the modernist x BDP present - The BDP Talk Series. 2.4 - Rosamund Lily West - Residents On Film

Thursday 18th January 2024

6.15PM FOR A 6.30PM START BDP, 11 Ducie St, Manchester M1 2JB

Residents on film

This talk will focus on the voices, bodies and homes of residents and how they were presented to an audience through images and films in the wider context of twentieth century rebuilding and replanning. 

Beginning with the 1935 film ‘Housing Problems’, Rosamund will discuss images and films of people and their ‘slums’ and how these images were used to shock and evoke sympathy and action from viewers, alongside sweeping slum clearance programmes and the rebuilding of towns and cities across the country. 

The talk will also look at how images of poor housing were used across planning documents, newspapers and a wide range of publications to show the need for rebuilding. Often these images were used alongside images of modern housing with adequate light, ventilation and facilities such as indoor plumbing to demonstrate the need for new housing. Such images were used to persuade and convince people that even their own home may need to be pulled down for the ‘common good’.

Rosamund Lily West is a Lecturer in Architectural Studies at the University of Manchester and an Associate Lecturer in Design History and Theory at Chelsea College of Arts. Her PhD research looked at the post-war housing estates of the London County Council and the public sculpture installed within these estates. She is the co-convenor of the Women Architectural Historians network of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

There will also be a short 'Featurette' by Eddy Rhead, before the main event, on the theme "Why Do Baddies In Movies Always Live In Modernist Houses?"

**NB we do not send out tickets for these events - your name will be added to an attendee list**