The Spiv and the Architect: Unruly Life in Postwar London

by Richard Hornsey

As London emerged from the devastation of the Second World War, planners and policymakers sought to rebuild the city in ways that would reshape the behavior of its citizens as much as it would its buildings and infrastructure—a program defined by a strong emphasis on civic order and conservative values of national community. One of the groups most significantly affected by this new, moralistic climate of reformation and renewal was queer men, whom the police, the media, and lawmakers targeted as an urgent urban problem by marking their lives and desires as criminal and deviant.

 

In The Spiv and the Architect , Richard Hornsey examines how queer men legitimized, resisted, and reinvented this ambitious reconstruction program, which extended from the design of basic public spaces and municipal libraries to private living rooms and home decor. From their association with the urban stereotype of the spiv (slang for a young petty criminal who lived by his wits and shirked legitimate work) and vilification in the tabloids as perverts to the assimilated homosexuals within reformist psychology, Hornsey details how these efforts to transform London fundamentally restructured the experiences and identities of gay men in the city and throughout the country.

 

Providing the first critical history of this cultural moment, In The Spiv and the Architect weaves together a vast archive of sources—canvases and photobooth self-portraits by the painter Francis Bacon, urban planning documents and drawings, popular fiction and films, autobiographical and psychological accounts of homosexuality, design exhibitions about the modern British home, and the library books defaced by the playwright Joe Orton—to present both a radically revised account of homosexuality in postwar London and an important new narrative about mid-twentieth-century British modernity.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

328 pages, Paperback

First published April 8, 2010

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Academic yes, but still full of life in its history. London can never be a dull subject, and when you add the post-war world of Gay Men in a new world - that was London, it is fascinating.

The "Architect" in the title is those who plan out the vision of London after the war. The Spiv is the outsider (Gay, criminal, boho, etc) who lives in that new world - or make it their own world somewhat or somehow.
Using ubran architecture, 1950's British films, Cheap paperback books and its industry, and the nature of the "bed-set room" is all told in a PHD manner, yet the subject is one of total interest.

How 'sub-culture' life exists in a world that is totally indifferent or in fear of them is an interesting tale. Richard Hornsey's thesis and paper is a must for those who are interested in British gay culture, but even more important how cities/architecture/books comment on a world that they can't control or contain.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hornsey is at his strongest when he is analyzing specific historical events and tying it to the cultural politics of the period. His arguments about urban planning and interior are very provocative and interesting, but at times feel a bit didactic.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and very academic look at gay men's social position in post-WW2 Britain.

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fine social history, well-written, and a solid addition to the queer studies canon, I suppose...though it reads a BIT like the author's dissertation (perhaps it was?), and I was left saying "And...?" fairly often - solid, well-researched, well-written, and, no doubt, correct (and I DID enjoy reading it, thoroughly, esp. as it's not over-laden with gratuitous academic doublespeak), but one is left wishing for some larger significance to be drawn, some 'project'...were half-stars possible, I'd give it a 3-1/2...