for a caring society.

 "Notre Dame" by thinkrorbot is licensed under CC PDM 1.0 

The past is all around us: A tale of architecture in Bucharest

I was surprised by how hot Bucharest was in July. I had assumed that a city in a former Communist, Eastern European Country would have permanent grey skies and light drizzle. This, of course, more accurately describes the London climate and not the climate of a city that is roughly as far south Milian or Lyon. This was an assumption I made based on how Bucharest looks, ie very Soviet. 

Romania is the place that first comes to mind when people think about Eastern European Communist countries. It had a self obsessed, power mad, authoritarian dictator in the form of Nicolae Ceausescu. During Ceausescu’s 24 years in power he committed many crimes against humanity, as well as ordering the construction of buildings that would make the judges of the Carbuncle Cup weep. His style of building was greatly influenced by a visit to North Korea, as was his ordering of huge military parades for his own self-aggrandisement.

I spent an afternoon in the baking Bucharest July sun looking at huge, grey buildings and trying to understand the lives of the people who lived there. Many of these lives overlap with my own (there are still former Communist politicians in the Romanian parliament) but their lives seem as alien to me as those of people of Victorian Britain. The fact that their TV only showed two hours of broadcast a day that was entirely propaganda speeches from Communist leaders and that it was illegal to consume media from outside the country, was one striking fact that stayed with me. In truth I struggle to imagine that it would be like to live in such a society.

My initial conclusion, after spending an afternoon walking around the decaying ruins of what seemed to me like another world, is that Bucharest lives up to its reputation of having a lot of very large, very grey, very Soviet buildings. The most famous of these is the Palace of the Parliament, the world's largest parliament building and second largest government building (behind the Pentagon). This eleven story high structure dominates the skyline of Bucharest just as Castle Rock dominates Edinburgh. Surprisingly it is even larger underground than it is above. Just to remove any doubt, that is the building pictured at the top of this page.

Most of Bucharest's large and grey buildings were began in the 1980s when Ceausescu went on a building rampage that involved demolishing a 6th of the city. He was overthrown in a violent revolution that fitted his blood soaked rule in 1989 and most of the construction was put on hold. The revolution resulted in Ceausescu and his wife, Elena Petrescu, being executed on live TV. You can watch this clip on YouTube if you really want. I am not linking to that here, because it is the actual footage of actual human beings being shot to death.

Since the revolution, legal disputes between the current and former occupiers of land that was confiscated by the Communist government has meant that construction on my buildings has not continued and maintenance has not been done. Many buildings remain half finished or have been abandoned. This gives the city is ruinous, dystopian feel.

Bucharest has been doubly damaged, first by having a lot of its 19th century neoclassical buildings pulled down, then by what was put up in their place left unfinished and now much of it falling into legal limbo and ultimately ruins. Many buildings had unfinished facades like the example below:

The double presence of the architectural excesses of an authoritarian regime and then the decay of something that capitalism sees no value in, does give Bucharest a decaying, run down feel. This is not a city that inspires much affection. Although, the beer is gloriously cheap.

It is not that Bucharest's buildings are without merit. Many are fine examples of the socialist realistic or socialist functionalist style of architecture. Especially those designed as residents for Communist Party officials that can be found along the Victory of Socialism boulevard. These are fine examples of a socialist interpretation of the neoclassical view of architecture.

What these buildings have in common with modernist architecture - a style that doesn't seem to have had much impact on Bucharest as dictators generally disliked the artistically challenging and personally expressive nature of modernism - is that these are buildings that the people of Romania are trying to put behind them just as Britain has spent the last 40 years trying to put the modernism, of 1950 and 60s councils behind us. Our guide on the tour declared that there was only one Communist building of merit in Bucharest, a concert hall that I was unable to photograph. Many people will see similarities (both architecturally and philosophically) between the Palace of the Parliaments and Birmingham Central Library, ie they were imposed on people and stand radically against the public’s perception of beauty.

The similarities between Bucharest's socialist functionalist buildings and the modernist buildings in Western Europe, is that these buildings doesn't apologise for themselves or seek to flatter bourgeoisie aesthetic tastes. These buildings have ambition and work on a scale that are much bigger than individual humans. The monumental scale of Bucharest's buildings is their architectural merit. They possess, what Jonathan Meades has called the architecture of the sublime, a rare character posed by the buildings of great architects from John Vanbrugh to Le Corbusier.

That said, Bucharest's buildings have all the hallmarks of totalitarianism. I can see why people find these buildings ugly. They go against conventional taste, and I am not enough of a snob to say that conventional taste is entirely invalid. Furthermore, I can see why the people of Bucharest want to put their past and these buildings (which are an ever present reminder of the past) behind them. I didn’t seem confident enough in my convictions of the merits of Bucharest's architecture (or enough of a dickhead) to argue with a local guide’s summary of the city.

The problem is that Bucharest is struggling to put the past behind it because of the scale of the past. Bucharest is currently building the world's largest Orthodox Church (pictured below) that will be taller than the Palace of the Parliaments. I am not sure the solution to having a city based around a large building that has aged poorly is to construct a large building that will probably age poorly. Certainly the leaders of Romanian haven't lost their appetite for monumental building.

It is impossible to defend the regime that made Bucharest the way it is, even for diehard socialists. It killed people and crushed liberty on a scale only imagined in Orwell's 1984. Bucharest has the feeling that monumental mistakes were made here and now people are paying for those mistakes. Such is Bucharest disdain for its own past that the memorial to those who died in the 1989 Revolution is broken and covered in graffiti.

Are the people any better off now? Certainly they can’t be arrested for listening to foreign media anymore, which has to be an improvement. The transition to capitalism and western democracy has brought liberty to the people of Romania, but it has also brought its own problems. Corruption and legal disputes are a blight on their economy and the aesthetics of Bucharest.

Bucharest serves as a reminder that bringing down an authoritarian regime doesn’t solve all the problems. The people are better off with Ceausescu gone, but a lot of reform is needed to make Romania a prosperous country. Western capitalism promises more than liberty with poverty and it needs to make good on these promises. In Bucharest the jury is still out on whether it has made good on these promises.

The past leaves long marks on the present and takes a long time to get over it. People and places don’t change overnight or even over decades. The built environment that the past leaves behind is a reflection of this.