Road Rumour: Ground plans for the sky-blue city. (4th July 2018) - Whybrow, Nicolas
Abstract : 'Road Rumour' specifically addresses 'On the Road' as a theme for Performance Research journal's 100th edition. It is effectively a fictional piece which presents an anonymous document – a text + image montage – entitled 'Bare City: "We'll Live and Die in These Towns"'. This envisages the utopian fantasy of Coventry's ring-road being converted into a traffic-free pedestrian eco-zone, incorporating pop-up facilities, open markets, artworks etc. – above all somewhere that would not only lure suburban citizens into the centre but encourage them to interact and relish being there, and therefore linger (in the best tradition of the architect and urban theorist Jan Gehl). The dual form, which presents a thought-provoking item on the one hand and an interpretative framing of that provocation on the other, permits the author in effect to have two voices (not unlike the Brechtian actor): that of the anonymous proposal (a masked performance on the page) and its interpretation. The montage takes into account the structural morphology of Coventry's ring-road, focusing on its phenomenological presence as a brutal(ist) structure. In particular, it will adopt as its paradigmatic point of departure, first, the fact that it is in itself inaccessible for the pedestrian, yet occupies a prime position within the built environment of the city centre. And, second, that it represents a form of barrier in the mental image that the pedestrian has of the city, rudely blocking the way between the outlying residential city surrounding it and the civic centre, which, in an era of internet shopping, increasingly struggles to sustain its purpose as a functioning, populated public location. It is implied, then, that the Coventry ring-road represents a mistaken 20 th century investment in a dehumanising 'cars and concrete' policy of urban living.