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Space and Culture
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A52>A6>A601>A5250>A601>A516>A52

The Ring Road as a Sublime Site?

Stephen Walker

University of Sheffield

This article proposes to explore various aspects of the sublime as they might be encountered on a journey around that paradigmatic experience of sublime oxymoron, the ring road. In common with more conventional sublime objects, it can elude our perceptual and imaginative grasp while providing exhilarating transport. Although the arguments used to push through the construction of ring roads are usually made on highly rationalized grounds and according to the logic of a systematizing thought, and although acceptable behavior on the ring road is clearly set out in highway legislation and codes, it will be suggested here that ring roads might also provide an instance where the experience of our designed environment can open up to different readings, thus broadening the ways in which the ring road might figure both as a site of experience and in thought. Although the ring road is usually off-limits for any architectural discussion, it will be suggested below that an examination of this limit case can have some relevance for the ways in which the experience of more conventional architectural settings is accounted for.

Key Words: sublime • ring road • orbital motorway • discursive excess • architecture • nature • boundary

Space and Culture, Vol. 9, No. 2, 157-179 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1206331205284098
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