Questioning the Perceived Failure and Lost Heritage Value of James Stirling's Southgate Estate: A Post-Structuralist Post-Mortem

这项研究质疑在历史实践的目的论和总体性声音中表现出来的霸权真理，质疑话语、事件和解释导致建筑遗产价值不稳定的方式；这一过程往往无法保存代表重大社会、文化和历史意义的范例。它以詹姆斯·斯特林(James Stirling)拆除的索斯盖特庄园(1967-1992)为例进行研究，该庄园是伦科恩新城社会住房供应的一部分。斯特林作为二十世纪最重要的建筑力量之一在国际上备受推崇，作为他最大的已实现的住宅计划，在今天的背景下，这个庄园无疑意味着巨大的遗产价值--他所有幸存的英国建筑现在都已被法定列入名单。运用福柯学派的“知识考古学”，将分析围绕索斯盖特庄园的概念、生和死的话语：一种认识论上适当的方法，用来考察使这种从乐观到崩溃的急剧转变的寓言、差异和思想边界。是什么支持了这位建筑师的试验性方法？相反，是什么导致了这种对物质实现的蔑视呢？其结果不仅是建筑文物的大规模损失，而且是对公共资金和体现能量的不可否认的浪费。口述历史将被捕捉，用来怀疑和合法化档案材料的广度，在一致的后结构主义框架内进行分析，以揭示构成对这一遗产的经验记忆的流动的多元真理。建筑物是基于决定其对象的感觉感知的物质因素的组合和容易主观解释的社会构建的法典意义来仲裁的。前者承载着很大程度的永久性，而后者则是短暂而脆弱的。现代遗产的估价主要依赖于后一种影响，它使用任意的真理--由机构权力创造、维护和采取行动--来评判具体的艺术品；代表着一种反民主和暂时无效的制度。索斯盖特被用来挑战对最近历史的保护被概念化和管理的方式。

This research questions the hegemonic truths that are manifest within the teleological and totalizing voice of historical practice, problematizing the manner in which discourse, events and interpretation lead to an unstable valuing of architectural heritage; a process that often fails to preserve examples that represent great social, cultural and historical significance. It employs as a case study James Stirling's demolished Southgate Estate (1967-1992), which was built to form part of Runcorn New Town's social housing provision. Stirling is internationally revered as one of the Twentieth Century's most important architectural forces, and as his largest realized residential scheme, this estate would incontrovertibly signify immense heritage value within the context of today - all of his surviving UK buildings are now statutory listed. Using a Foucauldian 'Archaeology of Knowledge', the discourses that surround the Southgate Estate's conception, life and death will be analyzed: an epistemologically appropriate means by which to inspect the allegories, differences and boundaries of thought that enabled such an acute shift from optimism to collapse. What supported such faith in this architect's experimental approach? Conversely, what lies behind the propagation of such disdain for its material realization? The result was not only the large-scale loss of architectonic artefact, but an undeniable waste of public money and embodied energy. Oral histories will be captured, used to both scepticise and legitimize the breadth of archival material, analyzed within a consistent post-structuralist framework to uncover the fluid plurality of truths that constitute the empirical remembrance of this estate.Buildings are arbitrated based on a combination of material factors that determine the sense perception of their object, and on socially constructed codified meanings, prone to subjective interpretation. Whilst the former carries a large degree of permanence, the latter are ephemeral and fragile. The valorization of modern heritage is principally dependent on this latter influence, which uses arbitrary truths - as created, vindicated and acted upon by institutional powers - to judge concrete artefacts; representing an anti-democratic and temporally ineffective system. Southgate is used to challenge the way conservation of the recent past is conceptualized and administered.