YUE Yang, ZHU Wenyi

1 The Beatles and the Beatles’city

The Beatles created a huge influence on the music industry from 1959 to 1969 and became one of the most successful bands in the history of world pop music. In fact, the Beatles’ every move in the 1960s has become an important event in the pop culture,music and public opinion circles. The influence of the Beatles cultural phenomenon on the city had been continuing to the present, and even formed a unique urban space.

2 The Beatles Route

The Beatles Route is a spatial path for urban tours and explorations triggered by the Beatles and their traces in urban spaces, which are developed by different groups of official organizations, tourism agencies, artists, tourists, etc. The spatial experience has an important influence and guidance and is part of the urban imagery.

Prior to the dissolution of the Beatles, the band’s activities were not limited in the UK, but also included Hamburg, Paris, Tokyo, Toronto, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Hong Kong and other cities. The above are just where the shows were going, and it doesn’t involve other cities they traveled to. Each city has its own memorial to the Beatles, some of which are the clubs, cinemas, theaters and other spaces they visited, some of which are city museums and former residences. These places are located in various parts of the city and become destinations for fans and tourists to explore the city. Many cities have different plans to help different people explore the Beatles space in the cities. By designing routes, using urban facilities and the Internet, the corresponding Beatles city road is formed.

The imprint of the Beatles in the city is still continually affecting the creation of urban space, and the Beatles Route has become the continuation and development of narratives in their cities, forming the space of cities such as Liverpool and Westminster. The path, in which the architectural space and sculpture also form important nodes and signs in the urban space.

3 The Abbey Road Space

Abbey Road is a city road in Westminster. The Abbey Road Space is an urban space in which the zebra crossing (the nearby zebra crossing), the building(Abby Road Studio), and the wall (the studio wall) are connected in series. In the 50 years since 1969, this space has been discussed by tourists, fans, pedestrians and drivers, as well as numerous urban events.

Abbey Road Studio is one of the most famous recording studio in the world. Many great records and movies have been produced there. It is famous for the Beatles’ “Abby Road” album. On the cover of the album, there are four rows of people. In a row,walk on the zebra crossing at the crossroads of Abbey Road. This is the last of the Beatles, the second-tolast album released, and its unique cover has become a classic. For decades, countless photographs and images of zebra crossings have been produced, and it has become a symbol of popular culture, and this ordinary urban street intersection has become known throughout the world. In 2010, Abby Road Space was awarded the national second-class protected building,becoming a city heritage in the UK and the world.

The behaviors produced by the Abbey Road Space can be divided into two categories, one is the crossing behavior and the other is the visiting behavior. Crossing behavior is the most basic behavior in urban street space. From this point of view, Abbey Road still bears the traffic function in the city. It consists of two lanes,the road is painted with a sign that prohibits parking,and on both sides is a sidewalk that is almost the same width as the driveway. The main body of the tour also took place on the roadway. Although the traffic police carried out a 10-minute road blockade when the Beatles took photos, in the past 50 years, in addition to the anniversary activities, there was no traffic police to maintain order. This road becomes a road that is often congested in the city.

The tour of the Beatles zebra crossing can be divided into three types. The first is to participate in the urban space set, through the zebra crossing and the street,the tourists take the urban space as photography. The background of the filming process is the process of participating in the production of the Beatles culture.In this sense, the urban space becomes a huge set. All people and cars are part of the set. From this perspective, the boundary of the space has broken through.The scope of “L” is extended to the end of Abbey Road. People walking on the zebra crossing are in the process of imitating. In this process, the motivation for walking is no longer the process of participating in urban transportation, but the process of participating in urban activities. The second is to participate in the creation of urban space. The self-issuance of graffiti on the Abbey Road was due to repeated bans,which eventually evolved into the Abbey Road studio to donate the walls for artists and fans to carry out the allowed graffiti activities. This process has also become part of the production of the Abbey Road Space’s culture. People are consciously involved in the construction of urban space. The third is to visit the urban landscape. This process includes all the processes from the zebra crossing, the courtyard wall to the recording studio. The behavior has become part of the visit, and it is also the landscape in this city.

The Beatles Zebra Line is the space created by the Beatles in the context of urban streets. It has been replicated and evolved over the past 50 years to create new usage of urban spaces. If this is something that the band members have not planned and expected,then the Beatles Rooftop Space is the creative use of their creative urban space, and directly affects the subsequent urban performances and public spaces.

4 The Beatles Rooftop Space

Traditional music performing space is carried out in a specific space. The venue of the performance will generally become a relatively independent space, which can form a focus and enhancement of the performers. At the same time, the indoor space is simple to spread and control the sound. But in the performance of the Beatles on January 30, 1969, they completely subverted the concept of “performance space”. This is a “pop up space” performance without any prior notice, more like a performance art. The stage of the performance is neither a club nor a “lobby space”, but the roof of the Beatles’ Apple Records office building.This performance is also known as the Beatles Rooftop Concert.

Such a dynamic process deconstructed the original fixed performance mode and also sent invitations to pedestrians in the street. The crowds on the road occupied the Savile Row road in front of Apple Records.This process also deconstructed the definition of urban function in urban space：Is the road open for motor vehicles? Must not be the roof used as a performance venue? Apparently, the Beatles responded to this in their own performances. The audience watching are not only the pedestrians standing on the streets, but also the windows of the surrounding buildings are covered with the citizens watching. Through the roof,roads, and windows, a three-dimensional space stage is connected in series, and each person forms a different space experience because of the different spatial locations in which he is located. In the end, the police blocked the performance to half of the show. This creative performance has an important influence on the performance mode.

In 2007, U2 performed the “Roof Concert” in the same way. Unlike the Beatles, this performance house has only one. The floor of the mall’s roof, which brings a more heated response. As the news was leaked in advance, more than 1,000 people gathered to watch their performances downstairs, which caused traffic jams and security problems in the city.

In 2009, the U2 band performed again on the roof of the BBC. The difference was that it was a “legal” performance, with advanced municipal arrangements and guidance. The band standed on the 6-storey building roof, facing the entire Portland Street, surrounded by crowds on the street. The relationship between the audience and the performers was completely different.The band performed at the top of the building, and the audience gathered on the street to look up at the silhouette of the night sky. The entire street formed a large urban arena. Since the Beatles created the “Roof Concert” model, different cities have paid tribute to this initiative in the same way every year, and more and more people have joined the “Roof Concert”.

In the 2019 Swan Street rooftop concert event, the organizers made detailed plans for the performance space, the audience, the parking lot, and the catering,which became a mature urban street event.

The success of the roof show is not only the success of the form of music performance, but also the experiment of urban space. The roof concert mode is useful for the simplification of urban function design. This composite use of urban space blurs the boundaries of urban functional division and inspires us to think about the diversity and efficiency of urban space use.At the same time, it directly challenges the urban transportation system dominated by motor vehicles in modern cities, and returns the streets (especially the streets where people and vehicles are combined) to the citizens. From this perspective, the roof performance is more like an urban experiment. Through music,people constantly explore new forms of urban space usage and create completely different urban experiences.

5 The Online Beatles

Since the band disbanded in the 1970s and then no longer cooperates with Apple Records, there is no official website of the Beatles. However, there are numerous platforms for music fans and individuals,the Beatles website, the website for Beatles research,and the platform for selling Beatles. For example, The Beatles Bible is a website created by British journalist Joe Godden. Although it is unofficial, it covers the Beatles’ music, videos, history, forums, etc., and is very detailed. The Beatlesource is a data-based website that collects the photos and texts of the band from 1950s to 1963 arranged according to the timeline;THE BEATLE WORKS LTD. is a website composed of scholars who study the Beatles, showing the relevant research results of the band, while The Rolling Stones is a music-themed website that contains relevant parts of the Beatles. At the same time, the spatial distribution of the website is not limited to the United States and the United States. For example, My Beatles is a related website created by Russian fans, and Beatles-Tour is a city musical website created by German musicians.

The Beatles’ own creative content has been heavily digitized, with relevant content in music and video sites, while content created by the Beatles can be seen as a continuation of the Beatles, such as the cave club’s official website. There is a special section on the historical relationship between the band and the club, and there are plans to organize music performances and events about the Beatles. On the one hand, they serve as virtual spaces to continuously produce band-related content. On the other hand, this virtual content is also associated with the real world. People can find links corresponding to real space through the exploration of virtual space.

The 50 Years of Abbey Road launched by Abby Road Studios directly broadcasts the Abby Road space in the real space through the webcam, creating an Abby Road space that anyone can watch. The road “virtually corresponds to the place on the streets of Westminster,through the live broadcast to dissolve the gap between Abby Road and people, and also created a space with complete publicity. Through the camera of Abbey Road, we watched the zebra crossing from a completely different perspective, which removed us from the street. If the reality of Abby Road is still tied to the urban traffic space, it tries to copy an image constantly, then in the Internet, it has completely become a space in the Beatles event, has jumped out of the cover image.

The Beatles virtual space is a re-creation of the Beatles in contemporary society. Through the contemporary medium, the Beatles in the 1970s are more directly related to the real world, and they also bundled urban space with virtual space.

6 Conclusion

First, the Beatles event gave urban spatial meaning,transforming urban space into production of symbols and meaning. The “Beatles” of urban space is actually a process in which urban space is given meaning. In this process, through special meaning, space establishes uniqueness and recognition. In this process,space is not only a part of the specific material level,but also wrapped by narratives and symbols, which produces cultural significance.

Secondly, people’s participation in urban space activities realizes the common presence of physical and spiritual space. The uniqueness of space has become a city feature, and this feature has been constantly copied and emphasized. This process has stimulated people’s desire for urban exploration. The process of exploring the city is a process of chasing symbols and meanings. The urban exploration process realizes spatial significance and cultural value. The presence of spiritual space is achieved through the presence of material space.

Finally, they redefine the relationship between urban space and urban activities. For the first time in the world, the stadium was used as a stage for rock and roll performances, to perform concerts on the roof,and then to the Abbey Road Space. The Beatles deliberately or unconsciously deconstructed and challenged the functionality of urban space. And this creation goes beyond the category of personal memory and becomes a collective memory, and this spatial pattern becomes a “space prototype” to some extent. The reproduction and interpretation of space is the process of continuous development of prototypes, and this creative use of urban space has implications for us.