Remoteness: Robin Hood gardens

Abstract

Remoteness commonly means the distance between things, either in space or in time. What distance is this? Distance is the length between two points, which is a quantitative feature, an in-between measurement. For example, in ordinary discourse we refer to remote places as distant places, the ones from which we feel physically or temporarily distant, the ones we don’t see, the ones that are somehow untouchable. Is this in-between only a linear measurement? In order to unfold this question, the present paper selects Robin Hood Gardens (RHG), a residential project in Poplar, London, designed by the architects Alison and Peter Smithson in the late 1960s and built in 1972. This case study is explored through two in-betweens: in-between Here and There and in-between Now and Then. “Here and There” discloses the relationship between one’s body and place. It focuses on becoming closer to or distant from Robin Hood Gardens; asking underlies our feelings of remoteness. We ask: why do we (not) get closer, why do we (not) approach? “Now and Then” presents the relationship between one’s body and time-space. It focuses on the feeling of remoteness in travelling across the space and moving back and forth in time. We ask: why do we (not) traverse between spaces and between the future and past in Robin Hood Gardens?