Wednesday 9 February 2011

Week 4: Researching Hackney



Ella:

On top of sorting the library this week I was given the opportunity to do some research into the history of the built environment in Hackney. 

I was contributing to a new project run by the Building Exploratory in collaboration with Hackney Museum and Hackney Council, working with local primary school students. The purpose of which is to promote the regeneration of Dalston Square by involving and educating the local community with the intention of creating a time capsule.

My job was to use the Building Exploratory’s resources including photographs, the library, historical maps, the bomb damage database and Google maps, to support the Building Exploratory’s role in the project. I’ll admit, I am not the best person to ask about maps (as demonstrated in week 2!), I can barely navigate my hometown; my sense of direction is poor! I soon discovered, however, that maps are not instructions for getting lost; they are in fact objects of historical fascination! 


Using all these resources I managed to find roads around Dalston Square which had been damaged by bombs during the war, Google maps was especially helpful in discovering how the area had regenerated itself since then. It was interesting to see that on some roads one side was Victorian architecture whilst the other was 1950’s housing. It was fascinating to realise which roads had been there for centuries, which buildings had survived bomb damage and the areas where most people had died or suffered poverty and comparing this to the modern day Hackney. I had successfully formed an overview of the history of Dalton’s built environment. This in itself was fascinating; the architecture in my own town now intrigues me even more!

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