Workhouse of the
Infrastructural
[Counter]
Reformation
Team : Jordan Hodgson
‘Inequality has reached Victorian
levels’
'Britain has the lowest level of
social mobility in the developed
worl.'
(July 2008 - Shadow Minster Chris
Grayling)
By 2032 the chaotic urban
conditions that once helped define
Elephant and Castle have given
rise to a cripplingly disenfranchised
underclass. In this bleak landscape
of proletariat discontent, might the
British government revert back to
Victorian modes of jurisdiction,
whilst simultaneously providing an
architectural placebo to soothe a
nervous population?
Unprecedented levels of
unemployment generated by the
crash of 2008, combined with a
paralysis of social mobility triggers
the reinauguration of the once
potent Workhouse typology. A re-
branded Victorian-style workhouse,
reminiscent of a lost empire,
provides a sanctuary for adrift
individuals and the crucial
workforce required for a British
industrial renaissance. The lost
industries of the golden age are
reawakened from decades of
slumber and manifested in a
glorified cathedral to the plebeians
of Elephant and Castle.
Car manufacturing and living
quarters are positioned
uncomfortably adjacent to
bureaucratic authority, with a
constitution of rationality, efficiency
and profit permeating throughout.
A sprawling workhouse, providing a
clear separation between its
occupants and the population of
Elephant and Castle at large,
gradually inhabits the
infrastructurally intensified
cityscape. A language of sublime
ornament and excess exerts a
sense of authoritative power over
the workers, but a gain in
momentum sees the emergence of
an architectural encrustation that
quite literally embodies the
paupers that it controls.