Post-industrial Landscape Research Articles

Zlín: Public Art in the Postindustrial Landscape

Zlín: Public Art in the Postindustrial Landscape

Saints of North-East England, 600–1500 ed. by Margaret Coombe, Anne Mouron and Christiana Whitehead

Reviewed by: Saints of North-East England, 600–1500 ed. by Margaret Coombe, Anne Mouron and Christiana Whitehead Samantha Leggett Coombe, Margaret, Anne Mouron, and Christiana Whitehead, eds, Saints of North-East England, 600–1500 (Medieval Church Studies, 39), Turnhout, Brepols, 2017; hardback; pp. xviii, 363; 19 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €100.00; ISBN 9782503567150. This volume is the product of a conference held at Oxford in 2015, providing some much-needed foci for medieval north-east England. This region and period, as the introduction itself states, is often neglected not just in medieval studies but also more generally. When one thinks of the North it is usually of an industrial or post-industrial landscape. By contrast, what this volume's contributors aim to do, and I believe achieve, is to aid in the revival of an intellectually and culturally vibrant North-East, charting this through the ecclesiastical lens of the Middle Ages, feeding into the revival narratives we can see in the region today. The introduction is a well-considered piece that really sets the tone for the rest of the volume, and this work has much to recommend it to a broad and multidisciplinary medievalist audience. It must be noted that despite the large chronological span mentioned in the title, this is a volume predominantly dedicated to the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Church, with the postscript providing the later medieval and early modern context. As an archaeologist with a background in medieval studies I find this volume at once very stimulating (due to the supposed multidisciplinarity) but also at points disappointing. The editors and authors repeatedly attempt to engage with material culture and other archaeological content, talking of landscape, churches, coffins, bodies, and saintly objects. However this is done with what I feel is a fundamental lack of critical engagement with the archaeological literature on these places, objects, and theoretical frameworks. For instance the project led by Chris Gosden at Oxford on English Landscape and Identities (EngLaID) would be useful here (<http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/englishlandscapes-introduction.html>), or any work by David Petts and Sarah Semple, who specialize in the archaeology of early medieval Northumbria. Alan Thacker's chapter, titled 'The Saint in his Setting: The Physical Environment of Shrine in Northern Britain before 850', is particularly lacking in archaeological content despite its premise, with the now rather outdated three-volume survey by H. M. Taylor and Joan Taylor on Anglo-Saxon Architecture (Cambridge University Press, 1965–78), the works of David Rollason, and Tomás Ó Carragáin's study on the early medieval churches in Ireland (Yale University Press, 2010) being the only archaeology mentioned. It is missing key texts such as John Blair's The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford University Press, 2005), Tom Williamson's Environment, Society and Landscape in Early Medieval England: Time and Topography (Boydell Press, 2012), or any other environmental and landscape archaeology, or even palaeoecology. Such scholarship would have benefited the chapter, making it more rounded, and not [End Page 194] just strictly architectural in terms of the physical environment. It should perhaps be rephrased as 'the built environment' to better reflect the mostly ecclesiastical architecture and church archaeology bent in the piece. Similarly, Allan Doig's contribution, 'Sacred Journeys/Sacred Spaces: The Cult of St Cuthbert', whilst interesting and well conceived, might have considered some archaeological and material culture theory in terms of sacrality and the use of space. Whenever saints and especially the relics or bodies of these saintly individuals are mentioned throughout the work, I found myself yearning for a discussion over the concepts of the corpse, embodiment, necroagency, archaeothanatology, and decomposition; and how medieval people might have interacted with these saintly bodies in life as well as in death (an approach developed by Howard Williams). In terms of the ever-present Cuthbert, it seems a shame to not bring these considerations to any discussion of his incorruptibility. However, this book is primarily historical and literary in focus and achieves some good breadth across these disciplines, also incorporating (as mentioned above) architecture and art history. The visual experiences conveyed by Richard Sharpe and Lynda Rollason are welcome additions and add great...

Urban Development Potential of Territories Disturbed by the Mining Industry, Based on the Example of the Moscow Region

This article discusses the relevance of technogenic landscapes recultivation near large cities (megalopolises) and its metropolitan area as a tool for development of functional city territory reserves. On the basis of world experience, the author reveals aspects that are solved by construction recultivation. The paper overviews the basic methods and solutions of quarries and excavations revitalization. The author outlines the characteristics of the Moscow area disturbed landscape and provide recommendations on restoration of a postindustrial landscape into viable surface of the city. The interrelation of quarry excavation locations in the Moscow region settlement pattern and their further use in urban development is considered. Author proposes a typology in accordance with the main characteristics for further functional filling of quarries. A schematic map of the territories disturbed by the mining activity of the Moscow region is drawn up, on the basis of which the optimal conditions determining the ways of recultivated lands usage are revealed.

Landscape and Ecological Formation of Hybrid Spaces at Revitalization of Postindustrial Landscape of the Volgograd Embankment

The landscape and ecological model of civil engineering of hybrid spaces of coastal landscape aimed at providing comfort of vital environment, creation of the greatest possible variety of city activities, permission of environmental, social problems of the city and development of the embankment as self-valuable fragment of well-planned natural landscape will be proved. Research objective is development of methodical bases of the organization of hybrid spaces in the course of architectural revitalization of post-industrial river landscape in the concept of architectural and ecological approaches of development of hybrid spaces of the urban environment. In work the method of the system analysis is used; review of design practice, scientific research and help and normative sources; modeling and experimental design. The analysis of construction of civil objects in coastal strip of the Volga River and their ekologo-esthetic influence on development of public spaces of the city is carried out. Architectural concepts on integration of the socially oriented environment with hybrid spaces of the embankment are presented to city life of Volgograd. The analysis of experience of revitalization of industrial coastal areas has allowed to offer the landscape and ecological principles of design, “tree of properties” with definition of indicator of environmental quality, types and the sequence of stages of formation of hybrid spaces in landscape of the embankment of the city. The developed technique of civil engineering of hybrid spaces allows to use the received offers in domestic and foreign construction in similar environment and town-planning context of revitalization of post-industrial coastal landscapes.Experimental design was supported by the developed model of civil engineering of hybrid spaces of coastal zone of Volgograd.

Urban Re-Greening: A Case Study in Multi-Trophic Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning in a Post-Industrial Landscape

The biodiversity of urban and post-industrial ecosystems is a highly relevant and growing new frontier in ecological research. Even so, the functionality of these ecosystems may not always be successfully predicted based on prior biodiversity and ecosystem functioning theory. Indeed, evidence suggests that the general biological impoverishment within the urban context envisioned thirty years ago was overstated. Many of the world’s urban centers support some degree of biodiversity that is indigenous, as well as a complex array of non-native species, resulting in highly functional, and often, novel communities. For over two decades, a multi-disciplinary team has examined the sub-lethal impact of soil metal contamination on the multi-trophic biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of a post-industrial brownfield in the New York City metropolitan area. We do this through examinations of photosynthesis, carbon allocation, and soil enzyme activity as well as multi-trophic metal translocation via the plant and rhizosphere. In this paper, we synthesize the findings of our research network and apply the results to a framework of functional diversity. Due to the unique constraints many post-industrial lands impose on communities, functional diversity may be more meaningful to ecosystem health than species richness.

When it rains: Stormwater management, redevelopment, and chronologies of infrastructure

Across the United States, a number of older cities face the immediate challenges of aging and inadequate water systems. Given the fragilities of water systems, municipalities have begun to manage the effects of flooding and reduce the impact of disruptive weather events using a range of stormwater management strategies. This article offers an ethnographic account of flooding and stormwater management in the city of Newark, New Jersey, examining stormwater management, urban redevelopment, and their entanglements in a postindustrial landscape. It discusses the implications of stormwater management strategies in a city that is reinventing itself with an eye to a history of economic decline and deindustrialization and another to chronic flooding and increasingly vulnerable infrastructures. First I analyze public contestation surrounding redevelopment and displacement to argue that a focus on infrastructure burdens as it pertains to flooding helps us to understand urban transformation as it is experienced through the body. Then I focus on the use of open space gardens for stormwater management, revealing the ways in which flood resilience is built into the landscape and the lives of residents. Juxtaposing increased density and vacancy in different parts of the city, this article reveals how concurrent measures of time, progress, and development emerge through stormwater management in the process of building flood resilience.

Geotourism in an urban space?

Abstract Geotourism is usually connected with two types of landscapes: natural and cultural, however in the second case these are usually industrial or post-industrial landscapes, where the subjects of tourists’ interest are mainly various relicts of mining (e.g. open pits, waste dumps, quarries). Although it is changing, urban landscapes or – more generally – landscapes of human settlements are not so often perceived as a place of geotourism development. We try to analyze reasons why such areas have a great potential to develop this type of tourism, illustrating them by selected case studies from Poland and the Czech Republic. We want to prove that geotourism in a city or a town can be understood as part of urban tourism not only in its traditional meaning (as all kinds of tourism located in such landscapes), but also as an important element of travels undertaken in order to search and experience a genius loci of a city.

Nesting behaviour and breeding success of Willow Tits Poecile montanus in north-west England

ABSTRACTThe British Willow Tit Poecile montanus has undergone a substantial decline in abundance and a severe contraction in range since the 1970s, for reasons that are poorly understood. Breeding failure, due to nest-site competition and predation, has been suggested as a potential factor in the decline, but limited data exist for the nesting ecology and breeding productivity of the species in Britain. We studied a sample of 128 Willow Tit nests in a habitat mosaic of early successional woodland, scrub and wetland in a post-industrial landscape in north-west England, which is increasingly becoming a key refuge for the species in Britain. Results showed that nesting began in April, with standing deadwood of silver birch Betula pendula, common elder Sambucus nigra and black alder Alnus glutinosa being the most frequent nest sites, and the characteristics of nest sites are described. Daily survival rates and overall probability of nest survival are calculated, and details are given for the timing of breeding, clutch size, nestling survival and number of fledglings produced. Overall, 55% of nesting attempts were successful, although many first breeding attempts failed due to Willow Tits being evicted from their nest cavity by Blue Tits Cyanistes caeruleus, or nests being predated by Great Spotted Woodpeckers Dendrocopos major and, potentially, grey squirrels Sciurus carolinensis. Repeat breeding attempts were relatively more successful, but produced fewer fledglings on average. The results are discussed in the context of other studies of Willow Tits and some related species, and also the implications for the conservation of Willow Tits in Britain.

Selfish Giants and Child Redeemers: Refiguring Environmental Hope in Oscar Wilde’s and Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant

In this paper, I explore how stories of lost and broken worlds have been tied to hopes about the redemptive possibilities of a new generation. I historicize and complicate the idea of children as environmental stewards of an imagined planetary future. I investigate the issue further by examining the particular figure of the child redeemer and our “investment in the image of the child as a sign of the future, as defence against loss of significance in the world” (Lebeau 179). Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant and Clio Barnard’s recent film adaptation of Wilde’s book will be the objects of my discussion. Barnard’s film, set in the post-industrial landscape of Bradford, England, offers child protagonists who unsettle the familiar fantasy of redemption and invite us to think past sentimental and nostalgic arguments for ecological preservation (premised on preserving an unjust world as it is). While it is important not to topple the myth of childhood innocence only to resurrect another myth of childhood agency, I am interested in these moments of refusal and how they point to the limits of a sentimental ecology.

Recycling Steel: football, tradition, and historicity in Pennsylvania

ABSTRACTOn 19 August 2015, the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer announced plans to sponsor an expansion team in the second-tier United Soccer League. Two months later, an enthusiastic crowd filed into the historic Bethlehem Steel plant in eastern Pennsylvania to witness the new side’s unveiling. Against the backdrop of towering blast furnaces that evoked the region’s industrial golden age, Union representatives heralded the return of Bethlehem Steel Football Club. This paper explores the nexus of past and present in the recycling of Steel. Juxtaposing the modern club’s retro-themed kit against the identity of its storied namesake, it argues that the past is simultaneously honoured and obscured. In so doing, it situates the recycling of Steel in its broader historical context, paying attention to the business ambitions of Union executives, the cultural penchant for heritage branding and the efforts of a once-vibrant manufacturing town to negotiate the realities of a postindustrial landscape.

The Making of Unstable Ground: The Anthropogenic Geologies of Søby, Denmark

Through a case study of Soby Brunkulslejer, a former brown coal mining area in Jutland, Denmark, this article focuses on how physical ground is not an inert background on which histories play out but is an active force in shaping ecological and social relations. Due to the particularities of the mining practices and geologic strata, this site—formerly used for agriculture—has become geologically unstable post-mining. Its ground now shifts in unexpected ways via sand drifts, landslides, and liquefaction. This article begins by exploring the social and environmental histories through which these novel forms of instability have emerged. It then examines the effects of these new kinds of geological instability, probing how they have sparked new land use practices and political debates that have, in turn, strongly impacted the area's patterns of biological life. Inspired by historical ecology, the article suggests how one might study the “historical geology” of a postindustrial Danish landscape, where social, geological, and biological relations are co-constitutive of each other. Methodologically, the article draws on ethnographic and archival materials, including interviews and participant observation with government officials, geoscientists, and local residents.

Green and Gray: New Ideologies of Nature in Urban Sustainability Policy

In the past two decades, urban sustainability has become a new policy common sense. This article argues that contemporary urban sustainability thought and practice is coconstituted by two distinct representational forms, which we call green urban nature and gray urban nature. Green urban nature is the return of nature to the city in its most verdant form, signified by street trees, urban gardens, and the greening of postindustrial landscapes. Gray urban nature is the concept of social, technological, urban space as already inherently sustainable, signified by dense urban cores, high-speed public transit, and energy-efficient buildings. We develop Lefebvre's ideas of the realistic and transparent illusions as the constitutive ideologies of the social production of space to offer a framework for interpreting contemporary urban sustainability thinking in these terms and concretize this argument through case studies of postindustrial greening in the Ruhr Valley, Germany; municipal sustainability planning in Vancouver, Canada; and the Masdar smart city project in Abu Dhabi. We conclude by examining the implications of green and gray urban natures for the politics of urban sustainability.

Creating a longitudinal, data-driven 3D model of change over time in a postindustrial landscape using GIS and CityEngine

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to create a longitudinal data-driven model of change over time in a postindustrial landscape, using the “Copper Country” of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula as a case study. The models resulting from this project will support the heritage management and public education goals of the contemporary communities and Keweenaw National Historical Park that administer this nationally significant mining region through accessible, engaging, and interpretable digital heritage.Design/methodology/approachThe paper applies Esri’s CityEngine procedural modeling software to an existing historical big data set. The Copper Country Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure, previously created by the HESA lab, contains over 120,000 spatiotemporally specific building footprints and other built environment variables. This project constructed a pair of 3D digital landscapes comparing the built environments of 1917 and 1949, reflecting the formal and functional evolution of several of the most important copper mining, milling, and smelting districts of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula.FindingsThis research discovered that CityEngine, while intended for rapid 3D modeling of the contemporary urban landscape, was sufficiently robust and flexible to be applied to modeling serial historic industrial landscapes. While this novel application required some additional coding and finish work, by harnessing this software to existing big data sets, 48,000 individual buildings were rapidly visualized using several key variables.Originality/valueThis paper presents a new and useful application of an existing 3D modeling software, helping to further illuminate and inform the management and conservation of the rich heritage of this still-evolving postindustrial landscape.

Architectural and ecological integration of postindustrial landscapes revitalization into socially oriented space of the embankment

The architectural and ecological model of civil engineering of socially oriented spaces of coastal landscape aimed at providing comfortable vital environment, development of the greatest possible variety of city activities, solution of environmental and social problems of the city, and development of the embankment as a self-valuable fragment of well-arranged natural landscape is substantiated. The research objective is the development of methodical bases for the process of architectural revitalization of postindustrial coastal landscape. The researchers utilize the methods of system analysis, reviewing of design practice, analysis of available scientific databases as well as referential and normative resources. The methods of modeling and experimental projecting were also used in the study. Architectural proposals on integration of the revitalized postindustrial coastal areas into socially oriented area of the Volgograd embankment are presented. The analysis of the experience in building and recovery of postindustrial landscapes of river basins is preformed to substantiate the proposed architectural and ecological principles of revitalization, "tree of properties" with the definition of environment quality indicator, the sequence of stages in planning of socially oriented area of the city embankment, and experimental project on integration of the studied coastal area into the vital space of the city of Volgograd.

Selfish Giants and Child Redeemers: Refiguring Environmental Hope in Oscar Wilde's and Clio Barnard's The Selfish Giant

In this paper, I explore how stories of lost and broken worlds have been tied to hopes about the redemptive possibilities of a new generation. I historicize and complicate the idea of children as environmental stewards of an imagined planetary future. I investigate the issue further by examining the particular figure of the child redeemer and our “investment in the image of the child as a sign of the future, as defence against loss of significance in the world” (Lebeau 179). Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant and Clio Barnard’s recent film adaptation of Wilde’s book will be the objects of my discussion. Barnard’s film, set in the post-industrial landscape of Bradford, England, offers child protagonists who unsettle the familiar fantasy of redemption and invite us to think past sentimental and nostalgic arguments for ecological preservation (premised on preserving an unjust world as it is). While it is important not to topple the myth of childhood innocence only to resurrect another myth of childhood agency, I am interested in these moments of refusal and how they point to the limits of a sentimental ecology.

Lo sublime en el paisaje antrópico a través de la fotografía actual

En este artículo se desarrolla un análisis conceptual de lo sublime, acaparando el paisaje antrópico como campo de actuación, y ambas proyecciones se inscriben dentro de la disciplina de la fotografía. Así pues, se plantea un recorrido narrativo a través de la creación fotográfica de las últimas décadas, para abordar la naturaleza sublime y lo sublime industrial en la actualidad. Las constantes conceptuales advertidas en los diversos discursos artísticos marcan la línea argumental de este artículo, para establecer un marco teórico en torno a la existencia humana en el paisaje post-industrial que nos acontece. La selección de artistas incluidos, constituye un hilo conductor clave sobre el que examinar la evolución y transformación de conceptos universales presentes en el contexto paisajístico actual; algo que nos proporciona una conceptualización actualizada sobre la relación del ser humano con su entorno alterado.

Sand, silt, salt, water: entropy as a lens for design in post-industrial landscapes

Entropy is a contemporary buzzword in landscape architecture used to describe a vast range of material, environmental and social processes. Most uses of the word are loose appropriations of a very specific thermodynamic principle. This paper first explores some of the more common applications of entropy to describe post-industrial case study projects explored by Robert Smithson, Matthew Gandy, Gilles Clément and John Beardsley. It then suggests that entropy is a lens for understanding particular challenges associated with designing in landscapes that bear the traces of past industrial occupation. It concludes by offering a design technique using physical models of salt crystallisation, sand dispersal, sedimentation and water flow, for engaging with these themes as part of the design process. The paper suggests that viewing post-industrial sites through the lens of entropy raises productive design questions and that the indeterminacies of entropic processes are analogous to productive indeterminacies in the design process.

An ambivalent landscape: the return of nature to post-agricultural land in South-eastern Australia

Urban, peri-urban, post-industrial and post-agricultural landscapes are transforming throughout the world due to changes in human use. Spontaneous growth of vegetation (regrowth) that may be part of this transformation is sometimes viewed negatively because of perceived threats to human agency and well-being. In many cases, however, societies experiencing regrowth appear to ignore it. This is problematic as scientists are increasingly finding ecological values in regrowth landscapes. Fostering positive biodiversity outcomes in these areas requires knowledge of how the regrowth is perceived by stakeholders. This paper draws upon 53 semi-structured interviews and document reviews exploring perceptions, views and management of abundant and extensive regrowth by stakeholders in a post-agricultural landscape in central Victoria, Australia. Through discourse analysis, the research highlights the social ambivalence to regrowth and illuminates the underlying causes of that ambivalence. We indicate how this understanding can be used to foster social recognition and acceptance of regrowth and its role in landscape restoration.

Angels, warriors, and beacons: Totemic law, territorial coding, and monumental sculpture in post-industrial landscapes

AbstractNational or local authorities regularly commission artists to build or construct sculptures and artworks destined for a place in a public space. Some of those sculptures and artworks are monumentally huge. Positioned in the open landscape, they are visible from a considerable distance. This contribution focuses on three such sculptures in the United Kingdom. The first, “Angel of the North,” was completed in 1998 and is standing at Gateshead in the North East of England. The second, “Anglo Saxon Warrior,” has not yet been built to a massive scale – although smaller, life-size versions were – but some debate has taken place in Stoke-on-Trent in North Staffordshire in the West Midlands about the possibility and remote likelihood of its construction. The third, “Golden,” is, however, at the time of writing, in the process of being assembled with an eye on erecting it, in 2014, at the very same location, Stoke-on-Trent. Proposals for all aforementioned artworks emerged against the backdrop of regional de-industrialization and were, at least partly, devised as an answer to economic and social deprivation in both regional localities. In this contribution an effort is made to tease out the symbolic intricacies embedded in all three artworks. Although all include references to what could be called the eternal origins of a mythical common law universe, each suggests, projects, and attempts to encode a moral and legal order in quite distinctly different ways.

Large herbivores in novel ecosystems - Habitat selection by red deer (Cervus elaphus) in a former brown-coal mining area.

After centuries of range contraction, many megafauna species are recolonizing parts of Europe. One example is the red deer (Cervus elaphus), which was able to expand its range and is now found in half the areas it inhabited in the beginning of the 19th century. Herbivores are important ecosystem engineers, influencing e.g. vegetation. Knowledge on their habitat selection and their influence on ecosystems might be crucial for future landscape management, especially for hybrid and novel ecosystems emerging in post-industrial landscapes. In this study, red deer habitat selection was studied in a former brown-coal mining area in Denmark. Here, natural settings were severely changed during the mining activity and its current landscape is in large parts managed by hunters as suitable deer habitat. We assessed red deer habitat preferences through feces presence and camera traps combined with land cover data from vegetation sampling, remote sensing and official geographic data. Red deer occurrence was negatively associated with human disturbance and positively associated with forage availability, tree cover and mean terrain height. Apparently, red deer are capable of recolonizing former industrial landscapes quite well if key conditions such as forage abundance and cover are appropriate. In the absence of carnivores, human disturbance, such as a hunting regime is a main reason why deer avoid certain areas. The resulting spatial heterogeneity red deer showed in their habitat use of the study area might be a tool to preserve mosaic landscapes of forest and open habitats and thus promote biodiversity in abandoned post-industrial landscapes.