“A few feet from where you’re standing someone was raving”: designing subcultural histories at Kings’ Cross Central

A place is conjunction of many histories and many spaces, yet much of its identity will depend upon how and what histories are told of it. The story of King’s Cross, in north central London, is today perhaps most authoritatively told by Argent, the developers and managers of the area’s regeneration project. Their retelling weaves narratives of urban decay and wasted land into a tale of salvation, delivered in the form of a £3 billion funded privately owned public space, with luxury shops, restaurants, and tech HQs and elite art universities, such as Central Saint Martins, as tenants.

This paper, drawing from ongoing PhD research, will focus specifically on how club cultures, factor into Argent’s historical account of the area. It will examine the role that club cultures play in the service of placemaking and in heightening the area’s cultural cachet. Through analysis of permanent installations, events, pop-ups, and press releases it will examine how Argent shapes historical narratives of the area’s former club scene, smoothening and designing these histories as promotional tools and experiences for the King’s Cross Central estate.

While ostensibly an act of preserving local cultural heritage, Argent’s position in telling these histories is contentious being that, as the estate’s redeveloper, it actively erased these clubs and practices from the area. This paper will therefore investigate how club cultures are mined for aesthetic appeal, belying the impact of these movements while also firmly rooting their dissidence in a safely distant past. It will further explore the tension between memorialising raves and club cultures in such a tightly controlled and highly securitised environment, where the same practices could not happen today.