RAIN&MUSIC&COTTON&GUNS: transcending the STRUCTURE Part 1 Dissertation 2012 Dora Hartridge University of Plymouth | UK Sandpaper is self-destructive. Its ability to offend weakens with use, gradually taming itself and broadcasting its damage (dust) to be diluted in the atmosphere. Certain parts of the paper wear faster than others until it is eventually uniform having morphed into a new substance. We identify ourselves and others by relating to the physical. Our surroundings can demonstrate who we are but is it possible to manifest ourselves in the built environment and to claim new relevancy in the STRUCTURE? Manchester in the 1970s was a cultural void but it was this structural discard that lead to the city’s reinvention as well as revolutions in leisure, music and youth. The indeterminacy that Manchester’s identity crisis offered its proactive youth generated a possibility for self determinacy eventually inspiring the definition of others worldwide. Exposure of the 'Haçienda', this sub-culture’s cathedral rejuvenated Manchester’s structural relevance making it a reference point rather than part of the peripheral context. The evolution of Manchester has arguably overheated once again. Manchester’s new sterility is retrospective and even retroactive, associating itself with its former identity. This means there must be a new blurred definition of a new periphery. By associating with something greater than ourselves we create self-relevancy in the STRUCTURE however the STRUCTURE is ultimately a self-constructed concept defined by the physical. The physical is understandable: the abstract is unimaginable. Attempts to reify the abstract can only happen in the margins of the STRUCTURE and when its lack of attention has been recognised by the irrelevant. Relevancy and irrelevancy reinforce each other and are constantly morphing. The Haçienda can never be built- but attempts to realise it maintain the STRUCTURE. Dora Hartridge