With the transition of seasons, the evolution of renewal in Seattle’s Madrona Woods moves on, with continuing reconstruction images of the “Thoreau-like cottage,” expanded.
This supplement to prior entries, here, here and here, shows a second story now rising from the original footprint. The bottom line: While not remaking a neighborhood in one fell swoop, such small-scale projects may represent the true indicators of the changing American city.
“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
Melbourne, Flinders Street Station, 1917 ©2006 BHHC
“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 previous generations.
Melbourne, Flinders Street Station, 2009, evolved as modern transit hub ©2009 myurbanist
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 behind 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 previous 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 it was 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 by myurbanist 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 captivating horse and buggy amid Melbourne’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.
Melbourne, 1917 ©2006 BHHC
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.
Vienna, 1907 ©2006 BHHC
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.
Paris, 1895 ©2006 BHHC
London, 1897 ©2006 BHHC
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.
South of Copenhagen, 1902 ©2006 BHHC
Seattle, 1934 ©2006 BHHC
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.
Florence, 1924 ©2006 BHHC
Paris, 1918 ©2006 BHHC
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.
Jerusalem, 1920 ©2006 BHHC
Jerusalem, 1920 ©2006 BHHC
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.
Dawson City, 1903 ©2006 BHHC
In Rome and Naples, Holmes captured the function and charm of the bicycle mingling with urban forms.
Rome, 1924 ©2006 BHHC
Naples, 1924 ©2006 BHHC
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.
(Please scroll over photographs for credit. Except where indicated, all photographs ©2006 BHHC. Restricted use. Do not copy.)
Thanks to Kaid Benfield, republished in his “Village Green” column in The Huffington Post on September 8, 2010.
In the recent essay, “Reading the Evolution of Places“, Ana Maria Manzo and I argued for a collaborative, multicultural and multidimensional awareness of place as we move forward with urban reinvention.
Noting the universal interaction of human settlement with light, we asked “How to live amid the sunset?”.
Here are two postcards of Seattle on August 24, which embellish the magic of city and sun. How can we best design and regulate to enhance this blending of natural and built environments?
This article is a collaboration of two people who have never met, one, an architect in Venezuela, Ana Maria Manzo (reachable via her blog, the place of dreams), and the other, an environmental and land use lawyer in the United States, Chuck Wolfe, founder of myurbanist.
Below, they provide intercontinental guidance for reading urban evolution.
The evolution of place is far from a linear process. Rather, it is an interactive story which features the blending of many dimensions.
Time, of course, creates new and old approaches to the look and feel of habitation, workplace, and the transportation routes between. The elements of water and land interface and interact, sometimes together, with the built environment. Climate drives seasons and forms of building, access and the manipulation of light. And cultural approaches to ownership and stewardship modify these responses to climate, and create alternative forms of building on the ground.
Today, we are driven by a new sustainability ethic, necessarily systemic in scope. Carbon-neutrality is the rage, and location efficiency, clean energy and the return of neighborhood are the watchwords of change. Formulas and metrics, and new regulatory systems attempt results, and show the quest to measure how close we are to achieving ideal forms of location and development.
But as both of us have written in different languages, context is key, and adaptation to a multi-environmental sense of place, associated imagery and sensation is an essential element of building design, urban development and innovation going forward. Creating beautiful buildings that are able to work for the environment, or crafting appropriate enabling regulations, should also be considered as part of a broader, holistic effort. There is no use in having architects, urban planners, developers and lawyers thinking in isolation about a better future.
This should be a movement of us all; a movement that evokes positive emotions in those who inhabit cities, and a movement which makes us dream.
What forces shape the look and feel of place? Above, the context of a water-oriented urban skyline in modern America (Seattle) compares with today’s view of biblical legend, adjacent to the “Valley of Death” (Silwan, East Jerusalem). Note the stark contrast created by available building space, history and the local ecology of water.
How to live amid the sunset? The interaction of urban space and the same sun shows historical variance in the United States and Montenegro.
How to accommodate population density? Through the advantages of a planned city as in the future Masdar in Abu Dhabi, or through the improvised Barrios of Caracas, Venezuela?
What are the bases of cultural inspiration and sense of place? A false town (Universal Studios) and a real town (Port Townsend, Washington) show how life can imitate art.
What is the relationship between natural resources and urban settlement at the shoreline? Here, in but one example, water, hills and towns blend together in form and function in Northern Italy and the Cyclades Islands of Greece.
How do people choose to “occupy” their familiar public spaces? Here, two young people enjoy public space in a plaza in Mexico, in contrast to a group of Venezuelan students, who, in political protest, spell with their bodies the word “freedom” in the midst of a major thoroughfare.
What is the contrasting look and feel of public street space based on cultural expression, local economies and changing transportation modes? Here, ironically, we see vitality amid economic duress in the Middle East, and economic challenges of removal of parking and loading for bike lanes in the new, multi-modal America.
What additional interfaces exist between commercial settings and public spaces around the world? Here, witness the role of music and dining against the backdrop of a grand, public square, and an eatery amid public streetside darkness.
How is space between new and old buildings used in different places? Here, we see access to a rear residence, compared with two modern towers flanking an older building which has fallen into non-use.
What becomes of mixed use development in areas with with different histories? Here, adjacent to Piazza Navona, we see the commercial path between emblematic public spaces in Rome, as compared to the current use of a street in Valletta, Malta, once reserved specifically for duels between storied knights.
In different contexts, how can bodies of water be used in urban areas? Here, American recreation contrasts with gondolas, now also arguably recreation in today’s Venice.
In conclusion, we reference more than history–we emphasize the need to access multidimensional memories of place to honor positive evolution in the design of new and redeveloped urban spaces. Hence, we must never forget the value of comparison, and of awareness and wisdom about the context of distant and romantic worlds which we often hope to mirror, or regain.
While every culture may provide different, contextual approaches, collectively these approaches should attempt a common goal: human life in a better urban landscape. All elements must be considered: sense of place, climate, sound, population density, geographic orientation and, of course, neighbor buildings.
When we are collectively able to consider all of these elements to envision the re-creation of urban settings, the evolution of place will take a new and positive direction.
(Initially co-published at the place of dreams and el lugar de los sueños. Republished in slightly different form in seattlepi.com and appeared in planetizen on August 23. Please scroll over photos for credits).
Through the blogosphere, I’ve had the pleasure of trading observations about the role and function of shutters with David Mathias, a well-known author on woodworking topics who now lives in Switzerland. David was kind enough to republish the myurbanist article, “shutters, placemaking and urbanism” today on his great blog, Poems of Wood & Light.
In return, here’s David’s August 18 take on shutters, “Shutters and Flying Monkeys”, indented below. David’s thoughts have currency here, as he continues to ponder evolution from the American suburb of his youth and researches the colorful role, history and function of shutters in Switzerland! Photo credits, of course, to David Mathias at Poems of Wood & Light.
I spent my childhood, as did many of you, in suburban tract houses. Built in the 1960s, these were typical American homes of the time. Well-built, unpretentious symbols of the American Dream. The second of these houses, which my parents purchased when I was 15, is a wonderful split level with 3 bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, and a two-car garage. There is no marble in the bathrooms nor granite in the kitchen. The stairs are not 48″ wide. It was a simple, warm and inviting home for our family. My parents lived there for 29 years before heading south for warmer weather some years after retiring.
The two houses in which I spent nearly my entire childhood share a feature that caused me some confusion as a child. I believe that the first time I saw shutters that actually closed was in The Wizard of Oz (not one of my favorite movies — to this day, I hate those damn flying monkeys). The house we lived in from the time I was six had shutters. They were black and rigidly attached to the house. No hinges, no latches, no attempt at functionality. Until I saw The Wizard of Oz (I hate those monkeys), I thought nothing of it, I had no idea that there was a function for them.
As I lay there in my childhood bed, too afraid of airborne primates to sleep, at least I had something to ponder: Why did our house have immovable shutters? What was the point? Shutters, I had learned, were supposed to be closed during severe weather and subsequently smack young girls in the head allowing for development of acid-induced flights of writerly fancy and shows of Technicolor glory. Our shutters did none of those things.
I was too young to understand that modern storm windows had rendered shutters largely unnecessary. Of course, they couldn’t simply disappear. People were accustomed to seeing them; functional or not, they were essential. At some point in time, I figured that out and I assumed that functional exterior shutters were throwbacks to another time, present only on old houses (houses potentially filled with flying monkeys).
By the time my wife and I bought our first house there was no pretense of purely decorative shutters. Nor were there storm windows which had been supplanted by sealed, multi-pane units, but that’s a different topic. Shutters were officially dead. Mystery solved. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Then we moved to Switzerland. In this country, shutters are everywhere. They are on old buildings. They are on new buildings. I’m not sure that I’ve seen a building here without shutters. And they are all functional. Every last one of them. Hinges. Latches. The works. Which suggests a question: Who cares? I do and here’s why. They are fantastic. Perhaps the appeal is related to the childhood confusion or maybe it is purely aesthetic. Either way, I can’t get enough of them.
Buildings here tend to be more colorful than what I’m used to in the US. Shutters provide one source for colorful displays. In some cases, patterns, sometimes similar to sunbursts, are painted on. These appear to correspond with region though I still have much to learn about that tradition. Shutters can also convey a great deal of character. I have a particular affinity for the old, weather-beaten examples, colors faded by the sun and years of service. I find a certain dignity in them and am reminded that in some parts of the world, old things are not discarded simply because of their age.
Even old shutters are not mere artifacts. More than simply functional, they are both useful and used. With the exception of large public buildings, nothing in Switzerland is air conditioned. With air conditioning largely unnecessary due to the mild climate, we have rediscovered fresh air. At night, we often sleep with windows open. During the day, one can open windows to let in fresh air and close the shutters, at least partially, to keep out the sun. And flying monkeys. Those things are just creepy.
At the border of Washington and Idaho, space, time and economic base combine to produce a contrasting landscape in between towns.
urbanists at work
crosscut.com: chuck wolfe seattlepi.com: chuck wolfe urban point of view planetizen Kaid Benfield (Kaid at NRDC)© 2009-2010 myurbanist All Rights Reserved
