Urban walling Exploring Pembury Estate in Hackney · Walls of new build have different colours - the dark is privately owned whilst the light walls are social housing · Walls function as a symbolic symbol of class bordering residents by wealth - confirmed by locking of states playground to exclusive use of private owners instead of everyone . New private builds constructed in front of the social housing hiding them away slightly and earmarking areas for demolition What does this tell us about role of walls in uneven production of urban space? · Urban regeneration is making this aesthetic division of buildings into class more prevalent Teichopolitics: a world of walls · Almost 40,000km of walls have been built in the last decade . Phenomenon of wall construction called teichopolitics by Rosiere and Jones 2012 · Always been walls in the urban and these walls create symbolic and literal inequalities at regional and global scales · Politics of building barriers or borders for various security purposes (R&J 2012) - e.g. gated communities · Two key facets: separation and protection o Walls filter out as territorial devices o Offer affordances for imagination, representation and communication - walls defend but they are seen visually · Walls effect atmospheres of light, shadows, colours, insulate from noise and set heights (Brighenti and Karrholm 2019) · Walls also regulate who comes in like city gates (ideas back to Medieval period - protecting from invaders or disease) · Historical walls for military purpose have since been used for taxation through toll roads Walls as displays · Wall advertisements extend back to middle ages using bronze paints to display info · By mid 19th century the refinement of printing processes improved outdoor adverts called hoardings in UK or billing boards in USA · Thought about as a commercial claim on the built environment · Commercial advertising of corporate companies has picked up since globalisation using aesthetically innovative devices · Verticality involved as adverts can harness giant displays on vertical structures and buildings to communicate products to populations · Countercultural efforts to prevent this through opposing identities such as graffiti - clash of territories between walls, who owns them? · Bushwick collective in Brooklyn gets artists to do their own paintings on the wall so citizens can feel like they can take advantage from the gentrification too Walling without physical walls Kettling: the body as wall · Kettle is a 30 year old phenomenon technique used by police to create a wall of police bodies to contain protestors
· Examples include 2001 May Day protests in London where Met contained protestors / 2010 student fee protests · Kettling tactic deployed in protests received criticism from commentators and parents of children involved in protests (15 year old girl pulled down when trying to escape getting hit by a baton) . Think about Kettling as another way of crating walls and borders in a city . People held behind wall for hours without food, drinks and the toilet - often