Skip to main content

ETHNOS_APP

Home • Search • Journals • List 0

The Art School in Ruins

Bibliographic Data

ID21157798
AuthorsJohn Beck (0000-0002-8128-8194, School of English Literature, Language, and Linguistics, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK. [email: ]), Matthew Cornford (University of Brighton)
Year2012
Volume11
Issue1
Pages58-83
Publication date2012-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Visual Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-4129 • E-ISSN: 1741-2994
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1470412911430467
OpenAlexW2013513518
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited12

As the British government effectively privatizes higher education in the arts, humanities and social sciences, this article tours the monuments that remain (and some that do not) of the last great era in state-funded training in art and design in the UK: the time between the Second World War and the absorption of art schools into polytechnics and universities when institutions intended to provide artisanal training became the autonomously regulated spaces where much of British popular culture was produced and disseminated. As recently as 1984, Simon Frith and Howard Horne could still write that in Britain ‘every small town has its art school.’ This is no longer the case; while in 1959 there were 180 dedicated art and design institutions in the UK, now there are only a dozen left. The rest of the buildings have been quietly forgotten, renovated as luxury apartments and social housing, adapted as annexes of other, larger institutions, abandoned to the elements, or demolished. Combining image and text, this article explores the abandoned and reused sites of British art schools as the ruined markers of a lost future of unregulated creative practice

Art · Art history · Dozen · Frith · Media studies · Political science · Sociology · The arts · Visual arts · Art Education and Development · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Public Administration · Architecture

  • Out of Birmingham

    Open Access•B Highmore•Cultural Studies Review•2017

  • Art world strategies

    Dean Kenning•Journal of Visual Art Practice•2019

  • Engaging the Imagination

    Open Access•Kate Oakley, Jonathan Ward et al.•Environmental Values•2018

  • Cutting the STEM of future skills

    Open Access•Heidi Ashton•Arts and Humanities in Higher…•2023

  • Inside the whale (and how to get out of there)

    Open Access•Mark Banks, Justin O’connor•European Journal of Cultural…•2017

  • A New Sensibility towards Unfinished Ruins

    Open Access•Pablo Arboleda•Space and Culture•2021

  • The dance goes on forever? Art schools, class and UK higher education

    Mark Banks, Kate Oakley•International Journal of Cultural…•2015

  • Creativity and the curriculum

    Open Access•Heidi Ashton, David Ashton•International Journal of Cultural…•2022

  • WeAreViable, aren’t we? Music careers, state support, and the political feasibility of a Basic Income for the Arts

    Open Access•George Musgrave•Cultural Trends•2025

  • Industrial Ruins

    T Edensor•Industrial Ruins•2005

  • Hiding in the Light

    Dick Hebdige•Hiding in the Light•2003

  • Art education

    Open Access•Jon Thompson•Critical Quarterly•2005

  • Landscapes of Abandonment

    Roger Salerno•Landscapes of Abandonment•2003

  • Corporate Wasteland

    Ken Fones-Wolf•Labor Studies in Working-Class…•2008

  • Nostalgia for Ruins

    Andreas Huyssen•Grey Room•2006

  • Art Students and Their Troubles

    Peter Lloyd Jones•Leonardo•1975

  • The Dilemmas of Radical Nostalgia in British Psychogeography

    Open Access•Alastair Bonnett•Theory Culture & Society•2009

Citations per year0.82
Citation span2015 - 2025 (11)
Highly citedNo

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub
Ethnos_APP • Open Source Project • MIT License • Frontend v2.0.0 • Privacy and Cookies • API Documentation: api.ethnos.app/docs • API Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17049435 • Frontend Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17050053 • cruz.rio.br • Expectantes Misericordiae