© 2002 by Oxford University Press
Art, Commerce, or Empire? The Rebuilding of Regent Street, 1880–1927
1 The University of California
Through an examination of Regent Street's rebuilding between the 1880s and the late 1920s, this essay explores the tensions between the creators of the mass consumer culture and those who believed it signified all that was wrong in the modern world. Those who wanted to build a more majestic London fought hard, if ultimately unsuccessfully, to protect the symbolism of empire from its commercialization and to keep the monarchy and the aristocracy in control of London's physical landscape, its economy and its culture. Regent Street is a particularly compelling site to study the imperial influence on the modern city because it illuminates a profound tension between different types of urban spaces, the official and monumental, and the commercial. Such spaces overlapped, at times creating contradictory meanings while at other times working to establish London's reputation as visual spectacle.