Duration: 2009-2012
The topic of this PhD is the idea of the motorway as a work of art. I base this term on the aestheticization of roads and infrastructure which came to prominence within the theoretical domain of the Structuralist movement of the 1950s and 60s. The Structuralist conception of the concept relates to one of the main assertions of thesis: that the aestheticization of roads in the Post war period elevated the status of the motorway from mere function to a work of art.
The project is particularly concerned with the motorway as an icon and occurrence of mobility and, more precisely, an icon of the aestheticization of mobility. The object of this study is to discuss how the Structuralist movement both challenged and pursued established ideas on mobility in architecture. How did these changes take place and to what extent did they alter the way mobility was aestheticized? Did these international impulses alter the course of Norwegian road planning in the 1960s?
In spite of the considerable amounts of research on the topic of mobility and roads, relatively few efforts have been made to analyse this turn toward a more transport oriented urbanism by looking at aesthetic terms and parameters. This will be my exact starting point, as I map and consider the displacements of these concepts in architectural theory.
The theoretical scope of the study is based in 20
th century architectural theory. The idea is to connect the theoretical core of thesis with three different domains: Pre war modernist theories on mobility, post war criticism on modernist mobility and contemporary theories on mobility. The specific theoretical framework of the study is constituted by the theories of the Structuralist movement. The European architect group Team 10 is of special importance, due to its extensive list of road-based urban projects and various takes on mobility. The work of British architects Alison and Peter Smithson will be of particular importance.
My mode of inquiry is inspired by the American cultural historian Ivan Gaskell’s idea of of interdisciplinary aesthetics, and in particular by Gaskell’s assertion that aesthetics should be pursued on a broad intellectual front. British Cultural geographer Tim Cresswell is of equal importance, especially because of his cultural inquiry on the distinction between movement and mobility, and his definition of mobility as a representational strategy. I will execute my reserach through a discourse analysis of relevant literature, through archival reserach in Norway, England and Holland, and through case studies of Oslo and Leeds.
To findings of the thesis will provide new perspectives on the motorway as an icon and occurrence in late modernist architectural theory and question the established knowledge on the matter. It will shed new light on Norwegian motorway plans of the 1960s and 70s and challenge the established narrative of the official history of Norwegian road planning. By it’s location in the category of interdisciplinary aesthetics, the thesis has the potential of introducing a wider scope of approaches to research on motorways.
Keywords: motorways – aestheticization – mobility – structuralism – interdisciplinarity