This article investigates the spatial articulation of architecture and home through the exploration of current domestic experiences in Basil Spence's Claremont Court housing scheme (1959-1962), Edinburgh. How architecture and home are both idealized and lived is the backdrop for a discussion that draws on the concept of "model home," or physical representation of a domestic ideal. The article reads Claremont Court as an architectural prototype of the modern domestic ideal, before exploring its reception by five of its households through the use of visual methods and semistructured interviews. Receiving the model home involves negotiating between ideal and lived homes. Building on this idea, the article contributes with a focus on the spatiality of such reception, showing how it is modulated according to the architectural affordances that the "model home" represents. The article expands on scholarship on architecture and home with empirical evidence that argues the reciprocal spatiality of home.
Home and community: Issues of public concern at the turn of the 1960s in Scotland -- Claremont Court housing scheme: Home and community design -- Spatial home-making in Claremont Court: negotiating the ideal modern home -- Exploring the construction of atmospheres in Claremont Court housing scheme -- Belonging at Claremont Court: The relational, material and temporal dimensions of 'community' -- Home and community: Lessons from Claremont Court
This paper aims to elaborate the architectural theory on place-making that supported Claremont Court housing scheme (Edinburgh, United Kingdom). Claremont Court (1959-62) is a post-war mixed development housing scheme designed by Basil Spence, which included 'place-making' as one of its founding principles. Although some stylistic readings of the housing scheme have been published, the theory on place-making that allegedly ruled the design has yet to be clarified. Architecture allows us to mark or make a place within space in order to dwell. Under the framework of contemporary philosophical theories of place, this paper aims to explore the relationship between place and dwelling through a cross-disciplinary reading of Claremont Court, with a view to develop an architectural theory on place-making. Since dwelling represents the way we are immersed in our world in an existential manner, this theme is not just relevant for architecture but also for philosophy and social sciences. The research in this work is interpretive-historic in nature. It examines documentary evidence of the original architectural design, together with relevant literature in sociology, history and architecture, through the lens of theories of place. First, the paper explores how the dwelling types originally included in Claremont Court supported ideas of dwelling or meanings of home. Then, it traces shared space and social ties in order to study the symbolic boundaries that allow the creation of a collective identity or sense of belonging. Finally, the relation between the housing scheme and the supporting theory is identified. The findings of this research reveal Scottish architect Basil Spence's exploration of the meaning of home, as he changed his approach to mass housing while acting as President of the Royal Incorporation of British Architects (1958-60). When the British Government was engaged in various ambitious building programmes he sought to drive architecture to a wider socio-political debate as president of the RIBA, hence moving towards a more ambitious and innovative socio-architectural approach. Rather than trying to address the 'genius loci' with an architectural proposition, as has been stated, the research shows that the place-making theory behind the housing scheme was supported by notions of community based on shared space and dispositions. The design of the housing scheme was steered by a desire to foster social relations and collective identities, rather than by the idea of keeping the spirit of place (genius loci). This paper presents Claremont Court as a signifier of Basil Spence's attempt to address the post-war political debate on housing in United Kingdom. They highlight the architect's theoretical agenda and challenge current purely stylistic readings of Claremont Court as they fail to acknowledge its social relevance.
