Wasteland in Cities from the Middle Ages to the Present ****************************************************************************************** * Wasteland in Cities from the Middle Ages to the Present ****************************************************************************************** On the 14th April 2016, I attended a guest lecture in the Faculty of Arts of CU on the ‘Wa Cities from the Middle Ages to the Present’ by Peter Clark, a professor of European urban University of Helsinki. With it being a topic I had not previously breached before, I foun to learn more about the history and significance of urban wasteland – which, as Clark poin been an area that has been widely explored by historians. Clark introduced by outlining the decline of history in America and Britain within the las Despite it doing well from an internalist viewpoint, he stated that one of the difficultie to this is from an external perspective, it has not been gaining much public recognition o For instance, Finland had cut in funding for historical research, and in Japan the support professors is in decline. In relating to the internalist viewpoint, historians are very in simply only addressing their own areas of expertise and interests, rather than discussing other. Thus, it is a non-universal language. With this in mind, Clark insisted that urban explored enough and would benefit with contact from other disciplines. His lecture therefo context and addressed these kinds of concerns. He argued that urban wasteland (also known as the French term ‘terrain vague’) is one of t the pre-modern and modern European city; being a backbone in their spacial history. Yet, i ignored by historians and looked upon in a negative light in being marginal or threatening authorities. To Clark, it is somewhat surprising that urban wasteland was neglected by his social scientists, architects and policy makers being increasingly concerned with it since well as film makers also exploring such topics (e.g. Terrain Vague by Marcel Carnes and Wa Harley). Moreover, urban wasteland has gone back very far culturally; in the forms of pain novels – notable creators being Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo and T. S. Eliot. In evaluating the problems of analysis and definition, Clark related this to issues with t terms ‘wasteland’ and ‘terrain vague’ only recently emerged. For instance, in Britain, the waste’ was not used until the end of the 19th century and ‘terrain vague’ came in 1900. Be to reference it were ‘vacant land’, ‘empty land’ or ‘wasteland’. The second issue is the q or where is wasteland? He began to determine this by looking at cities such as Paris, Prag Geneva, and Copenhagen (amongst others) and revealing the areas of wasteland and empty lan landscape from a few centuries ago. He also looked at Bratislava, in which he compared an present day variation; pointing out that wasteland is very prevalent even to the present d In defining it, Clark explained that wasteland is very much an umbrella term that covers m kinds of empty spaces. The main categories being structural wasteland (around castles, roc marshland areas by rivers, quarries, areas near airports and railways); crisis wasteland ( natural man-made disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, war, flooding); econom (late medieval contraction of urban populations, suburbanisation, slum clearance, de-indus and transport changes). However, despite the different categorisations, he did point out t these spaces do share key features. For instance, they are generally unbuilt and uncultiva transition and ambiguity, as well as being outside of official control. The next segment explored changes over time. In the late Middle-Ages, as urban economies r re-populated, new areas of wasteland proliferated. Moreover, crisis-created empty space wa feature of early modern towns, such as the Great Fire of London 1666 or Lisbon in 1698. Wi growth in the 19th century, some parts of wasteland disappeared as others emerged; these i embankment, town fortifications being phased out, house building, public buildings being c construction, effects of war etc. In the 20th century, the main impact was economic transf as deindustrialisation and suburbanisation, as well as flight population, which became a m or urban wasteland in western cities. Urbanisation also meant waste tips multiplied. Clark’s final segment discussed the function of urban wasteland. One function is it often for cities; providing flexibility of accessible land for construction of housing and publi buildings. The second function is its economic resource; being used often for a seasonal b orchards, grazing animals etc. The third and final function includes the social and cultur For example, street football was banned and displaced to wasteland; moreover, it became a burial of plague victims, drinking and socialising and scavenging. Criminals also used it concealing stolen property. All in all, the lecture unveiled a very unexplored topic, thus, I left with more knowledge understand of the functions and importance that urban wasteland has had to our history. Jennifer Nee is a student of Drama and English and American Literature at the University o journalism and the publishing sector. Therefore, she wanted to contribute to iForum to gai aspects of theatre, literature and cuisine amongst other things. Furthermore, she also bel