#carltonmansionscollection

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Sharon

Today I spoke to Sharon, an ex-resident, on the phone. She shared her memories of her flat, recalling moments such as millennium on the roof of the building and the sound of the freezers from next door through the wall. 

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After hours surrounded by sheets of paper, the installation is in place and the catalogue complete. I now await the reactions of others, I’m especially eager and nervous to hear what the ex-residents of Carlton Mansions think. I want to know the items they remember, and how they will frame these fragmented traces - what knowledge will they bring to the pieces that struck me most. 

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Trial and error with piecing this together

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One of the more unexpected elements of the Carlton Mansions Collection - a selection of anarchic te-shirts tucked away amid the paper trail

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An added element - the vitrine. Parallel to the paper installation this vitrine will host some of the boxes of the actual archival material and the more ordered outcome such as the catalogue document and accompanying timeline. 

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the archive of public memory and the archive of documentary record often bear an uneasy, shifting relation to each other’

David Greetham, “Who’s in, Who’s out - The Cultural Poetics of Archival Exclusion’

This feels true of the overlapping and sometimes contesting accounts of life within Carlton Mansions. The records and the informal conversations do not comfortably align. 

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The less romantic side of creating a catalogue is trying to create some kind of order amid mixed papers, subtle cross-overs, and excel sheets. 

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The ‘Arcological’ origins of Carlton Mansions Housing Cooperative

Prior to being formalised as Carlton Mansions Housing Coop, under Dale McCrea, Carlton Mansions was know as the ‘Arcological co-op’, intrigued by Dale’s fragmented explanation of this experiment - which as far as I can tell functioned more as a commune - I looked into this concept of ‘arcology’, and its origins.

 ‘Arcology’ is a concept developed by Italian Architect Paolo Soleri. The term combines architecture and ecology and comes from his ecological design work which dates back to the 1950s. Dr David Grierson of the University of Strathclyde writes:

‘Paolo Soleri’s arcology model (architecture + ecology) addresses issues of sustainability by advocating living in a balanced relationship between urban morphology and performance within dense, integrated and compact structures. Within these structures material recycling, waste reduction and the use of renewable energy sources are adopted as part of a sustainable strategy aimed at reducing the flow of resources and energy through the urban system’

Acology - then aims to offer an ‘ecological alternative to the modern city’. One which I guess resounds with the self-help movement and the concept of short-life housing. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277126447_The_Architecture_of_Communal_Living_Lessons_from_Arcosanti_in_Arizona

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/apr/10/paolo-soleri-architect-dies-93

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Looking for the history of the Atlantic pub - and for information around its refurbishment, which was discussed at length by the residents of Carlton Mansions, the records of which are in the Carlton Mansions Collection.

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Amidst the specifics of running CM, the collection contains clear reminders of the wider political context impacting Brixton in the final years of its existence. The narrative of gentrification is strong in official, anecdotal and satirical items within the collection.

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The image on this policy document shifted my understanding of short-life housing. From my initial engagement with the collection and first readings around squatting, I presumed that short-life housing was largely a policy aimed at single adults. But, on reading more, the idea of legitimised squats and autonomous housing was born out of a squatters movement that’s aims were often to keep vulnerable families living together. Ron Bailey’s book ‘The Squatters’, published in the 70s gives context to this. 

Though a rosy picture here, the gradual and eventual withdrawal of short-life means this vision was never realised. 

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Ageing stains testify to the time that’s passed. 

More formally, this document demonstrates the organisation and hours involved in the administering short-life housing.

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The debris goes beyond paper - these boxes and files bare the traces of time and a status existence in boxes in back rooms.

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Restoration Details

A detailed journal on the daily repairs taking place.

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Single, homeless and desperate for housing

A snippet of an application letter to Carlton Mansions