Principal Investigator: Joe Kerr, Critical & Historical Studies

Amount awarded: £5,000

Year of award: 2001

Despite widespread public interest in and concern for the motor car, the body of existing literature fell firmly into two opposing camps: uncritical enthusiasm for the automobile and implacable opposition to it. This research explored a territory that passed between these two camps by considering the culture of the car in the widest possible sense, covering film, art, architecture, sexuality, literature, design, advertising and identity. The resulting book engaged a new, non-specialist but interested and informed audience, whose perspective had largely been overlooked in the highly specialised literature of the automobile. Kerr co-commissioned 25 new essays from writers who, in most cases, had not previously written about cars in relation to their discipline, and wrote the essay ‘Trouble in Motor City’, which chronicled the history of car production in Detroit, drawing on his extensive research into Detroit. Kerr also co-authored, with Professor Murray Fraser, the essay ‘Motopia: Cities, Cars and Architecture’, which provided an extensive overview of the long and troubled relationship between cars and architecture, and made predictions for the future of that relationship.