James O'Leary
Book chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Architecture, Urban Space and Politics, Volume I: Violence, Spectacle and Data edited by Nikolina Bobic, Farzaneh Haghighi
London: Routledge (October 2022)
Considering both ongoing and unprecedented global problems – from violence and urban warfare, the refugee crisis, borderization, detention camps, terrorist attacks to capitalist urbanization, inequity, social unrest and climate change – this handbook provides a comprehensive and multidisciplinary research focused on the complex nexus of politics, architecture and urban space. For his contribution, James O’Leary examines the political and policy circumstances that led to the construction of the first ‘peace wall’ in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He outlines the escalation of political tensions in the key timeframe between 1969 and 1971, resulting in policy response in the form of the (then) secret Taylor Report (1971) that aimed to address problems arising in areas of confrontation in the city. The chapter explores the implications of these policy decisions in relation to the contemporary urban fabric of Belfast, with walls that communicate through their opacity, scale and material condition. Massive in scale, they generate ‘shadow spaces’ and voids marked by dereliction and abandonment, acting as magnets for clashes and riots in times of unrest.
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