Shaping Symbolic Space: Parliament Square, London as a Sacred Site

Abstract

The concept of a 'sacred sight/site' exerts a strong and enduring influence on the policies, practices and outcomes associated with the construction of built heritage. This chapter seeks to apply a reading of the Dean MacCannell thesis to a specific European city and on one particular locale within that metropolis: namely Parliament Square in the City of Westminster, London. The association between memory and place is crucial to the establishment of a sacred site. Westminster is accordingly replete with historical connections: it has had royal and religious affiliations since at least the reign of Edward the Confessor. MacCannell argues that, in modem urban society, there exists a plethora of 'physical divisions' such as walls, fences, hedges and signs that mark 'the limits of a community, an establishment, or a person's space'. In addition to these boundaries there are 'interstitial corridors': halls, streets, subways and the like. Within these public places are 'representations of good and evil'.

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