Fugitive House

Year | 2003

Location | Sheffield, UK - As part of a wider series including Detroit (US), Orléans (FR), Hamburg (DE), London (UK), Dortmund (DE), Karlsruhe (DE), Dessau (DE), Halle-Neustadt (DE), Sindelfingen (DE), Den Haag (NL)

Clients | Kyong Park and The Arts Council (UK)

A 1920s timber-framed clapboard house rescued from Detroit by artist Kyong Park was reassembled in Sheffield outside the Pop Centre as part of its world-wide tour. At each of its locations ‘The Fugitive House’ is used as a trigger to raise debate about shrinking cities, post-industrialisation and regeneration. Funded by the Architecture Foundation and in partnership with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Barnsley Design Centre this project connected to a series of events about the future of Sheffield city centre.

New York architect and artist Kyong Park - founding director of the International Centre for Urban Ecology and member of slow design advocates slowLab - has focused his practice on the urban crisis of Detroit in recent years, creating several projects including '24620: The Fugitive House', an empty house from Detroit that began to travel through ten cities in Europe from 2001. 

This Live Project enabled Kyong Park to bring his project to Sheffield by reassembling the Fugitive House next to the National Centre for Pop Music. Working with project manager Gill Hicks, funded by Arts Council England and supported by Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s workshop, the students pieced together a jigsaw of wall, floor and roof sections into a thought-provoking architectural installation.

Kyong Park’s intention was for this installation to reveal the ideals and failures of modernism, creating discourses on the cultural state and destiny of each community it visited. For the duration of the project, the house was sited opposite the Workstation on Paternoster Row, which made an interesting contrast between the sleek and silvery stainless-steel structure of the NCPM building, and the worn and weather-weary wooden Detroit house. As part of the project a public discussion was organised between architectural historian Joe Kerr, Sheffield Council planner Simon Ogden and Jeremy Till, then Head of School at the SSoA, which had particular relevance to Sheffield’s contemporary, contentious ‘Heart Of The City’ development plan.

The wider debate around the project discussed urban regeneration, shrinking cities and the condition of post-industrialisation. It explored how communities can initiate grassroots urban regeneration in order to deal directly with the needs of residents.

Half the house came to Sheffield, whilst half went to Hamburg. The Sheffield half then made its way to London, before being symbolically reunited with its other half in the reunification city of Berlin. 

“I am just one of the thousands of houses that are burnt but still standing, one of the tens of thousands that are empty, and one of the hundreds of thousands that were demolished. I live in a city that hardly resembles a city anymore.”

…says the house in a narrative authored by Park that travels with the exhibit.

“We hope that people will come to see the house and make up their own minds about what it means.”

Vicky Stoddard, Live Project student, talking to the BBC.

“It provides a really good focus for discussion about regeneration at each venue.”

Gill Hicks, who worked with the Design Centre and the Architecture Foundation to bring the house to Britain.

“The project asks one thing - to think. Think about the history of your city, think about the glory days – then the not so glorious. Think about the power of architecture and its role within the regeneration of your city. Take a moment to appreciate how our imaginations might shape a future reality.”

BBC South Yorkshire

Credits

Student Team: 

Mark Broom, Stuart Curran, Jonatha Drage, Vanessa Peace, Kay Robson, Neil Sansom, RuthSienkiewicz, VickyStoddard, Jon Wallis, Simon Watkins

Mentor:

Carolyn Butterworth