Video: Skateboarding VS Architecture: A Study of Public Space and Materiality in Auckland City

In this video the relationship between skateboarders and architecture in the city is explored. Through a series of interviews with city council members, architects and skaters, opposing views and opinions are shared on what defines a public space, what it should be used for, the measures being implemented to restrict areas from being ridden, the monetary value involved in both preventing skateboarding and encouraging it via the introduction of artificial environments as a substitute to the streets.

Skateboarding VS Architecture: A Study of Public Space and Materiality in Auckland City from SwineTrotters on Vimeo.

For further exploration into the subject matter I recommend a book called “Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body”  a book I read while attending university in the U.K. by Ian Bordensc.  The book was the first detailed study of the urban phenomenon of skateboarding and looks at skateboarding history from the surf-beaches of California in the 1950s, through the purpose-built skateparks of the 1970s, to the street-skating of the present day and shows how skateboarders experience and understand the city through their sport. Dismissive of authority and convention, skateboarders suggest that the city is not just a place for working and shopping but a true pleasure-ground, a place where the human body, emotions and energy can be expressed to the full.

The huge skateboarding subculture that revolves around graphically-designed clothes and boards, music, slang and moves provides a rich resource for exploring issues of gender, race, class, sexuality and the family. As the author demonstrates, street-style skateboarding, especially characteristic of recent decades, conducts a performative critique of architecture, the city and capitalism. Anyone interested in the history and sociology of sport, urban geography or architecture will find this book riveting.