The Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure: Culture, Amenity, Heritage and Industry

This research aims to understand the value of the landscapes created around infrastructure projects in post-war Britain. As these landscapes are altered, it is important to understand their cultural value, amenity value and heritage value, alongside their environmental and ecological qualities. At the moment there is no established way of looking at all of the complicated factors that are involved in changing these landscapes. There are some existing ways of assessing landscapes, but it is hard to measure certain types of value, especially in and around the landscapes of infrastructure. Together with new and existing partners from universities, industry, government and the cultural sector, through a series of meetings and events, we will develop guidelines to help inform assessments of, and future decision-making about, landscapes of this type.

In the sweeping modernisation of the post-war period, as the motorways, power stations and reservoirs were built, railways were closed and sites like open cast mines were recovered, there was official policy in place to create spaces for leisure and amenity alongside industrial development or reclamation. Landscape architects were employed to address issues of composition and visibility and the profession itself expanded in scope and scale as a response. The particular circumstances of governance and finance created an innovative and research-led holistic approach to infrastructural design. In February 2019 we held a conference about the Landscape and Architecture of Post-War British Infrastructure and one of the emerging themes was to do with the role of these landscapes to the public. Many of the sites are now more than 50 years old and their habitats, as well as their use, are well established as playgrounds, golf courses, sailing clubs, nature reserves, bridleways, cycle paths and sports fields. Like much of the peri-urban landscape in Britain, infrastructural landscapes are under development pressure, this research will provide new ways of thinking about the less obvious and multi-layered values of these sites by inviting contribution from a broad range of interested parties.

Traditional forms of landscape assessment are based on quantitative methods and visual analysis, here we wish to understand the historic and socio-cultural values of these landscapes, the things that are hard to measure - like atmosphere, enjoyment, fulfilment, wellbeing, memory and association. One way of finding this out is to talk to those who use these sites, in a variety of ways. The social, cultural, ecological and amenity value of landscapes of infrastructure are closely tied to the communities where they developed, where lots of people relied upon them for employment. As these sites change, we seek to discover how to measure some of the intangible aspects of these landscapes and those aspects which should be thought about when assessing, protecting or developing them. In order to do so we will use skills that are typical of architectural research: we will find maps, plans, policy documents, government records and correspondence, and cross-reference these to give an account of the history and geography of particular sites. We will make new diagrams, maps, drawings and models using this information to visualise the change of landscapes to help us talk to artists, local communities and user groups about how they use the landscapes of infrastructure and how they value such spaces. We will ask our invited artists to share their methods of working with infrastructural landscapes and the values they place upon them. We will invite students to engage with the research and its synthesis and allow the wider public to share their views through the production of an exhibition.

At the end of the project we will produce a collaborative report that summarises our findings and provides guidance to those forming decisions about the heritage and futures of the landscapes of infrastructure.

The proposed network in this application will benefit from the knowledge of a multidisciplinary academic team and the input of invited experts, artists and creative writers, community groups and management team. Through this cross-disciplinary and collaborative approach the work of the network will deliver impact for beneficiaries in policy, public and professional audiences, derived from the conclusions of four themed workshops and public events, which have been developed in consultation with our Project Partners, Academic Steering Committee and Heritage and Policy Advisory Group.

Through the four workshops the research will provide expert knowledge and will create a multi-stakeholder network that will deliver multi-agency approaches that generate new solutions to assess and safeguard the future of landscapes of infrastructure. The results of the network's discussions and public events will feed directly into public policy by offering new ways of assessing the various values of landscapes of infrastructure. This will impact on both decision-making and conservation policy.

Each workshop will be linked to a public engagement activity, that will engage the general public in an aspect of their cultural, landscape and architectural heritage and so contributing to their knowledge. In so doing we will also raise the public awareness of archival holdings as a means to interrogate history. It will therefore also benefit holders of these archival materials, such as the Museum of English Rural Life, by increasing the number of visitors to their archival collections and online platforms.

Through public events, such as open lectures and exhibitions, the project will help to develop public understanding of values of large-scale infrastructural landscapes. It will encourage local communities and users of landscapes of infrastructure to consider their pasts, to take pride in their infrastructural heritage, and to consider the value of these landscapes from social, cultural, aesthetic and ecological points of view.

The project will further develop Manchester School of Architecture and Manchester Metropolitan University as a major hub for national and international research and collaboration in the history of post-war architecture and landscape architecture, and will present UK-based researchers at the forefront of debate in this area of recent history. This network will allow cross-cultural historic research to be placed in the context of future policy- and decision-making.

These impacts will be achieved through the following set of Impact Objectives:

i1) Stimulating interdisciplinary discourse between academic and stakeholder groups in the value of landscapes of infrastructure within ecological, cultural, social, and political contexts.
i2) Increasing public awareness of (and ultimately levels of appreciation for) modernist infrastructure and their designed landscapes, aesthetically and in terms of their community and cultural values.
i3) Informing the decision-making in the heritage and environmental sector by defining guidelines for assessing the value and management and preservation needs of landscapes of post-war infrastructure.
i4) Contribute to a more holistic framework for land-use decision making of future infrastructure based on understanding historical precedents and socio-cultural, economic and political contexts.
i5) To encourage the use of under-utilised archive sources for mid-century landscapes and architectures of infrastructure.
i6) To create opportunities for further study and interest through the development of a new community of scholars, stakeholders and practitioners capable of articulating and underpinning new decision-making frameworks.