The Equi-Phallic Alliance and Poetry Field Club have a particular interest in the Tricorn as a 'psychic component of space'. These components - which are mostly symbolic - are used in the construction of 'places'. So, physical objects are dematerialised by the state into symbols, from which a conceptual prison is constructed. The EPA - the 'military wing' of the Poetry Field Club - occasionally destroys picturesque landscape features as these are used to construct a consuming ideal (nationalism). The Tricorn is the antidote to these vampish psychic forms. 'She' is 'their' slayer - cute and pouting - she minces on their 'words'.

This is what they wrote...

TRICORN UNDER THREAT!

In what is clearly a tit-for-tat action, Taylor Woodrow plan to demolish the Tricorn shopping Centre, ‘Portsmouth’(‘Hants.’), after EPA activists bombed the once picturesque ‘Marsden Rock’ (ex-’Tyneside’).

The Tricorn, which has been described as "misunderstood", has defied its function, almost since it was completed in 1966. Designed by Owen Ludor, it has proven to be a major architectural bastion against the cult of consumerism, which has so impoverished civic life. It destroys the myths of hierarchy in those who enter it, causing the rich to feel insecure and ‘equal’.

‘Marsden Rock’, which was a tourist attraction, symbolised aspects of the way in which the cult of consumerism has affected our ‘relationship’ with ‘place’. It was an industrial product, much like a TV set. Being a mythed object, it provided a ‘backdrop’ to many TV programmes, most recently the ‘Dame’ Catherine Cookson adaptations of her novels The Tide of Life and The Fifteen Streets. It was made to prop up an ideal view, a view intended to idealise the viewer, making her feel edged and placed on sainted ground, in an "Eden walled up till some time of renovation; yet perfect in its building, ornaments and perfection". The effect of this was to create an apparent "grandeur in the beating of the heart" of the viewer. We put a stop to that.

It was nothing less than the fabrication of a sentimental attachment to ‘place’. Upon the raised surface of such idealised ground nationalisms were built, over the centuries, so we bombed it.

The Press ran the lie on Thursday March 13th 1997, saying that the rock was to be demolished later the following week, on the orders of the National Trust, who invoked ‘Nature’ as their cause. In fact the rock had already been demolished by the EPA two days earlier. Now the state looks set to get its revenge, by demolishing the Tricorn, unless we can stop them. If you wish to take part in the fight to save the Tricorn contact Proles for Modernism c/o the EPA address. We have suspended our assault under ‘Wessex’ until the Tricorn is saved. We shall make it our cathedral, for in the Tricorn we are transfigured.

Demolition of the Tricorn is due to start in January  1998. We call on you now to defend the Tricorn, which has been described as "a great belly laugh of forms", as "this matrix of working class vision."

THE TIME FOR ACTION IS NOW!

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