Clive Chijioke Nwonka Examines Hackney Wick's Creative Class Transformation in ArtReview

In the September 2026 issue of ArtReview, Clive Chijioke Nwonka traces the transformation of Hackney Wick from a site of industrial decline and a notorious 1985 murder to a redeveloped 'creative quarter' shaped by Richard Florida's creative class theory. The article begins with the new V&A East Museum and V&A East Storehouse along the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, institutions that lend legitimacy to the area's artistic identity. Nwonka recalls the 1985 murder of Alison Day, a secretary from Upminster, who was abducted at Hackney Wick station by John Duffy and David Mulcahy, the 'Railway Killers.' The crime was reconstructed for BBC's Crimewatch UK in February 1986. Duffy and Mulcahy received whole life sentences in 1988 and 2001, respectively. The station, rebuilt in 2018 by Landolt + Brown Architects, now sits beneath luxury apartments from NHG Homes' 'Hackney Yards' development. Nwonka critiques the application of Florida's 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class, arguing that Hackney Wick exemplifies the theory's gentrifying outcomes. He notes the impending demolition of three muralled warehouses on Wallis Road to make way for 337 co-living units, a canal-side café, and affordable workspaces. Graffiti reading 'modern brutality' and 'Hackney Keep Your Roots, 2026' signals local resistance. Nwonka calls for a periodised understanding of urban change that questions who development serves and what it erases, rather than accepting a simple new-versus-old dichotomy.