Show Apartments as ‘Aesthetic Traps’

Risk, Enchantment and Illusory Homes in London’s Olympic Park

Bibliographic Data

ID12877893
AuthorsSaffron Woodcraft (0000-0002-3479-5329, University College London, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume17
Issue1
Pages21-43
Publication date2020-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHome Cultures (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1740-6315 • E-ISSN: 1751-7427
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17406315.2020.1777629
OpenAlexW3093688227
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited26

This article offers a new analysis of the ‘show apartment’ as a device to disguise the power imbalance between prospective buyers of new off-plan homes and the global network of institutions that drive property development and mortgage-finance industries. Applying Gell’s notion of the ‘aesthetic trap’ to an ethnographic account of show apartments in a new neighbourhood in London’s Olympic Park, the article demonstrates how show apartments are an illusory form at the apex of a process of risk and commodification that disguises and normalises the risks to which potential homeowners are exposed

Aesthetics · Apartment · Art · Commodification · Economics · Economy · Ethnography · Neighbourhood (mathematics · Political science · Power (physics · Sociology · Theme park · Tourism · Anthropology · Homelessness and Social Issues · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Urban Planning and Governance

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