Associate Jonathan Mann writes for the Architecture Foundation Supporter’s Column
For the latest Supporter’s Column, Associate, Jonathan Mann, writes about the Charles Dickens’ book ‘Our Mutual Friend’ and the lesson it teaches about circularity and waste.
“For Dickens, waste is unavoidably ‘over here’. All characters are linked by exchange, defined by how they view that exchange. If this were just a tall tale about the ‘Golden Dustman’ and those at the centre of the story – rags to riches, money versus love – then it would be an 800-page one-liner. But it is a sustained meditation on value, self and how we interrelate, grappling with greed, corruption, society, class, and identity. There is plenty to think about regarding our cultural constructs of value, of what is ‘waste’ and what ‘treasure’. Circularity requires that we blur the two; in his contemporaneous magazine Household Words, Dickens did exactly that, publishing articles on reclamation, conversion and reuse, a world suddenly full of potential worth.”
You can read the article on the Architecture Foundation website.
Jonathan Mann is Sustainability and Compliance Lead and head of our Environmental Action Group.
