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Trade

Activity 1: History around us

Buildings and other items in the streets of towns, gardens and land layout in fields, parks and the countryside in general can all tell us a great deal about the way that people have used the environment in the past.

There are historians and archaeologists who specialise in interpreting the man-made landscape, but often the people who live in a place are the last people to notice small details about their local area. When we go past a place over and over again it becomes normal and every-day to us and we stop looking at the place properly.

Try and look at buildings and landscapes more closely. Look up at what is above head height. Quite often there are clues about the past higher up on a building above the first floor. Even the roof and chimney can help you decide when a building was constructed or repaired. The tasks here look at the details on the buildings in Corn Street. Next time you are out try and take a detailed look at the local environment and see if there is anything that you have been missing!

Images of Trade
This task is about the way that architects have used design on buildings to show the links between Bristol and other parts of the world.

Architecture can carry very powerful symbolism about the purpose of the building or the nature of the company or person who paid for the building.
Look carefully at these images. They are all details from the outsides of buildings in Corn Street which are related to trade and commerce.

A Detail from: The Commercial Rooms	B Detail from: The Commercial Rooms
C Detail from: The Corn Exchange	D Detail from: Lloyds TSB Bank

Tasks:
Look carefully at the four images shown above. The carvings would be seen by lots of people who would never travel to the countries and continents represented by these images. The peoples from Africa and the Americas have been shown as stereotypes.
This means that they represent qualities and ideas rather than being very realistic.
Complete the following tasks either on paper or by discussing your answers with a friend.
1. Describe each image.
2. How do you know that the images represent foreign places?
3. What does the word stereotype mean?