Steve: Extra Credit

Tension- tension between the built environment and nature- is a recurring theme in the class. Visual artists, along with interdisciplinary academic studies (historic preservation, American Studies, urban planning), have begun to study the oppositional forces of the built environment vis-à-vis natural topographies (and typologies for that matter). A recent visit to the Kiang Gallery (“After the Suburbs: Artwork from the Post Cookie Cutter Landscape”) underscored the oppositional nature of the growth of the American suburb, both in physical and metaphysical terms, and its subsequent “exportation” to China. The following images visually “read” the tension between the suburb and nature.

In the first image we see the remains of two McDonald’s “arches” signage. These consumerist items were wrecked during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In the sign to the left, all that remains is the yellow text box, which contained the “10 Billionth Burger Sold” (or whatever amount) announcement. Here nature’s destructive forces tipped the balance of power in its favor, relegating this particular vernacular form to the dump. On the right, the “Arches” prevail. Ostensibly, the owner can repair the sign to its pre-storm form by replacing the red panel that contained the “McDonald’s Restaurant” moniker. However, more than tension is at play in this image. Both signs are indicative of the plastic nature of vernacular advertising and the throw away components of mass produced signage. The critique of suburbia as artificial and false has weight when the representative structures of that landscape are stripped of their identity.

In the second image, the artist has created a collage of multiple perspectives centering on suburban houses in the process of returning to a natural state. Coined “Feral Houses” by the artist, James Griffioen, these homes are being overrun by the vegetation they pushed out when the homes were built. Conceived as little islands for automobile dependent residents of Detriot, it is ironic that the industry that built the car and facilitated the suburbanization of America is now in decline; thus these empty homes were abandoned and are returning to what they once were- nature. Here the tension is more evocative. Throw away signs are easy to replace- plastic, metal and lighting. However, the consumption of seemingly solid constructed homes by “feral” vegetation conjures up apocalyptic images of what happens when “man” is not around to carefully control the “second” environment he built while keeping at bay the “first” environment. To say the least, these images are shocking. The exhibition’s title works on the concept of post-suburban landscapes. What is occurring with these homes is a sobering prospect.

When visiting the exhibition, the patron is asked to contemplate the suburban landscape and react to it. While the images are the center piece of the exhibit, the literature displayed aids in understanding post-suburbia. The two books in the last image still play with the tension theme. Bill Owens’ Suburbia is a response to the late 1960s critiques of suburbanization’s physical and psychological destruction of the resident and environment. Owens illustrates the aspirations of a consumer culture that reached the apogee of its society: owning a home in the suburb. His book has positivistic overtones regarding the suburb. In a way, he is arguing that we should learn to accept and live with this landscape. The tension occurs then in how we manage its destructive tendencies. In the second book, we see a more practical stance towards the suburb- repurposing its consumerist emporia. If we are to live with the spaces of suburbia, then a reasonable and pragmatic solution to their built detritus needs to occur. Here, Christensen is proposing alternative uses for the Best Store or Circuit City “big box” that has gone out of business. As we are seeing in planning schemes and literature (Davis- Miracle Mile Revisited), the throw aways of suburbia can be repackaged into new uses- schools, medical “malls,” urban marketplaces (Planning, February 2011). Perhaps the final lesson of the Kiang exhibition is that tension can have constructive and destructive connotations. Growth can cause tension between the built environment and the first nature it replaces; it can also present new and unique uses for creating a more habitable built landscape.