Evoking the Coalscape

After centuries coalmining is ending in Europe. Few will be sorry to say goodbye to an industry that epitomises the causes and effects of climate change. But while its environmental impact is now starkly obvious, this talk evokes another side of coalmining whose legacies and residues remain in various and often unexpectedly progressive forms. It argues that, responding to the unique conditions of coalmining – underground working practices, labour struggles, economic primacy and social and environmental degradation – architecture emerged as both site and transmitter of an intense and unprecedented level of technological and social innovation.

The architectures of coal – the collieries where it was hewn, the housing and towns it shaped, the civic buildings where it was discussed, the facilities where ideas of hygiene and fitness were propagated, the infrastructures it developed and so on – can be understood as a series of ecologies: forms, systems and connections that existed both within and across the buildings and landscapes coalmining created.

These ecologies were pivotal to the creation of what Gary suggests must be considered a coalmining épistémè – the coalscape – a pervasive, interdependent network of beliefs and practices that enfolded geologies, energies, bodies and space to exert a significant influence on the social and spatial foundation of modern Europe, including its welfare state projects and the origins of the European Union.

Gary suggests that understanding of this coalscape represents a pivotal means with which to reconsider the critical intimacies between our extractive energy sources, cultural and social lives and built environment that have contributed to the Anthropocene.

Image caption: Pithead baths at Gewerkschaft Gottesegen, Ruhr, Germany, 1930s. Image courtesy of The National Archives (COAL80/1147)

Event format and access

The event starts with a presentation lasting around 40mins, followed by Q&A and a free drinks reception. The event is hosted in our Lecture Room, which is up two flights of stairs (there is no lift). The talk will also be streamed online and recording published on our website.