Article
For those University of Essex
students unfamiliar with the origin of the phrase ‘We Are Essex’ emblazoned
throughout the University brand, it derives from the student protests that
occurred through 1960 and 1970 in resistance to the vice-chancellor, Albert
Sloman, and his decision to suspend three students for interrupting a guest
lecture. This paper ignores these motivations. Instead, it will suggest that
the campus physically separated itself from the public, creating what can be
referred to as a ‘campus sphere’, which caused political, ideological, and
social isolation from the affairs of those outside. The protestors were then
seen to be using the campus as a tool to forward the views of the wider
community of students by further isolating the space and using the legitimacy
of the crowd. Ultimately, what lay behind the unrest was the University
architecture, which infused the day to day lives of students and encapsulated
an atmosphere of challenge and expression through the physical architecture,
which held within it a fundamental undertone of urban decay and social unrest
that motivated the politics of the 60s and 70s.
The phrase ‘Rebels with a
cause’ has become an integral message within the brand of the University,
finding itself emblazoned on Essex merchandise, buildings, and prospectuses,
and is core to the University’s marketing efforts. The University has captured
the history of protest within its vision, becoming an integral part of both the
life of students and the nature of research, encouraging new ways of thinking
and interpreting
. In a similar suit, the recent
popularity in studying the history of physical spaces has contributed many new
approaches for social and cultural historians. In Courtney Campbell’s (2016,
p.1) examination of
Past and Present,
she notes how ‘spatial history can serve as methodology, approach and object’,
which has led historians to explore aspects of space in new and innovative
ways.
This paper does not intend to break new grounds within the theories
of social and cultural history. Instead, it utilises a microhistorical approach
to indicate how the protestors ‘construed the world, invested it with meaning,
and infused it with emotion’ (Darnton, 2009, p.3).
The foundations of this study
are rooted, literally, in the University of Essex’s foundations. There is an
important psychological undertone related to the University architecture, which
is known amongst architectural experts as ‘Brutalism’. At its simplest,
Brutalism encompasses buildings with unusual shapes, massive forms, and heavy
looking materials (Waters, 2017), which tends to be concrete, and conceals ‘a
subtle gamut of textures and colours’ (Calder, 2016, p.5). Many scholars, like
Elain Harwood, understand Brutalist designers as driven by ‘optimism and
endeavour’ (Harwood, 2015, p.xxxi), and similarly Barnabas Calder explores how
Brutalism captured an ‘unapologetic strength’, and inspired the ‘dazzling
confidence of their designers in making their substantial mark’ (Calder, 2016,
p.3). This sense of energy and optimism underpinned a design philosophy that
encapsulated themes of progression and forward thinking with limited resources,
and a defiance of traditional conceptions. Brutalism encompasses a notion of
political undertones due to its use of concrete, a relatively cheap material
used to build new blocks for bombed areas of London’s East End, representing a
‘social ideology’ reminiscent of the Labour party’s forwarding of social
housing and acting towards a more ‘utopian ideology’ (Harwood, 2015, p.7).
Either way, the scholarly consensus implies that Brutalism inspired a new sense
of architectural optimism following the Second World War, and indicates that
the students were constantly surrounded by bold, new, innovative and ‘fierce’
design that underpinned their day to day lives. Another, slightly different
interpretation as to the Brutalist design choice is the idea that ‘brutalist
structures came to be associated with the blight of urban decay’ (Chadwick,
2016, p.7). Brutalism therefore encapsulated elements of society that were
socially contested, implying that students’ lives were constantly surrounded by
the ideas that inspired the building of Brutalist structures in the first
place, serving as a constant reminder of the social and political challenges
that symbolised the time.
In order to develop a
conception of the power of the architecture, the implicit psychological
connection between the architectural and emotional thoughts of those subjected
to the environment must be understood. The most apt connection between the
environment and the psychological mind-set comes from Yi-Fu Tuan, who wrote
that ‘human beings not only discern geometric patterns in nature and create
abstract spaces in the mind, they also try to embody their feelings, images,
thoughts in tangible material. The result is sculptural and architectural
space,’ (Tuan, 1977, p.17). She also wrote about how people develop
‘strong feelings for space and spatial qualities’ through
‘kinaesthesia, sight, and touch’
(Tuan, 1977, p.12)
, suggesting that the physicalities of an environment
contribute to emotion, connection, and human actions within a space. This is
reflected within the context of the University of Essex, whereby an edition of
t
he
Times Educational Supplement
contemplated: ‘has the Brutalism of the campus architecture helped to provoke
demonstrations like these?’ (Doe, 1974). This suggests that the protestor’s
mind-sets were underpinned by the very notion of the brutalist architecture.
This implies that it is not an entirely original idea to suggest that the
campus further enlivened the University protests, and that Brutalism was held
to some account to have been a cause.
By
consolidating the conceptions of Brutalism with the theory of space presented
by Tuan, there existed a psychological affiliation amongst students
towards the environment which permeated the day to day life of the campus.
Undertones of unapologetic strength, social
decay, and ‘something fierce’ – the slogan attached to the University’s
architecture - were cemented within the collective psyche of the student body.
As Peter Chadwick notes, there
is also a more physical explanation for the function of Brutalism in the
protests: ‘as they decayed the buildings became targets for vandalism and
graffiti’ (Chadwick, 2016, p.7). While this approach is based in the idea of
the longer-term decay of the buildings, the practical element of the flat
shapes and large blank areas suggests architecture that is comparable to a
canvas and a means of expression of ideas and beliefs. Using this analysis,
Brutalism can be understood as a
means
of expression as well as a
cause
of
expression. Archival evidence favours this interpretation, as newspapers tended
to observe graffiti appearing throughout the campus, with one notable example (
Wyvern Newspapers
, 1968b) being ‘where
has all the knowledge gone? Longtime passing…’Brutalism instilled a mind-set
with the constant presence of expression and enabled students of the protest to
‘leave a mark’ of the movement on the campus, thus utilising the physical
surroundings of the campus as a means of expression.
Indeed, architectural factors
have a strong behavioural influence within the University of Essex. Many
scholars have discussed the importance of the physicality of space and its
impact on human behaviour. One such idea comes from Richard Sennett, who has
noted the paradox of space and behaviour, writing that ‘people are more
sociable, the more they have some tangible barriers between them, just as they
need specific places in public whose sole purpose is to bring them together (…)
Human beings need to have some distance from intimate observation by others to
feel sociable’ (Sennett, 1974, p.15). This is applicable to the University of
Essex, which can represent an embodiment of not only this theory, but of this
paradox. This was embodied within the original vision of the University, which
rested on ‘intimacy through small groups for teaching and living and through
the architecture’ (Sloman, 1964, p.16). This suggests that the seminar embodied
the tangible barriers, the corners of the corridors and the right angles, which
created intimate interactions between academics and students. These
architectural elements opened out into huge squares that brought each corridor
and every student together. Furthermore, Sloman’s vision (Sloman, 1964, p.63)
intended
the ‘whole centre of the
University to be vital and alive with students and staff long into the
evenings’, which implies that architectural design was intended to affect
student behaviour at all times of the day, and that the architecture encouraged
a high degree of sociability. This recalls the communal areas of discussion
about which Habermas (1989, p.59) wrote: the ‘coffee houses’, which were
‘seedbeds of political unrest’, used as a means to ‘censure and defame the
proceedings of the State’. When looking through the Wyvern collection, the
squares were undoubtedly the space of expression that centred large meetings of
students and were the epicentres of unrest. This phenomenon is particularly
noted in (W
yvern Newspapers
, 1969)
the first days of the ‘revolutionary festival’ for which one of the University
squares featured prominently.
The action of invading space is
particularly important when distinguishing between a public and a private
sphere, as it indicates students challenging the preconceived notions of public
and private space as a means of protest. A poignant example of this breach of
the private sphere came across in an article (
Wyvern Newspapers
, 1968a) that recorded students marching to the
Lakeside House and demanding to speak with the Vice-Chancellor. With no luck,
they ‘presented the petition to a frightened Mrs Sloman and a guardian porter’.
It is particularly notable that the article chose to mention Mrs Sloman, as it
uses the closeness of women to the private sphere to emphasise the significance
of the breach. Mrs Sloman is also rarely mentioned in terms of university
management, which further emphasises a breach of a clearly separated private
sphere. The notion of public and private space is best understood in terms of
work by Don Slater (cited in Jenks, 1998, p.146), who notes the Bourgeois
idealization of ‘home as ‘haven’ from the public world’ noting how the private
became seen as ‘virtually a sacred place which was filled with all the emotion,
security, solidarity, continuity, substantive values and moral cohesion that
had been squeezed out of the public world’. The protesters used this notion,
deliberately ignoring the private sphere’s quasi-religious significance to
express a deeply felt political emotion.
In these instances, the
breaching of space is performed not by individuals, but by groups that possess
communal ideals of the campus as a place within the wider student community.
Here we can return to the work of Yi-Fu Tuan (1977, p.12) who distinguishes
between space and place from a perspective of values, noting that ‘place is a
special kind of object. It is a concretion of value, though not a valued thing
that can be handled or carried about easily; it is an object in which one can dwell.
Space… is given by the ability to move’. This underpins the idea that a place
is somewhere in which one’s fundamental ideals, motivations, beliefs, and basis
for action are intertwined.
Butz and Eyles (1997, p.4)
identify the idea that ‘place necessarily locates activities and has meaning as
an area for social activities or for the expression of sentiments,’
noting
the value of the ability of expression, and the ability to use a place for the
articulation of societal ideals. But they further note that ‘places are often
constituted by the people who live in them’ (Butz and Eyles, 1997, p.4), which
aids in our interpretation of the differences in student and staff attitude.
The simple action of having students
living
on campus rather than commuting in suggests that there was an increased
likelihood for the development of a sense of place, and a more significant
concretion of values within a ‘special kind’ of place, much more so than those
who commuted in for daytime work. The student body therefore possessed the
means by which to develop relationships between Habermas’s key elements of
‘communicative action, instrumental action and life world [which would] help
clarify the ways that place, community and senses of place are integrated,’
(Butz and Eyles, 1997, p.5) and therefore further help to develop a stronger
sense of place. This is explicitly important to the University of Essex because
it directly echoes Albert Sloman’s (1964, p.67) original vision for the
University. Sloman himself lectured on the subject of the integration of
different aspects of one life, stating that ‘just as we have tried to avoid the
division between a student’s working and social activities, so the teaching and
living buildings are, as far as possible, integrated.’ The values held within
the students’ home, work, and social lives therefore amalgamated, and
underpinned many of the motivations within the University protests. Students
therefore saw little if any distinction between these separate elements of
their lives, and could be said to have developed a much stronger sense of place
than the staff.
This notion of students living,
and therefore developing a stronger sense of place, can be seen to have
hastened the campus to become its own individual, ideologically and politically
isolated sphere. Sloman (1964, p.69) predicted from the outset that this could
occur, writing: ‘For some years the University is bound to be more cut off from
the community than if it were in a town, and it could easily become cloistered
and introverted’. Sloman foresaw a geographic isolation, but also an implicit
political or ideological isolation between the students and the University, and
the public who did not interact with the campus. Archival sources provide
evidence that Sloman’s fear did indeed culminate in negative reactions to the
protests from the more separate public, as one concerned local resident
submitted a letter to the
Essex County
Standard
(Long, 1974): ‘Our task as local ratepayers is to support the good
work being done at Wivenhoe park and to take pride in the University’s academic
reputation’. Certain other readers would claim that the University was viewed
as a ‘concrete jungle, a fit place for animals’. Additionally, this separation
is observable from the student perspective, as in another newspaper (Venning,
1974) the student’s union is reported to have placed a ‘blacklist’ on the
University, with the intention of preventing further sixth form intake into the
University. An edition of the
Colchester
Express
(
Colchester Express
1974)
noted students’ threats, such as: ‘look for another job, we are going to close
this university’ and ‘we would use all our resources to ensure that all
students go elsewhere to study’. This halted essential financial lifelines and
reinforced the values and beliefs of the community space, which emphasised the
idea of the campus as ‘a centre of felt value, centres of experience and
aspirations of people’ (Butz and Eyles, 1997, p.2). Therefore, the campus was
doubly isolated. It forcibly chained the values of each individual student
together in one common campus goal, and it then used this to create a distinct
physical barrier to clearly separate itself as a campus from the outside
public.
The University of Essex campus
was a tool of the protestors through the protests of the 60s and 70s. The
metaphorical isolation became physical with the use of pickets, preventing the
normality of campus and binding each and every student together in one unified
cause against the political and social systems imposed upon them. Spatial
history also contributes to explaining the psychological motivations behind the
atmosphere of the protests, as architectural experts acknowledge the meaning of
strength and social degradation represented by the concrete of Brutalism, and
how, if interpreted as a psychological manifestation of shapes and emotions, it
can be seen as the manifestation of societal unrest that penetrated the
mind-set of those living within its boundaries. A microhistorical approach has
enabled a brief interpretation of the events of the University of Essex
protests and shown how they contribute to the wider literature in social and
cultural history.