Abstract
This chapter sets out a relationship between Walter Benjamin and Jean Baudrillard that is then used to inform a reading of a contemporary urban space: The Sage, Gateshead, one of a number of flagship buildings built since the Millennium in the UK, seeking to revitalize the iconography of former industrial cities. In the case of The Sage, a recent addition to the Tyneside1 skyline completed in 2004 and designed by ‘starchitect’ Sir Norman Foster, what is offered is both a striking insertion of a novel architectural form, and a staging of cultural experience in its function as a concert hall. Historically, the fortunes of the local area were established through a triumvirate of heavy industries. Coal mining, in particular, provided the economic underpinning to the region since at least the 13th century, and the River Tyne gifted the region with the means to transport this fuel with relative ease down the east coast to the lucrative markets of the south and, most importantly, London.
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Thompson, Z. (2010). Erasing the Traces, Tracing Erasures: Cultural Memory and Belonging in Newcastle/Gateshead, UK. In: Pusca, A.M. (eds) Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Change. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230277960_3
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