Eryk Ulanowski

Throughout time cartography has allowed for the existence, through mapping, of non-place. From the mythical beasts of the Mappa Mundi, to the gold-rich Mountains of Kong. The power of these mapped non-places serves, through the romance of Otherness, to remind us of the paradoxes of life.

In our risk-averse, hyper-mapped world, we no longer allow for non-place. There is no attempt to make space for the Other. Authentic individuality, social differences, and uncertainty are rejected in favour of certainty and familiarity.

If through a deep sense of its unique anthropological place, London’s Soho offers itself as a place for the marginalised, and dis-placed of society; is it a Place, or a Non-Place? 

Due to local planning initiatives, large scale infrastructure, and high-end housing developments the paradoxical nature of Soho is being gentrified into a landscape of deaf homogeneity. As land value rises, this haven for the displaced and marginalised is disappearing; being replaced with high street shopfronts, landscaped streets, and pedestrianised promenades. 

Sohotopia questions whether the architectural proposal, and the power of the map, has the ability to bring about a shift in attitudes to promote Otherness.

Can an architecture of blight be used to preserve Soho’s future?

A new brutalist housing development of Sohotopia is being proposed to derail the homogenous gentrification of one of London’s most unique environments. Elevated over Berwick street market, the ‘High Street of Soho’, the scheme will provide 200 social housing units, local shopping, and community facilities over 11 floors.

At street level, the proposal acts as a catalyst for new programs to emerge as the boundaries and landscape of Soho are redefined. Roads become landlocked, land value falls, and new developments are abandoned and re-appropriated. Open streetscapes are closed off, traffic is diverted, and the shadow of Sohotopia casts an eclipse, signalling a new dawn for Soho’s future.

Soho has a deep history of marginalisation, blight, and severance. In 1825, Regent Street was built as a thoroughfare for the Prince Regent, and to cut off the squalor of Soho’s mean streets from the gentry of Mayfair. In the late 19th Century, Shaftsbury Avenue was built to demolish the slums of China town. Soho became an island, isolated from the rest of London.

During the 20th Century, schemes by Geoffrey Jellicoe, and Alison and Peter Smithson, proposed radical new developments for a war-torn Soho, dramatically reshaping its landscape. The schemes were never realised, but they influenced the later social housing developments of Kemp House, and Ingestre Court.

During the 1970s, The Soho Society was established by Soho residents giving them consultative status in Westminster planning policy.

In 2007, Westminster City Council published the Soho Action Plan - a document outlining proposals to invest in the regeneration of Berwick Street and Broadwick Street, the area which they labeled Soho’s historic ‘high street’, given the high number of A1 and A2 Use Class establishments. The document was supported by the Unitary Development Framework and Soho Conservation Area Audit, and allowed for major development initiatives to take hold in the area introducing large office buildings and high-end residential schemes with little or no affordable housing, thus raising land value and pricing out the local residents.

After the controversial closure of Madam Jojo’s in 2014, and the development of the site by Soho Estates, celebrity and local resident Stephen Fry established the Save Soho campaign group with singer Tim Arnold, with the aim of preserving Soho’s theatrical heritage.

Now, an Alternative Soho Action Plan is proposed to preserve the future of Soho’s paradox. As the scheme is implemented, there will be a shift in Soho’s programatic and physical landscape. As some cultures of Soho become integrated into society, they will make space for new cultures of Otherness, with a space to exist in the shadow of Sohotopia.