'So beautiful a performance' mapping gender and political space : the role of architecture and urban forms - London and Grosvenor Square 1720-1760

Abstract

In his Lectures on Architecture, Robert Morris described the three-house block of homes on the north side of Grosvenor Square as ‘so beautiful a performance.’  Performance can be interpreted on many levels.  Architecturally, a performance can develop as patterns in the urban landscape, such as the garden square, townhouse and street.  These architectural and urban elements can serve as platforms for the society which consumed them.  Performance, on the interpersonal level, was a necessary task in order to convey one’s place in society, and could manifest itself in terms of gender, class and political alliance.  This investigation will explore the manner in which architectural and urban forms staged social performance, and the means in which eighteenth-century London society consumed and utilized specific spatial patterns in the urban landscape.  The model utilized to test my spatial theories was the Grosvenor estate in Mayfair during the period of 1720 to 1760.  Demographic studies of the estate harvested evidence of a rich and diverse society in residence, which included a significant number of single women, builders and architects, and influential political persons.  This work seeks to reveal the manner in which urban environment, as witnessed in the first half of eighteenth-century London, provided spatial stages upon which to establish and promote one’s social standing, political alliance and gender relationships.

A starting point for this investigation was the establishment of those architectural, urban and social patterns in eighteenth-century London.  Bill Hillier’s and Julienne Hanson’s The Social Production of Space, provided the theoretical catalyst from which to launch this query, and the framework necessary to examine social and spatial arrangements.  Architectural and urban space were investigated from a number of different perspectives, whilst utilizing diverse social variables, such as gender and class to explore their meaning and application to first half of eighteenth-century London.  The concepts of ‘public’ and ‘private’, and their appropriateness to contemporary society will be refined through an investigation of their spatial properties.

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