The Permanence of Temporary Urbanism

Mara Ferreri is an urban and cultural geographer. She is VC Research Fellow in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at Northumbria University, UK, and is the co-author of Notes from the Temporary City (Public Works, 2016).

Chapter 1. Temporary urbanism: a situated approach
Reclaiming spaces and the role of temporariness
The trope of temporariness as 'alterity'
For a situated approach to temporary urbanism
'Post-crisis' London
The book's questions
Chapter 2. The entangled field of temporary urbanism
The emergence of a discourse
Countering recessional perceptions
'Creative' fillers
Art showcasing to the world: pop-up in the shadow of the 2012 Games
The rise of the pop-up intermediary
Meanwhilers: a clever rebranding
The Meanwhile London Competition
Enrolling urban professionals in the shift to austerity
The unresolved question of unlawful occupations
Conclusion: the primacy of property
Chapter 3. 'Not a pop-up!'
The experience of performers and visual artists
A well-established history
'Provided you can beg, steal or borrow a space'
Group+Work and 1990s myths in public commissioning
Pop-ups in Westminster
ArtEvict in 'forgotten spaces'
Settling down in Hackney Wick Fish Island?
Pop-up spaces as festivals and digital arts incubators
Conclusions: in the cracks of the creative city promise
Chapter 4. Staging temporary spaces
Experiential economies and the performativity of urban activation
The Elephant as a site for 'community engagement'
Studio at the Elephant
A strategy of open programming
Visibility for recognition
Mediating face-to-face interactions
Empowerment for surrender?
Conclusions: the openness of agonistic encounters
Chapter 5. Planning a temporary city of on-demand communities
Temporariness in planning at times of austerity
'Stitching the fringes' before and after the Olympics
Learning from Others: interim uses as urban 'testing sites'
Vacant land and setting up a temporary community hub
Young people and the 'two communities'
Risky grassroots
Temporary 'urban vitality' in the LLDC Local Plan (2015-2031)
'Seeding' long-term uses
Learning to become 'on-demand communities'
Conclusions: the risk of planned precarization
Chapter 6. The normalisation of temporariness
Underused spaces as a 'problem'
The projective logic
Ephemeral architectures
Permanent 'times of uncertainty'
Tactical or precarious acting?
Precarity as temporal foreclosure
Conclusion: reclaiming urban space-time after the pop up
Index
Bibliography