Description
"Mrs Thatcher's Neo-Victorian Venues: Narratives of Transformation at King's Cross and St Pancras, London." To anyone who grew up in the late twentieth century, the transformation of the King’s Cross area of London – a district associated with prostitution, run-down railway buildings, and the appalling tube station fire of 1987 – seems remarkable indeed. It is a transformation that academics experience as much as other workers and visitors, since the renewed areas are adjacent to the British Library at St Pancras. In this paper, I aim to revisit my earlier analysis of the renovated St Pancras Station (in Heritage, Nostalgia and Modern British Theatre, 2011) in the light of more recent developments. I draw on Marc Augé’s notion of “the spectacle of globalization” to elaborate an idea of how the King’s Cross development appropriates the rhetoric of the “global city” in order to present an account of a vibrant, regenerating London. I propose the term “ludic London” to describe the mixture of retail outlets, heritage activities and playful art installations that make up this part of the cityscape. These range from the “Harry Potter platform” at King’s Cross Station to the “cage of light” installation, Identified Flying Object, and the Slip ‘n’ Slide inflatable, both on King’s Boulevard, with which visitors are invited to interact. I will argue that the same, unresolved contradiction continues to run through these regeneration schemes, a contradiction between reverence for the Victorian past and for the globalized, neoliberal present, which has its roots in Thatcherism. This contradiction raises serious questions over whether the King’s Cross project will be able to design the area’s way out of poverty, or if the high-end shops and restaurants will simply lead to gentrification: the working classes being priced out and moved on. In short, will King’s Cross come to represent a workers’ playtime, or a playground of the rich?| Period | 3 Jul 2015 → 4 Jul 2015 |
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| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Braunschweig, United KingdomShow on map |