The demise of a community

 

Historical analysis of Stretford honed in on the people of Stretford where each important event and study looked at the evolution through the eyes of those who lived on ground zero. Though Stretford is known for being the route trajectory to the city centre, it was very much a cultural hub to the older generation. General understanding of the city and social life has changed. David Harvey’s – The right to the city (2012) spreads the idea of the city changing and being predicated on an out-of-date idea of city life. There is a ‘colossal gulf’ in society. A place thriving from it’s individualism now becoming a pass-through into the city for people community from the south east of Manchester and south of the country.

​

 

Exploring the medium

 

I began to explore what was necessarily needed for a reinsurgance of identity within Stretford on a interpersonal but also macro level. What emerged encapsulated political, societal, aesthetic and cultural issues which drew the  question as Lara Schrijver’s - Whatever Happened to Projective  Architecture? Rethinking the Expertise of the Architect (2009) article displayed where ‘projective’ architecture as its starting  point proposes us to rethink the relationship between practice  and theory in architecture. The spirit of ‘projective’ architecture suggests that we rethink how architecture ‘works’. This would entail understanding the reconfigured relation between political/ societal and aesthetic/cultural engagement.

​

​

Who is the Storyteller?

 

After falling encapsulated with the stories and lives of the humans  of Streford I was perplexed at how I might represent them. Learning to listen to what the humans of Stretford were telling me,  as Graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton says is so much better then what you can imagine. Thus, informing my micro studies of these individuals in such a way as this making each story shine it’s light similar to that of Brandon Stanton’s HONY (2010).