Critical Space Part 2

CRITICAL SPACE PART 2

© Tony Ward2007

For more free slides see: www.TonyWardEdu.com

THE CONCEPT OF LANDSCAPEThe term landscape does not appear in the English languageuntil the end of the 16th Century, from the Dutch, landschap.This, like its German root, landschaft, signifies a humanintervention. It connotes at one and the same time, theuntrammeled naturalness of the wild world, and at the same timethe notion of control of the wild. The significance of landscaperests upon the illusion of being close to that which is unsulliedby human agency - unchanged from the beginning while, at thesame time requiring that same human agency for its creationand appreciation. As Simon Schama notes, “The Wildernessdoes not name itself”. Its naming requires and is used tosupplement social and cultural vectors of power. The power ofLouis XIV is unequivocally clear in the ordering of thelandscape at Versailles (above right). In later, 18th and 19thCentury Romantic conceptions, such as that depicted by RichardWilson (below right) in his 1876 painting of Sion House,Richmond, the feeling is one of being nestled into a primevalwoodland on the banks of an ancient river, but with all theaccoutrements of modern life (parasols, picnic hampers etc.)

The notion of Landscape is therefore a social construction,designed to achieve an effect - the effect of social control. Thiseffect is more explicit in Versailles, but is nevertheless still amajor influence in the landscapes and paintings of the Romanticperiod. The roots of landscape architecture are thereforeembedded deeply in the exploitation and suffering of countlessgenerations of dispossessed and displaced peasants.

LANDSCAPE OF DESIRE

When we think about “Landscape” we think of places like the romantic image of Stourhead in England, designed andconstructed by the famous English Landscape Architect, Henry Hoare II in the 1740s. In this design, which looks so“natural”, everything has been created from scratch to create the natural look.Its purpose is as described, twofold: Inthe first instance, it attempts to create the illusion of antiquity - that is to hark back to an earlier time, thus erasing therecent bloody history which has made its existence possible. In addition, it serves to demonstrate the existence ofpower - the power to appropriate, to steal, to exploit, to oppress, to erase the history of oppression, and to do all of thiswith not only social, political and economic impunity but with style.

MR. & MRS ANDREWS

Portraits of landowners in their landscaped gardens became common, as in this well-known 18th Century paintingof Mr. and Mrs. Andrews by Gainsborough. It has been said that in this picture they are “engaging in philosophicenjoyment of the Great Principle… the genuine Light of uncorrupted and unperverted Nature”. But as John Bergerpoints out, the possession of private land was a precondition of the very enjoyment they are experiencing.Furthermore, the nature they are enjoying is anything but unperverted. It has been Enclosed and appropriatedprecisely to render it more perverted from its original state. Mr. Andrews’ gun should also alert us to his need todefend his acquisitions. As Berger also notes, the penalty for poaching on what had been common land was, at thattime, Transportation, while the theft of a potato was cause for a public flogging. Neither the property, nor the artwhich depicts it are innocent.

LANDSCAPE OF POWERSpeaking of the great country houses of England that were built in the 17th and 18th Centuries, Raymond Williamshas this to say: “Some of them had been there for centuries, visible triumphs over the ruin and labour of others. Butthe extraordinary phase of extension, rebuilding and enlarging which occurred in the 18th century, represents aspectacular increase in the rate of exploitation, a good deal of it, of course, the profit of trade and of colonialexploitation; much of it, however, the higher surplus value of a new and more efficient mode of production. It isfashionable to admire these extraordinarily numerous houses: the extended manors, the neo-classical mansions, thatlie so close to rural Britain. People still pass from village to village, guidebook in hand, to see the next and yet thenext example, to look at the stones and the furniture. But stand at any point and look at that land. Look at what thosefields, those streams, those woods even today produce. Think it through as labour and see how long and systematicthe exploitation and seizure must have been, to rear that many houses on that scale...What these ‘great’ houses do is to break the scale, byan act of will corresponding to their real andsystematic exploitation of others. For look at the sites,the façades, the defining avenues and walls, the greatiron gates and the guardian lodges. These were chosenfor more than their effect from the inside out... theywere chosen, also, you now see, for the other effect,from the outside looking in: a visible stamping ofpower, of displayed wealth and command: a socialdisproportion which was meant to impress andoverawe. Much of the real profit of a more modernagriculture went not into productive investment, butinto that explicit social declaration: a mutuallycompetitive but still uniform exposition, at every turn,of an established and commanding class power.”Williams, R., The Country and The City, HogarthPress, London, 1985, pp. 105-106.

Harlaxton Hall, 1834

THE NATURAL WORLD

The seductive illusion of being the first witness touncorrupted and unperverted Nature is present today,and is most skillfully captured by Ansell Adams, whosepictures of the Grand Tetons (above) and Half Dome,Yosemite (right) seem to depict a veritable Eden,devoid of human presence - albeit that Adams requiredsubstantial technology to to create his illusion (vehicles,mules, cameras, porters etc.). If there is anything to bedrawn from this, it is that depictions of the naturalought to be received with great circumspection andviewed rather as a mask for something slightly lesspure.

NATURE AS LANDSCAPEThe concept of Landscape is essentially based upon an ambiguity or a paradox. As already noted, it contains thedual and mutually exclusive signifiers of unfettered naturalness and control. It also requires a position - that is, aplace from which to be viewed or experienced. Landscapes are always designed to be seen from a point of view.Indeed, they define more than just a physical point of view. They also define an ideological point of view.Derrida interrogates this with his concept of the parergon. The parergon in painting is all that which is suggestedbut also excluded by the frame (both physical and experiential). He suggests that the frame is colonising, to theextent that it hides as much as it reveals of the subject matter (as, for instance in Gainsborough’s painting of Mr.and Mrs. Andrews. Below, is the relatively unadulterated view of Wenderholme Beach, North of Auckland, NewZealand, now designated as Regional Park.

COLONISING FRAMEBelow, we can see the Landscape Frame which has been erected by the Regional Council to define the very view wehave just seen. The Council are telling us that this precise point is the place to stand to really appreciate the finerquality of the Wenderholme “natural masterpiece”. We are being educated here, to see the world from a particularposition - not gust a geographical and spatial position, but also from a particular point of ideology and history. Whatis being rendered is a decontextualised aesthetic, that elides from its discourse any reference to Wenderholme’soriginal inhabitants, what their name for the place might have been, or the economic role it might have played in theirlives prior to its colonisation, appropriation and commodification. We are being encouraged to buy into the belief thatbeauty has nothing to do with its effects or consequences.

NON-COMMODITY LANDSCAPE

SYMBOLIC CAPITAL

According to the late French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, status insociety is determined by three kinds of capital:

• Economic - having large amounts of money and economicresources• Social - having large numbers of influential friends• Cultural - having high level skills and understanding of thecodes used to describe objects of high aesthetic value. It isusually passed down within families as a set ofunderstandings of the world - a habitus.

All three tend to reinforce each other making it easier for someonewith high capital to increase it in any or all areas.

Symbolic Capital is really a subset of Cultural Capital and refersto the outward manifestations of power, influence and status. It isexpressed in the possession of fine objects - art, cars, dress, livingand working environment.etc.

The power of the concept of LANDSCAPE is dependent upon the notion of SYMBOLIC CAPITAL. - The power of aparticular set of spatial articulations, given or bestowed with a legitimacy through imposed dominant class values toestablish self-actualising distinctions of a class and cultural nature.

Middle Class Magazines such as Home and Garden, and Trends, and events such as The Chelsea Flower Show are amajor media for the transmission of these symbolic values, and for the realisation of the social distinctions which theyboth create and reproduce.

CONSIDER TWO IMAGES

The photographs were taken about half a mile apart in San Francisco. In the first, the San Francisco City haveerected metal arms on public seating and barriers around grassed areas for the express purpose of preventingthe homeless and poor from using them to sleep. The poor were affecting the tourist industry! In the second,the City fathers have developed a public garden, with cushioned seating and pots of fragrant flowers for thelunch-time use of the office workers in the CBD. Note the sleeping, suited worker with his creased-trouseruniform, the trash receptacles, the lack of barriers and the creation of peaceful enclaves.

THEY ARE BOTH FUNDED OUT OF THE PUBLIC PURSE. ASK YOURSELF WHY THESE PLACES ARE SO DIFFERENT

COMMODITY SPACEAlthough global space, in the broadest sense, is finite, and the idea that one cancreate space seems preposterous. In the literal and physical sense this is true.“They are not making any more land”, as the investor/realty saying goes. But asHenri Lefebvre has noted, in the more specific sense of land-as-commodity/property, space is being “re-organised” or “restructured” all of thetime. When land is surveyed and subdivided, new space is “created”. This is oneof the contradictions and illusions of capitalist development - that space can beinfinitely “created” in a finite world with finite spatial resources. Driven bycapitalist development, the restructuring of space is designed to create andextract increasing profit from the resource, by turning it into a marketcommodity in the global economy. For the first time in history, space is seen forits potential profit-making, rather than its capacity to sustain life. Hence, whenthe land-use planning designation of a a farm is altered in a District Schemefrom “Agriculture” to “Housing”, it is because each little new subdivided lot canbe offered for sale to a wider market for a higher price.

As a result, good farmland is disappearing at analarming rate.Environmentally inappropriate as it is,the Midwest monocultural farmland (bottom right) isgradually replaced by suburban development as atLevittown (top right). Developments such as theserequire roads that are paid for by the taxpayer andmaximise the profit not only for the developer and/orlandowner, but for the automobile and petroleumcompanies who lobby for them forcefully with federalauthorities.

THOMAS COOK,REALTOR

The advertising for sections in this beachfront subdivisionstate:

“NOVEMBER 1769The transit of Mercury was due to occur on the 9thNovember 1769, and Cook was anxious to observe thephenomenon from a safe position on shore. And so itwas he stepped ashore on what is now Cooks beach.He was so impressed with the uniqueness and beautyof the area that he gave it his own name. It was here onShakespeare Cliff that he planted the Union flag forthe first time, claiming possession for the crown.”

Even the culture and history of the coloniser is notimmune from the commodifying forces of rampantcapitalist development and accumulation.

DISCOVERYOnce indigenous peoples have been dis-placed and re-placed, the continued advance of capitalism requiresthe continual redefining and recreation of spacethrough development. Surveyors, planners, developers,architects, are all party to the process, and all must findways to resolve the contradictions and ambiguities oftheir roles and their projects. As noted already, theprocess of development involves a contradictionrequiring the maintenance of a continual tensionbetween the natural and the developed. Resolution ofthis contradiction requires the continual mystificationof language. The notion of discovery is a typicalexample. To discover something means, literally, to bethe first person to find it, to be the original voyeur -usually involving a prolonged exploration andhardship. To “discover” the Cooks Beach subdivisionrequires no effort! The advertising does it all. But thenotion of “discovery” has a deeper hegemonicstructure. It suggests an absence of original occupation,which finds its legality in (for instance) theproclamation of Australia and other colonised lands asterra nullis - that is unoccupied prior to discovery bythe colonisers. The doctrine of terra nullis wasinvented to bypass the conventions of international lawwhich would have allowed indigenous peoples to claimand defend their sovereignty. Here (right) the originallinguistic violation is buried under successive layers ofeveryday use and acceptance of the term.

RENT AMOUNTAIN

Once commodified - that is, reduced to a tradablecommodity - the earth itself can be a source ofincommensurable wealth. Here (left) we see anadvertisement for a highly profitable time-shareapartment investment in a mountainous paradise(sic!). The juxtaposition of the image - illustrating anapparently uninhabited natural setting - along withthe somewhat contradictory text (offering chalets,hotels, elegant apartments etc.) captures the essentialcontradiction that is inherent in the meaning of“landscape”. It also identifies the capitalistic basisfor the entire conception, uncomfortably close to ourPuritan Realtors shown earlier.

The notion that one can “own” a mountain wouldhave been ludicrous to most precolonial indigenouscommunities. For one thing, the notion of ownershipof the earth presumes a necessary separation (not tosay distinction) between the self and the source oflife - a preposterous idea which has, in the end led tothe destruction of the ecosystem and has brought thehuman species to the point of self destruction andprobable extinction.

NEUTRAL STATE?

The prevailing belief is that the State operates in the interests of the whole of society, acting as a neutral refereebetween competing social and cultural groups. This belief is not backed up by a critical look at history. It is asocially constructed myth. Rather, the State is not a neutral entity, but is the arm and instrument of the dominantculture. It’s role is to maintain dominant cultural power by maintaining the myth of neutrality. The myth serves todelude the people into compliance with the constitutional framework (the Law) which has been initiated and shapedby the dominant culture itself. Its agencies are headed by the elite, its values are the values of the elite and itspractices most benefit the elite. This is most evident in countries that have been colonised, like New Zealand,Australia, Canada and the Americas, where the dominant culture equates most closely with the elite colonisingculture., and where the original inhabitants are the most marginalised and excluded. Here, constitutional forms havebeen designed specifically to strip the indigenous of their productive capacity and their ability to resist.

INDIGENOUS SPACE

DOGON VILLAGE, MALI (above)

MARSH KURDS, IRAQ (below)

NIGERIAN VILLAGEMOSGOUM HOMESTEADCAMEROUN

Pre-Capitalist indigenous peoples have evolved aninfinite variety of house and settlement forms whichecho, express and facilitate their cultural patternsand exist in a state of balance with their physicalenvironment and climate. Each culture has its ownunique forms and expressions, supporting identity,sense of place, history and economy. These forms,expressions and identities are bound together by aseries of sacred precepts and rules of social conductthat have existed and created the conditions forsocial harmony for thousands of years

VERNACULARWhether it be Turkish tenements with wind-catchers (below left), Algerian courtyard housing (below centre) or stiltedhouses of the lake-dwellers of Lake Nokwe, Benin (below right), each community is distinct and lives in a state ofreciprocity with its natural environment. The imposition of capitalism has changed all of this, has homogenisedcultures, and has blurred the edges of cultural identities and the commodification and ultimate abandonment and/orviolation of previously sacred beliefs. Yet paradoxically, it is these beliefs that the world now so desperately needs asit stares into a bleak environmentally degraded future

CULTURALEXPRESSION

And whatever the overall form of the settlement, the expression of theculture is carried through into the details of the house, as here in an oasishouse in Mauritania (left), a Samoan fale (below left), cliff and troglodytehousing in Santorini (below centre) or Nubian courtyard housing (belowright). In each case, the built form is the unmistakable expression of theculture that produced it.

CULTURE AND FORMIn each case, the shaping of the space, the world in which the culture exists, is built into the learning patterns of theculture itself such that the education which the young receive, is inseparable from the rules and patterns of behaviour(tikanga) of the people. These are the relationships which the advent of capitalism and a cash economy has destroyedor is destroying. It begins with the measuring and surveying of space. It continues with the exploration for resourcesand concludes with the assignment of private boundaries enclosing private (and tradable) parcels. With the introductionof capitalism everything is reduced to a tradable commodity - even spiritual values. Indigenous cultures world-widehave had their traditional ways of life dramatically transformed by global capitalism. Maori are no different. Whilethey have embraced the Western economic model, they have struggled to adjust to the penalties upon their culture thatit imposes, including loss of land and resources and the introduction of profound ambiguities about tapu and noa.

FORESHORE AND SEABEDFor several years, up to 2004, a group of N. Z. South Island tribes from the Marlborough Sounds area had beenpetitioning their Local Governments for a say in the development and distribution of commercial mussel-farmingoperations in their area. They were continuously ignored, and so took their case for Customary Ownership to the HighCourt. When, in 2004, the Court of Appeal found that the Iwi may have a case for customary ownership, and that theycould if they wished, pursue their case to the Maori Land Court, Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand(attempting to stem the tide of pakeha racism then sweeping the country) announced that her Government wouldintroduce legislation to prevent this from happening. For Maori, who had helped to vote Clark into office, this was thekind of betrayal that they head experienced for 150 years. So they organised a Hikoi (Land March) from the top of theNorth island to Parliament in the South. Some 40,000 arrived at Parliament to deliver an unmistakable message to theGovernment, and the Maori Party was born. Below, the Wananga component of the Hikoi

MAORIPLANNING

In the face of such political duplicity, it isironic that Maori are being also encouraged totake a greater role in the planning process byLocal Authorities such as the Auckland CityCouncil (left).

It can only be noted that this attempt is anextension of the policies of assimilation whichhave been in evidence for 100 years or more.What is being asked, is that Maori participatein a non-Maori planning process, driven byCapitalist ethic and greed - a process whichruns absolutely counter to the culturalconceptions of space that Maori and mostbother indigenous peoples have had to acceptand survive since they were first colonised.

It is pertinent, perhaps, to ask what thealternatives might be? Certainly, it could bepossible, given the will, to devise a dual andseparate planning process which honours thecultural experiences and histories of bothpartners to the Treaty.

CLASS SUICIDE

THE KHOEKHOEN

For those who suggest that it is not possible to “turn back the clock” on the colonisation of space there is a simpleanswer, the Khoekhoen of South Africa. These were the first occupants of the sub-continent, the first to meet thewhite Boer settlers and the ones to bear the brunt of the colonisation process. A nomadic culture, their land wastaken from them initially buy farmers and eventually by the Government acting on behalf of diamond miners. Withthe fall of Apartheid, the 4000 strong former residents of the so-called Richtersfeld went to court for the return oftheir land - 85,000 hectares of land and 1.5 billion rand in compensation. In 2003 the court agreed, and now areabout to receive not only their land, but between 3-4 billion rand so they may once again take up their nomadic lives.(Source, New Zealand herald June 10th 2006. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.