Abstract
This article is an investigation into how cultural debates are staged within the planning hearing for a new concert hall in Edinburgh. Through an analysis of the hearing and interviews with protagonists, it shows how the material, in this case the proposed concrete cladding, functions within a cultural controversy, providing an excellent example of how materials are socially mediated. The findings suggest that the debates over cultural impact and elitism rehearsed in the hearing are inextricably tied to two opposing ontologies of concrete, one very fixed, the other far more open. It is argued that planning hearings are an under-explored area in which cultural policy is effected, though the entwinement – indeed co-constitution – of material and cultural issues shows that the course and eventual conclusion of these debates are highly complex.
Highlights
This article is an investigation into how cultural debates are staged within the planning hearing for a new concert hall in Edinburgh
As a result of the analysis undertaken here, the ontology of concrete is shown to be contested and inextricably social, linking with an established discourse on materialities, while the planning hearing is revealed as an overlooked site in which cultural debates take place and in which local government policy has direct impacts on cultural infrastructure and provision
This offers a shift in the focus of a sociologically informed study of culture, from the status of the art work, the institutions and ‘spaces’ of the cultural world and the cultural significance of buildings (Crossley and Bottero, 2014; Delitz, 2017; Shapiro, 2019; Tanner, 2010), to the work that is done in support of cultural projects and the hurdles that they must overcome, in other words, how the impacts of major cultural interventions are debated and filtered through society
Summary
The argument, using an analysis of a planning hearing for a new concert hall in Edinburgh, is that debates over a material, in this case concrete, become the locus for much larger issues of culture’s place in society and the shape actors want the city to take.
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