Power aesthetics of the city

Urbanism as process and product is the source and profit of capital production. Hence the city, its urban fabric and socio-spatial structure manifest and correlate with its economy. Historically the image of the urban skyline of church and civic towers was the visual manifestation of this economy. In contemporary times this has been replaced by the vision of corporate skyscraper buildings.

Taking London as an example, this presentation will analyse a series of urban views from the Mayor of London’s London View Management Framework to argue how this policy guide purports a controlled view, and thus ‘image’, of London that exerts ideologically constructed politically positioned value systems that shape how we relate societally and to public space. These views are constructed to perpetuate and engender imaginative past state, and current and future neoliberal desires. Yet at the same time they highlight a paradox between the desire to designate and protect views of St Paul’s Cathedral and other historical buildings - the heritage of state power and empire - image of London - and simultaneously the ‘need’ (neoliberal, capitalist, economic, political) to create and purport an aesthetic urban skyline image of financial affluence and economic power – a ‘world city’ – espoused through the development of tall buildings throughout the capital and the City of London.