Feudal Brutalism Beautiful Britain
At the 2014, 14th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia the British pavilion exhibition was formed by a collaboration of the British Council Architecture Design and Fashion with FAT Architecture and Crimson Architectural Historians on the exhibition theme of ‘A Clockwork Jerusalem’ as a response to the to the national pavilions overall theme of 'Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014'.
The Title ‘A Clockwork Jerusalem’ was formed out of the popular cultural and mythical nature of Britain from the pop culture and the works of William Blake.
The exhibition celebrated the primitive, Brutalism forms of Architecture in Britain.
It also raises other questions.
What was the nature of the society that generated Brutalism Architecture?
Does that society still exist?
Why is this Architecture appropriate in the British Isles?
The Current Status of Britain
Britain is an Island. More precisely it is made up of some 6, 289 islands offshore, inshore and inlands including 137 inhabited islands.
Source of island numbers: http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/articles/uk6.html
Therefore to establish the nature of the society that runs it currently a simple method is to examine the ownership of the land within the British Isles since nothing can occur in relation to it without using this resource.
In the British Isles all of the population are tenants to the Crown. The Crown has rights of ownership over land in England and Wales.
This applies to all the islands that form the British Isles.
In Scotland and Northern Ireland the same has been applied, via. an Act of Union.
In the Commonwealth the Crown also owns some of the land.
The Crown also has rights of ownership over the sea bed for a 12 mile limit around the British Isles.
The Crown also has rights of ownership over mining and resources beneath the British Isles.
The nature of the land of the British Isles is therefore controlled by the influence and will of the Crown.
Since the use of the land forms the society then this names the nature of the society. Feudal.
Feudalism.
Feudalism is a system of hierarchy for a society that is based on the exchange of land for homage, fealty, loyalty, service and labour.
The current status, the Crown, is therefore the ‘Allod’ ‘Radical Title Holder’ of the British Isles. The only, full, entire, owner of estate and property of all land and property out to a 12mile limit around the British Isles. All land agreements are granted in the legal knowledge that this ‘Allod’ ‘Radical Title Holder’ exists.
This establishes the total boundary of the British Isles and reduces dispute.
Other land and object agreements are freehold or leasehold.
All ‘fee simple’, ‘fee absolute’ law agreements are ‘freeholds’ for the permanent possession of land or objects.
Leaseholds are agreements for the temporary ownership of land or objects that revert back to the original owner at the end of an agreed time period.
During the agreed time period the ‘tenants’ become the ‘vassals’ of the land owner.
The 1947 Planning Act established that ‘ownership’ was no longer a legal confirmation that the ‘owner’ had a right to develop the land. The Sovereign and the State had to approve; in the same way that a Feudal Lord would have to approve; all forms of proposed development before anything could be built.
These are all agreements for land and object ownership at a location within a Feudal land boundary.
The terms ‘vassal’, ‘fief’ are Feudal terms based on the exchange of land for homage, fealty, loyalty, service and labour.
The laws controlling the possession of property under law are therefore ongoing Feudal agreements.
The British Isles therefore has run, and is adding to the principal of, a system of land ownership that forms a hierarchy for its society based on, and perpetuating, Feudalism.
This is not a problem in fact it is an accepted system that works very well in the British Isles.
It acknowledges that the British Isles are a conglomerate that has formed agreements to exist.
Feudalism insists on constant discussion to maintain these agreements and so the structure of the society.
To test the Feudalism pattern further the Feudal hierarchy of influence and will can be compared to that operating in the current British Isles.
The Hierarchy of influence and will in Feudalism
In a Feudalist society the hierarchy of influence and will can be described as Sovereign, Royalty, Nobility, Church, Lesser Gentry, Free tenants, Villiens and Serfs.
Villeins provide service to their ‘lords’ in exchange for land. They are free holders. They are peasants They are either freemen, serfs or slaves. They have a relatively high rank status. They provide the workforce in the ‘manors’ of the country.
Serfs are not slaves but they are not free to leave the land they live on without permission.
They work without pay for a number of days a year and serve as soldiers to the lord in times of conflict.
The Hierarchy of influence and will in the current British Isles
In our society the hierarchy of influence and will can be described as Sovereign, Royalty, Nobility, Parliament, local government, Church, and population.
The population provides services to their employers in exchange for monetary ability to occupy land.
They are free holders and leaseholders.
They are Sovereign, Royalty, Nobility, Parliament, local government, Church, and population.
They are generally accepted to be freemen.
They have been; through recent legal cases shown also to be serfs or even modern slaves.
They generally have a high rank status although this has been shown to be variable again through recent legal cases.
They all provide the workforce in the ‘manors’ of the British Isles.
The population are not generally slaves but they are not free to leave the land they live on without permission. The permissions take the form of surveillance in our own time through the mass communications networks. The population require names, home and work addresses, education, health, photographs, passports, fingerprints, signatures, vehicle registrations, home and mobile phone numbers, emails, internet web sites, Wi-Fi codes, personal security codes, birth and death certification, bank and credit account numbers, welfare numbers, job seekers numbers and payment information, cctv coverage, security systems, locks, strong rooms, safety and security. All this is controlled via. surveillance by everyone in the country and by set organizations passing information on people each day to the authorities.
The population still work for pay, wages. It has been also established through recent law cases that some of the population are made to work without pay for a number of days a year.
The use of money as a control of the population was the technological extension of the original barter-exchange Feudalism.
In our time all of the population; including the Crown; pay tax to the Treasury which then; through parliament acting on behalf of the Sovereign; distributes it
The population serve as defenders of the Crown in times of conflict.
The similarities relating to the influence and will of ancient therefore appears again in the current hierarchy of influence and will in today’s society in the British Isles.
This again confirms our current society is operating on, and perpetuating, Feudalism.
To test if Feudalism has been a continual or recent historical influence the history of the British Isles can be examined.
The Feudal History of the British Isles
Prior to the seventeenth century the history of the British Isles is outwardly Feudal.
Post seventeenth century, post civil wars, the British Isles changes its religious nature, its sovereign’s control, its parliament, its armed forces and its laws.
The eighteenth century is the age of industrial revolution, private enterprise, movement of the population through the state hierarchy, and the spread of commerce across the world.
The nineteenth century is the spread of popular liberalism, nationalism, socialism and consumption.
The twentieth century is the spread of the nineteenth century ideals through subjects such as civil rights, free and fair elections for government, media freedom, freedom of religious belief, free trade and distribution of property and land wealth in the nation. It is the age of Modernism. Feudalism adapting to individual needs but retaining law and order, influence and will and re-branding them to suit political stability.
The British Isles at the beginning of the twentieth century therefore looked militaristically powerful, politically strong as a nation united and economically secure.
In short Britain displayed its Feudal success.
The ultimate triumph of Feudalism
Feudalism has resulted in participation in a World War l, a World War ll and eighty eight years out of one hundred and fourteen years since the turn of the century in continual warfare.
Feudalism has promoted industrial, technological, economic, social, philosophical, artistic and consumerist growth.
The next age of Feudal response is that of Feudalism adapting to depletion of environment, energy and resources during an age of climate change.
Feudalism will be the correct form of social hierarchy because it can place everyone under the control of one person. Themselves.
It can also form alliances out of necessity between these empowered individuals to survive climate change effects on the land and the sea.
It can call on the majority to act as police, emergency or military to impose its will and protect the population.
It can directly link each individual response through communications to maintain the nation and state.
It can provide an historical framework in an age when history will be depleted as energy and resources reduce to maintain it.
It can allow the civil, mass construction of civic architecture and also homes for its population even with limited materials.
It provides a known method of survivability for human beings.
With the Feudalism nature of the British isles established the influences and will that change architecture in the British Isles can now be examined.
Feudalism as Architectural built response.
The influences; in sequence; over architecture are environment, Sovereign, religion, state, movements, individuals, information, methods, skills, technology and materials.
They are activated by will.
Each influence constrains the others through signs.
Architecture occurs as layers of interconnected signs are sensed.
The influences and wills that determine Architecture in the British Isles are therefore also responses to the environment and to a Feudal land and society hierarchy.
It is Modernism controlling Revolution.
The answer to the questions.
What was the nature of the society that generated Brutalism Architecture?
Does that society still exist?
Why is this Architecture appropriate in the British Isles?
Feudalism generated Brutalism Architecture. Feudalism exists today as the form of the society in the British Isles. The true Architectural response to the British Isles is Brutalism.
Ian K Whittaker
My websites:
https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles
Email: iankwhittaker@gmail.com
24/09/2014
14/10/2020
1777words over 4 pages