obscurer, 2006
Eva Stenram
The Royal Estate (2003)

The Royal Estate is constructed from photographs taken of all the official royal residencies. Each palace has subsequently been reshaped and transformed into a high-rise. These palatial tower blocks are then put together into one image, showing one 'royal estate'. The title refers to the real estate owned by the Queen, as well as to the council housing estate – the compromised version of the modernist utopian dream of low-cost rented housing for all, so-called 'palaces for the people'.

In The Royal Estate a strange and unfamiliar kind of estate has appeared in the landscape, where the Queen's palaces have taken on the shape of a typical modernist high-rise. It is an architectural proposal created to provoke thoughts around the issue of social housing, the aesthetics and ideals of modernism, and the increasing gap between rich and poor.

See www.evastenram.co.uk

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