Access Maps Revisited: Understanding The Spatial Arrangement of Nineteenth-Century Soup Kitchens

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Hillier and Hanson proposed a syntax of space to understand the built environment in their 1984 book The Social Logic of Space. This syntax is expressed through a matrix or flow diagram (an access map) which represents access and movement within space. As a representational tool, access maps have been under-used, even in historical archaeology.

With practical additions to Hillier and Hanson’s concept and by using theories of space and performance, we can better understand the built environment and how it shaped social relations. Case studies, drawn from a sample of nineteenth-century English soup kitchens, will show how social groups and materials moved and interacted within buildings in different ways. Places that appear different can produce access maps that are remarkably similar in terms of access and performance. Other buildings that are superficially similar, provided a very different experience because of the way access was, or was not, controlled.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow