Jeanne Sillett and Peter Wilson recently presented to the AA a set of panels from their celebrated ‘Inhabiting a Landscape: Dorset’ project from 1973/4. The introductory panel sets the tone:
“The prevalent powers, sensing a lack of confidence, both moral and financial, in ubiquitous industrial capitalism, decide to establish a model settlement situation in the character of a neo-Festival of Britain in which dominant contemporary establishment rationale and theory is celebrated and a new attitude of enthusiasm and invested is created.
The site selected is in Dorset: at present a site leased by the Army for testing missiles and for manoeuvres , and designated a Danger Area – thus afforded considerable security and seclusion from the public…”
Amongst the structures proposed are the above ‘Triumphal Arch of Professionalism’, a ‘Mausoleum of Universal Middleclassness … Bourgeois Tombs’ and a ‘Museum of Conveniently Classified Culture.’
The panels are currently being catalogued and will shortly be made available on the Archives’ online catalogue…