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Museum of Anarchy: How can architecture tackle the contradictory brief for a museum of Anarchy?

Part 2 Project 2015
Tyler Holdcroft
 University of Portsmouth | UK
The project began by interrogating protest in London’s urban squares, where the occupation of space creates real and imagined geographies of dissent. The Howl is a manifestation of this conflict in space, acting as an insurgent venue appropriating space as a “Carnival against War, Oppression and Destruction”. Arriving in Paternoster Square the Howl is a critique on privately owned public space, acting as a beacon and creating a layering of occupation across the real and digital realms. This temporary protest uses occupation to engage spatial discourse, permanently changing the perception of space.

Building on this narrative, Anarchy Island re-imagines Marble Arch roundabout as a museum, where the ‘collection’ is a continuous exhibition of anarchy in action. Picking up on the historic themes of free speech, oppression and monarchical regime inherent in the site, the museum at first establishes itself with the current order, before dislocating and allowing for anarchy. The site acts as an autonomous state within central London, reflecting dissent in the capital through passive collections, alternative education and live protest, occupying the site and spilling into the city around it.
Tyler Holdcroft
Tutor(s)
Dr Elizabeth-Marie Tuson
Mr Tod Wakefield
2015
This is how it starts. An insurgent venue begins to unfold in Paternoster Square.
The venue is a Howl, a call to arms, for all those that see it to expropriate their public realm.
The space is occupied across both the physical and the digital realm, each with its own voice in this new spatial discourse.
As the Howl spreads across the city, once lost spaces are appropriated and re-imagined as places of freedom. As the pressure builds Speakers Corner’s lone voice is no longer enough.
Isolated by the ring of continuous traffic sits an experiment, an exhibition of anarchy in action.
This new island becomes temporarily anchored to the city as protest spills across the road, enforcing the power of those occupying this new Anarchy square.
The square is enclosed by new facades, which open and morph as those occupying the space reinvent its identity. Marble Arch frames the activity, assuming the role of the regime, and providing the counter argument to those who stand opposed to it.
As this protest ebbs away, its live history is left; autonomous communities inhabit the space, with access to education, resources and an adaptable framework that soon takes on its own vision of occupation.
The heavy walls of the Museum of Anarchy give authority to the space while its isolated location gives a sense of identity. Behind the broken façade lightweight frame structures allow for constant change and adaptation.
Just as the Howl before it, the Museum layers multiple facets of anarchy, providing a new identity for dissent in the city, one that morphs with the ever changing social identity of protest.
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