ABSTRACT
Recently I used the concept of a heterotopia to examine the rebuilding of
Old London Bridge in the early nineteenth century.1 I demonstrated how this
Foucauldian notion allowed us to understand the bridge as a kaleidoscopic
pattern of meanings that reflected and inverted the socio-political and cultural
climate of London at that time.2 Old London Bridge symbolized the identity of
London. Its history as a focal point of the national road network, such as it was
in the pre-modern era, had earned the bridge a certain fame. And it had been
the only link between the city and the south bank for over 1,700 years.
