The Power of Corridors

Connecting Doors, Mobilising Materials, Plotting Openness

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3268490
AutoresRachel Hurdley (0000-0002-8729-6726, Keele University, autor correspondente)
Ano2010
Volume58
Fascículo1
Páginas45-64
Data de publicação2010-02-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-954x.2009.01876.x
OpenAlexW1530001949
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas18
Referências citadas32

This paper is based on an ethnographic study of corridors in a large university building, originally built to house local government in the early 20th century. By attending to their huge physical presence in the everyday culture of an institution, the paper shows how corridors matter. Too often invoked as iconic, intangible metaphors, the presence of corridors as cultural materials can be forgotten. Conversely, as incidental - or even detrimental - remnants of past design trends, they are perceived parts of a divisive, hierarchical organisation of space. As the open-plan office, indoor street, forum and atrium displace them in a new design for 'openness', the study focuses on the mobilisation of corridors in the daily, sometimes momentary re-arrangements of meaning in an organisation. In conclusion, I discuss how the new architecture of 'openness' might be reconfigured through mobile understandings of everyday 'openings' and 'closings

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Architectural engineering · Art · Doors · Epistemology · Ethnography · Government (linguistics) · Institution · Meaning (existential) · Media studies · Openness to experience · Plan (archaeology) · Power (physics) · Social science · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Visual arts · Anthropology · Architecture · Computer Science · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Engineering · History · Psychology · Public Spaces through Art · Social Psychology · Urban Planning and Governance