Category: infrastructure

a myurbanist rerun: reclaiming the urban memory

Posted by Chuck – April 24, 2013

preface

One inspiration for my new book, Urbanism Without Effort, came in 2010, from an unexpected find in a Seattle used bookstore. This discovery led to interviews and exposure to incomparable photographs, some over a century old.

“Reclaiming the Urban Memory” first appeared in myurbanist in 2010, when it was also featured by Kaid Benfield in his blog and in The Huffington Post. A revised version appeared in 2011, both in myurbanist and Grist.

Given the passage of almost two years, and the considerable number of new readers interested in cities and urban history, the story is well worth a rerun, as slightly updated below.

Here, for new readers and old, is the stirring work of Burton Holmes, a continued and motivating force in my work, and by inference, a catalyst for us all.

____________

the old is new again

“100 years from now I wonder if those in the future who view these images will appreciate the value of … pictures as a means of recording life as is lived in this century… photography is in the truest sense biography –is it not the writing of life in a truly universal language?”

-Burton Holmes, Seoul, Korea, 1899

The Great Recession, climate change and the quest for carbon neutrality have reoriented how we look at cities, the distance between home and work, and the role of the automobile.

A simultaneous, street-based nostalgia targets simpler times, a more human scale and an elusive world of accessible neighborhoods often lost in the memories of earlier generations.

Consider imagery which restores such lost urban memories for those who did not witness modern urban history, and recreates what political writer Alexander Cockburn has termed “the lost valleys of the imagination”.

Such “lost valleys” often grace nearby bookstores and online forays, but quality varies, and frustrates our romantic search to turn back time.

Of all available resources, amid blogs and information byways, no visual record is more compelling than the archived work of seldom remembered, but innovative documentary pioneers, who left breathtaking records of camera artistry: pictures revealing moments when people hardly understood the camera as it recorded the profound change which surrounded them.

One such pioneer, Burton Holmes, preserved imagery in unparalleled human scale, first with black and white, glass negatives, often hand-colored with fine, single hair ermine brushes and through parallel use of motion pictures from the time of their invention.

He showed all that a city can be—while also depicting the changing form and appearance of infrastructure, public spaces and the impact of this change on urban residents.

Travelogues, the Greatest Traveler of His Time, Ed. Genoa Caldwell

His legendary work, which entertained the captive opera-goers in front rows and the general admission crowds in the rear, is well-chronicled in the work of Genoa Caldwell (The Man Who Traveled the World and Travelogues: The Greatest Traveler of His Time, recently republished as Early Travel Photography), as well as by other devotees, and can be readily reviewed in print and online (including the most resource-intensive compilation at burtonholmes.org).

Holmes was not an intentional urban historian. He became a famous stage presenter, who, from the late nineteenth century until the 1950′s, inherited a showman’s tradition from earlier travel lecturers and became synonymous with the new word, “travelogue,” which he favored to stimulate vicarious interest in his art. He brought the first motion picture cameras to the Far East, recorded Tolstoy and the coronation of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and otherwise roamed the world–often to places of danger where a camera had never been– and brought home both organic, natural portraits of life abroad and entertaining still and cinematic visions to halls across America.

However, over and above Holmes’ published travelogue narratives, a particularly intentional urban documentary purpose flows from his photos, as depicted above and below. Photo-archivist and biographer Caldwell has shared hints of this perhaps subconscious resolve in quotations she has compiled in the over 30 years she has devoted to her research. An example of one reference she has found that holistically describes urban ambiance addresses Berlin in 1907.

Holmes noted Berlin as a city of contrasts, where the traveler feels the unseen presence of something fine and beautiful, and it is cleanliness, he said, that pleads most eloquently for Berlin. There, he described how the art of municipal housekeeping is practiced in perfection: “Berlin is the best-kept great city in the world–there are no backyards in Berlin, [and] balconies filled with flowers ornament the buildings, [while] outdoor cafes give impressions of cheerful sociability, and the traveler is confirmed in his impression that Berlin is a city beautiful.”

Holmes’ cameras captured far more than the order he saw in Berlin; he chronicled the impact of new forms of transportation as they were introduced to classical environments, and the resulting evolution of streets and ways of life.

BeIow is a sampling of the collection maintained by Burton Holmes Historical Collection (BHHC), reprinted with special permission and under copyright of BHHC. Caldwell has archived 1700 of an assemblage which once numbered 30,000 photos, the rest lost to the poor condition of time. A range of movie footage, from 200 film cans rediscovered in 2003, now resides at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

a mode we have lost?

A captivating horse and buggy amid Sydney’s clouds shows a morning routine now lost in Western culture today. Holmes was fascinated by the expanse of the Australian continent and the impact of colonization on native people and place.

a mode to regain

A grand Austrian urban stroll provides a model for emulation. Holmes regaled in the “superb edifice” of Vienna’s Grand Opera House, while his camera prioritized the pedestrian view.

street scenes and carriage jams

Traffic congestion took different forms, often without protection from the elements. Holmes’ photographs were rich with street scenes in world cities. Consider the different social nature of traffic interactions without doors or windows and the different sounds that graced the street.

the ascent of the car

Early in the last century, Holmes toured Denmark by car. Here, a rare car-sighting south of Copenhagen in 1902 yields to a predominant auto culture on Seattle’s Marion Street by 1934.

gathering places

Note the human interaction in a public place as captured by Holmes in Italy and France, countries he repeatedly visited in times of war and peace. Today’s increasing attention to sidewalk cafes and public gathering spaces attempts to achieve the ambiance of the photographs below.

change in the holy land

Jaffa Gate, in the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, shows the evolution from animal to motorized transport at the sunset of the Ottoman Empire. The Jerusalem chronicled by Holmes is reminiscent of Mark Twain’s narrative in Innocents Abroad.

a town with a purpose

The gold rush town of Dawson City, Yukon Territory was assembled in weeks with all the vitality of an urban place. Holmes’ many photographs there documented a new town built on speculation with a surprising sense of permanence, amenity, and not least of all, sidewalks.

the romance of the bicycle past

In Rome and Naples, Holmes captured the function and charm of the bicycle mingling with urban forms.

Holmes’ work offers a central place to rediscover the look and feel of Cockburn’s “lost valleys of the imagination” and provides models to facilitate the regeneration of a classic model of urban life–a full experience shaped not just by where one could drive in a car, but by where one could walk or ride by animal–or access by public transportation. His photographs provide gloss on features to include in new development and the planning of today’s complete streets.

The implications from the photographs are more than academic, as inferred principles of practice for regulation and design emerge. The architect can derive the relation of building and street. The traffic engineer can see inspiration for lanes, surfacing and signage. The lawyer and planner can react to setbacks, and ways to encourage pedestrian spaces while assuring light, air, acceptable noise levels and governance of private use of public spaces.

Perhaps most of all, the child in all of us is transported by time-travel to a fantasy world better than the Wizard of Oz, because the world in the photographs was real and foundational. In the end, the “film as biography” foretold by Holmes in 1899 draws us in, and challenges us to reclaim and relive the best of the city. It is a biography we should read as precedent, both for inspiration and for lessons learned from the consequences of change.

Republished in Grist, on June 29, 2011, in edited form, here, and in Crosscut on September 18, 2010, here. Thanks also to Kaid Benfield for republication in his “Village Green” column in The Huffington Post on September 8, 2010, and his Natural Resources Defense Council Blog on September 9, 2010.

Category: everyday urbanism, infrastructure, pedestrianism, placemaking, transit oriented development, urban views
Leave a reply

movement and settlement, upside down

Posted by Chuck – April 19, 2013

Last week, I participated in the Project for Public Spaces’ Placemaking Leadership Council inaugural meeting in Detroit. The event left several impressions, among them a real concern about accuracy in recounting what I saw.

In 2009, I tried to add my two cents about Detroit from a Seattle perspective in Crosscut, without the benefit of first-hand knowledge. In retrospect, nice try. Often, the complexity of urban evolution is better summarized in a single image like the one above.

As I note in Urbanism Without Effort (Island Press, 2013, pending this month), in The City in History, Lewis Mumford framed the universal dynamic of movement and settlement in cities of any era.

In January 2012, here, I suggested with an image of a “walkable Pompeii” that application of the urban dynamic of movement and settlement need not be static, and often shows ironic reapplication over time.

Similarly, in the above image of home and street, a lone figure moves across empty infrastructure in front of settlement that is no more.

To me, the remaining question is simple. What’s next?

I’ll offer that very few of us really know enough to answer.

Category: everyday urbanism, housing, infill development, infrastructure, pedestrianism, placemaking, urban views
Leave a reply

nine lessons learned from the landscape of Iceland

Posted by Chuck – February 23, 2013

I believe in the value of visiting contrasting places–divorced from the familiar—in order to read landscapes of shelter, wheels, weather, landforms and light. From these observations, our urban dialogues gain their basis, and to my mind, their sustenance.

I like to bring this purposeful travel home, first, for visual inspiration, and second, to inform professional practice regarding settlements and cities. I found fodder for both a few days ago in Iceland, amid a basalt terrain of lava fields seemingly created only yesterday, among contemporary accounts of renewable energy and epic stories of settlement dating back little more than a thousand years.

In Icelandic landscapes, in small towns, and in the resurgent capital city of Reykjavik, are scenes and stories that transcend nature, culture and the built environment. In the imagery of such places, we see scaled expressions of urban settlement and transport, both past and present, including dramatic examples of human interactions with the raw elements of nature.

Others have described how the legendary sagas that help define the country’s national identity largely lack a description of visual surroundings, but rather center on elements of humanity and survival. As a modern supplement, here is my more image-oriented summary of lessons learned from Iceland’s interplay of the natural and built environments, including human capacity to adapt to the opportunities and constraints of place.

1. Measure urban sustainability by clarity of the sky at night

The legendary Northern Lights dominate the evening. Why not use clarity of the night sky as a new measure of city sustainability?

2. Encourage minimalism that blends with surrounding nature

A small church and outbuilding on the Snæfellsnes peninsula honor natural surroundings with simplicity and scale.

3. Allow fusion businesses and food trucks in an urban setting

A branch of Copenhagen’s cutting edge Laundromat Cafe and a contemporary food truck show Reykjavik as consistent with worldwide urbanist trends.

4. Provide street retail integrated with sidewalk life

Streetside shopping activates the sidewalk in Reykjavik.

5. Use building color to make a statement in all seasons

In Stykkishólmur, an iconic red offsets winter weather.

6. Champion practical building materials consistent with tradition

Where native trees are scarce and light is variable (short in winter, long in summer), color and corrugated iron cladding have replaced turf, stone and concrete as dominant building features in Reykjavik.

7. Employ simple materials for monuments, blended with surroundings

In Borgarnes, a symbol of human significance echoes surrounding nature.

8. Foster the interaction of urban fabric with an iconic city pond

In Reykjavik, the historic town and a modern city hall frame Tjörnin, the best-known small waterbody in Iceland.

9. Recall the contrast of the man-made with landscape and clouds

Throughout the country, unrivaled cloud formations offset paving and structure.

To fully understand cites, I believe we should return to places where human settlement still stands in awe of larger forces, and to view the nascent built environment with discernment and care. For me, last week’s fundamental journey to Iceland, largely beyond the echo chambers of placemaking and policy, was a primer on the very underpinnings of human movement, settlement and consequent urbanization.

To supplement this limited introduction to Iceland’s sense of place, I urge readers to consult a wealth of available information about other, equally relevant aspects of the country, such as an atmosphere nearly free of pollutants and the successes of sustainable geothermal energy—not to mention the long, dramatic history of colonization, postwar independence, emergence from poverty and contemporary reinvention after the 2008 financial crisis (symbolized by the remarkable success of Reykjavik’s unique Mayor, Jón Gnarr).

This post first appeared in similar form at The Atlantic Cities, here.

Thanks particularly to Mark Johnson of Civitas, whose proud Icelandic heritage gave me a crash course in Iceland that fostered a much keener eye.

Category: everyday urbanism, infrastructure, pedestrianism, placemaking, sustainability, urban views
Leave a reply

realigning nature and the city, coyote style

Posted by Chuck – February 12, 2013

Successful integration of nature and the city is a hallmark of sustainability. Sometimes it occurs without effort or provocation, while other times it results from projects or plans. In both instances, the natural and artificial merge, morph and redefine urban reality going forward.

Last week, on a Seattle winter evening, my dog and I stood at a neighborhood street corner in a spontaneous meeting with an urban coyote who, for several moments, owned my neighborhood pavement with conviction. Upon our rounding a corner and coming face-to-face, the coyote cast a long stare (with those “I am not a pet” eyes I once saw in Africa), turned around, and moved on. For this feral, walkable urbanist, the city sidewalk was clearly as customary a migration route as wooded paths or the open plain.

Several recent articles address the growing presence of coyotes in urban areas as an indicator of changing relationships between the city and larger, surrounding ecosystems. Whether considered pests or admirable interlopers, they are increasingly sharing (PDF) our places and spaces.

A landscape architect friend explained this integration as a merger of surrounding nature with urban culture and physical form, two things that need not be as distinct as we might expect. In my recent experience, no longer separate from the city, an animal corridor aligned with the sidewalk, a mainstay of urban transportation. I saw a spontaneous integration of nature and the city without any “urban sustainability plan” in place to allow indigenous wildlife safe passage on city streets.

This “city in nature” is not the same as calculated insertions of “nature in the city”, where artificial edifices are more systematically undone and replaced with fundamental green. I recently saw a good example of the latter across the world, while touring the Madrid Rio Project (PDF) by bicycle. This large-scale linear park was built as the M-30 motorway relocated within a submerged tunnel, allowing for restoration of the Manzanares River above.

There, I spoke with another landscape architect about what it means to reprogram places from built to natural. In particular, we discussed a former motorway ramp (shown here) that now displays greened pedestrian space imposed on the former roadway, complemented by its elegant (and once autocentric) river-hugging form and artful curve. He explained the approach: At core, there is nothing natural in the city, he said, and anything we can do that resonates with the public and creates a sustainable result, is defensible, proper and legitimate.

Through the experiences described here, and the respective views of the two landscape architects, I’ve learned more than expected about the ways urban and natural systems can merge and redefine. Whether nature embraces the city by coyote habitat adopting urban infrastructure, or a project brings back nature to the city, such as in Madrid, there are some common themes to consider.

Few themes are more basic than the intersection of nature and the urban environment.
This theme is elemental to urban ecologists and landscape architects as well, to whom habitat restoration can play a key project role.
As championed by Harvard Professor Joan Busquets, the most sustainable cities integrate natural geography and systems into the urban fabric.
The first landscape architect is right in his observation that nature, culture and physical form–once separated, now more easily merge.
The second landscape architect is also right; multiple approaches exist to introduce the natural to the built environments, and innovation that resonates—from greened ramps to restored beaches to vertical gardens—need not honor authenticity or precedent if done sustainably.

In the end, watching the coyote’s use of the sidewalk also taught me that while there is arguably nothing natural in the constructed city, the proposition has its exceptions, or compromises. For instance, in addition to common advice about coexistence with urban coyotes—such as protecting small pets at night, there is a larger issue at play: From multiple perspectives, the role of nature and the city will continue to realign.

In fact, before too long, our cities’ versions of Madrid’s green, repurposed motorway ramp may have some non-human users along the way.

Today’s post first appeared in similar form in THe Atlantic Cities, here.

Category: everyday urbanism, infrastructure, pedestrianism, sustainability, urban views
Leave a reply

how we should use pictures to think about cities

Posted by Chuck – February 5, 2013

The actor and director Orson Welles once said:

“I dont believe in learning from other people’s pictures. I think you should learn from your own interior vision of things and discover, as I say, Innocently, as though there had never been anybody.”

I agree, and apply Welles’ point of view to portrayal and comprehension of the urban environment. I learn about cities by shuffling my own photographs—not others’—and comparing similar human activities in different places.

For me. what stands out in this case?

Four contrasting photos of the American crosswalk and Barcelona’s Las Ramblas show direct, inspirational differences in the relation between people and public rights of way. Determined, mechanistic crossings on the left contrast with the ambiance of street life on the right. Photos like these freeze the activity in view, allowing novel dissection of everyday transactions which we otherwise take for granted.

In the American crosswalks, I see the pedestrians in separate spaces, on their way to a distant elsewhere, and not part of the street they traverse. Their perpendicular disconnection with the right of way is particularly clear from my camera’s vantage point.

In Barcelona, the vantage point on a walking street merges with the activity around it. There is a unity of people with their surroundings, and stares are not empty, but engaged with the adjacent place.

From thoughtful composition of one’s own, simple urban photographs, stories unfold, which both define problems and suggest solutions. But in their own experience, regardless of the imagery, some readers may prefer a crosswalk’s anonymity to the proximity (and pickpockets) of walking streets and tourist lore.

Those individual preferences make my very point. Here, rather than dictate walkability to others with my pictures, I show and tell.

However, like Orson Welles, I urge readers to think for themselves about what they see, and draw conclusions from their own vision, photos not required. Allowing for multiple perspectives about what is best in the city is a practice that I highly recommend.

This post first appeared in similar form in The Atlantic Cities, here.

Category: everyday urbanism, infrastructure, pedestrianism, placemaking, urban views, vignettes
Leave a reply

what can we learn from five principles of people and place?

Posted by Chuck – January 13, 2013

In my own writing, I enjoy finding layered, historical illustrations of how people relate to the built and sociocultural communities around them. I have explained before how this exercise is not merely academic, but is also useful as a supplement to today’s urbanist dialogue and sustainable placemaking efforts.

Recently, I have devoted considerable time to associated research and photography in support of my pending book, Urbanism Without Effort. The book will be short and to the point, so unused sections remain, including the following freestanding principles and companion lessons, drawn from several snapshots of people and place. I offer them below, for further use and inquiry, as well as inspiration and adaptation.

Principle 1: When Placemaking, Account for Authentic, Visible Evolution (Lisbon and Porto, Portugal)

The story of Portugal is not always well-known, and it is a mistake to cast the Iberian peninsula as a lump sum proposition. Placemakers everywhere would benefit from a look beyond across-the border gems such as Barcelona to the complex and unique history that hides behind Portuguese cities.

These places project an organic, under the skin reality that can only be experienced by a visit and exploration. This is nowhere more so than in Lisbon, which I believe offers an instinctual urbanism that avoids much analysis, circumventing the brain for a direct hit on the soul.

Lisbon’s history and topography create an urbanity without pretense that seems best learned onsite and on foot. Porto is similar, with ample windows into how people of character blend with a venerable urban core.

In summary, these cities with their authentic voices provide the best of organic examples. Their context explains how color and sound frame large and small spaces alike, and concentrations of mixed uses offer a model for the compact central city that many have in mind today.

Lesson: The evolved look and feel of an urban place is not an overnight proposition.

Principle 2: Look for the Physical and Cultural Shells that Define Us (Malta)

Other places are more tangible, and display the shell of the city, and visible pieces of the urban puzzle–the underlying parts that make up the whole. The baselines of buildings, roads, names and language all provide context for new initiatives that address repair, replacement and evolution of infrastructure and infill development. In fact, I wrote last February how we can find inspiration from physical artifacts of place to help retrofit for the future . But in this instance, I refer to understanding not only old buildings or physical “ruins”, but other sociopolitical precedent that makes a place unique.

An unrivaled example is the island country of Malta, located about 50 miles south of Sicily, at the marine crossroads of Europe and Africa. The historic Maltese cities, such as Mdina and Valletta, present reality quite unlike any other. Inhabitants speak a language mostly derived from Arabic left by long-departed medieval rulers. They live among a built environment still reflective of the 3oo year rule of the Knights of the Order of St. John and a mid-16th century siege against the Turks that was once among the more prominent events in European history..

This is not an obscure antiquarian story, but illustrates a highly contextual place, a small country where the cycles of human history are readily experienced in little more than one day. All around are reminders of a shell framed by the only semitic language written in latin script, and physical and cultural remnants of vanished nobility. While local examples will be more subtle and likely less dramatic, we should remember and champion places with dramatic, definitional shells as inspiration for understanding the present city and its redevelopment potential.

Lesson: The defining physical and sociocultural origins of today’s cities continue to influence their redevelopment

Principle 3: We Can See it All in the Company Town, Evolved (Broken Hill, Australia)

The company town is often cited as another one-stop venue for urban planning precedent. While sometimes lumped with utopian efforts, this paternalistic, industry-developed community is also often referenced for a summary representation of the common elements of any urban place. These elements include housing, work, recreation, environmental concerns and public safety.

Today, Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia provides a snapshot of a major company town, in evolution from its former dependence on the country’s largest mining concern, BHP. The structure and function of the industry-based daily life is still clear in the layout of the town and the brown slag outcropping that still dramatically dominates the landscape. A thriving artist’s community, contemporary restaurants, retail businesses and social service agencies are also apparent.

In sum, what once was necessary to daily life now merges with the functions of the touristic, the artistic and a gateway to the Outback. We should look to such places as bellwethers of cities in transition.

Lesson: Urban places convened around a the need for human capital are not new, and remain laboratories for documenting change.

Principle 4: We Can Learn from Simple, Small-Scale Stories of Adaptation (White Cliffs, Australia)

Amid demonstrable instances of climate change worldwide, examples of adaptation to harsh weather show examples of human adaptability. Not far from Broken Hill, residents of the Australian Outback have implemented alternative forms of shelter (known as dugouts, descendant of opal mining days) to offset extreme heat. Conveniently, in White Cliffs, the Underground Motel shows the potential of local practice in the form of a novelty tourist attraction.

Surveying the landscape of White Cliffs and exploring the underground lodging halls may for now satisfy vacation curiosities, but there is a larger message inherent in a visit to such outlier venues. When we see examples of alternative forms of settlement, we also witness the ongoing potential–and likely increasing need–for adaptation in urban environments everywhere.

Lesson: Humans are capable of dynamic change and innovative adaptation–good news for tasks ahead..

Principle 5: Some Universal Urban Icons Reflect Human Nature as Much as Place

Finally, given the rich, authentic relationships between people and described above, should we be disappointed by the increasingly standardized symbols of urban evolution around the world? For instance, the ferris wheel has reentered the international urban imagination, and is seemingly omnipresent in cities competing on the world stage. The Seattle Great Wheel, built as a private business venture, but adopted as a symbol of the city’s emerging waterfront, here contrasts with an under construction version in Melbourne.

Why are these “observation wheels” reaching landmark status in some places when other, more vernacular gestures might better fit the context of a place?

My answer is not to cynically decry these wheels, but to consider them as the same exciting, moving observation points first explained by seventeenth century observers. Understanding their ongoing success–premised on fun and excitement–is consistent with my opening call for more studied reflection about relationships of people and the communities around them.

Lesson: Some urban icons show an important universal attribute of people experiencing place–the need for outright enjoyment in the process.

In summary,the five principles and lessons presented here are starting points for discussion, debate and potential conversion. I believe ongoing vetting of such principles and underlying examples– if discerned and discussed with care–is a remarkable toolbox, adaptable in context across space and time.

Images of Lisbon and Porto, Portugal; Broken Hill, White Cliffs and Melbourne, Australia; Red Tower and Medina, Malta; Seattle, Washington composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail. © 2009-2013 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.

Category: everyday urbanism, infill development, infrastructure, lessons learned, placemaking
1 Comment

learning from “the crossing” and “the urban bench”

Posted by Chuck – September 3, 2012

I’ve often written that there is no substitute for imagery that humanizes urban trends and brings to life popular city pastimes.

The two black and white photographs below are no exception, and, by design, need little interpretation. One is passive, the other active, but together they illustrate the increasingly shared nature of the American city street.

In “The Crossing”, a distant pedestrian shows the way to the protagonist, as she forcibly takes back the street with willful abandon.

In “The Urban Bench”, three women–one independent of the others–share a space carved out for sitting, observing and interacting with the urban fabric.

In the end, both “The Crossing” and “The Urban Bench” invite reflection, and infuse a European flair to otherwise traditional American asphalt settings.

Category: everyday urbanism, infrastructure, pedestrianism, sustainability, urban views
2 Comments