Physical Diplomacy

(The anniversary of 9/11 brought about a flood of emotion. The media forced us to replay that day; it took me back to being 14 – a sophomore in high school – and the wild range of emotions this new, shocking event evoked. My 9/11 (2011) started with a little NPR that resulted in much soul-searching, and ultimately I resorted to driving in silence with my thoughts.)

Maybe we lack, as a nation, a certain type of vanity. The kind that would cause us to pause and consider what the rest of the world thinks of us. There are plenty of voices screaming, “who cares!?” And while that may not be the official line towed by our noble diplomats, it is the voice of our physical legacy in the places we have entered in the name of peace and stability.

Field of abandoned blast-walls - Iraq
Courtesy: http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2008/08/graveyard-of-ol.html

BLDGBLOG ran a timely post on 9/11(http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/shape-of-war.html). Studio-X NYC hosted a discussion with photographer Simon Norfolk, focused on the spaces and technologies of post-9/11 warfare. While the discussion will surely explore the photographic qualities of such surreal places, and their modern implications, I would like to look at these new battlefields in the context of future diplomacy.

The physical works of militaries are some of the longest standing and most iconic on earth. We humans have a violent history; there is no doubt about that, and the infrastructure of conquest, control, and defense has long shaped our understanding of nations. The very need to build, the root of architecture, was to protect one’s self from the elements, the beasts, and inevitably, one’s neighbors.

Great wall of China. Thanks Wikipedia.

 Today we see the remains of warring, turbulent ages in the form of the majestic castles of Germany, France and England, the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland, even the Acropolis in Athens. These iconic fortifications now help to form a national identity; they speak to a shared heritage and remain as symbols, sometimes painful ones, of pivotal points in a nation’s development. While these fortifications were useful in their own time, almost all were overrun by superior technologies or ceased fulfilling their intended purposed due to diplomatic resolutions.

Edinburgh Castle, Scotland. Thanks Wikipedia.

Military infrastructure, like built work of any kind, is a cultural barometer. The materials used, the methods employed, all illuminate the greater political forces at work, and can even point to the source of conflict. The Castles and Fortresses of Medieval Europe, adorned with Christian imagery, speak not only to a time of adherent devotion to faith, but also to the wars being waged amongst Christian kings, each proclaiming divine right to rule.

Similarly, CHUs (containerized-housing-units), blast walls, fields of storage tanks, sallyports and bunkers all speak not only to the style of war being fought, but also to the resources and capabilities of the opposing forces. The physical presence of our military is indicative of a globalized force. Support systems are all containerized, ready for shipment to any corner of the globe. Bases are a package of components, each ready to plug-and-play in rapid deployment. And while these technological advances allow for the economical fabrication of miniature cities, they have come to demonstrate the kind of commercialization that has overrun our culture and permeated the military. In parts of the world where vast open land is part of tribal heritage and western notions of land owenership are foriegn, the imported 'Wal-Mart-esque' sprawl of bases and facilites convey a message of 'land-grabbing'. All of this is the result of a quick-fix mindset (the “surge” anyone?); whereas less economical solutions might prompt the more thoughtful allocation of resources, and greater emphasis on long-term strategic vision. Most importantly, we could leave a light footprint, and meaningful physical legacy; indicative of a country that respects the sovereignty of other nations and respects the future of its own image.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion
Thanks: US Navy

  The Romans built castras, the source of the word “castle”, many of which served not only as military outposts, but also as centers of trade, and provided the foundations of great cities around the Mediterranean and throughout Europe. Then again, maybe a comparison to the most notorious empire in history is not a good place to start a discussion on modern American diplomacy. The fact remains, the Roman Empire spread language, learning, governance, and commerce in a way never before witnessed. Starting to sound like familiar foreign policy? And the staying power of their outposts is evidenced by the great cities that sit atop their foundations today.

Roman "castra" - this one failed to become anything greater than a fort.
A view into the future?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castra

Regardless of our best diplomatic efforts, oratory and written resolutions have little staying power in the lives of those affected by conflicts. The places built, and things left behind will influence their collective feelings towards a foreign force that came in the name of peace and prosperity.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Camp_marmal02.JPG


These ideas are too readily dismissed as phenomenology, when in fact there is an undeniable truth that the built environment speaks; and is much longer-winded than even the most verbose politician.

See also: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/iraq-withdrawal-us-bases-equipment_n_975463.html

More on this to come…

Bikes - for real this time

Today I came face-to-face with the realities of modern transportation.

My beloved truck, a 2004 Nissan Frontier, may have finally died after struggling for several years with a bad supercharger. As I waded through rush hour traffic in the rain the rumbling under the hood grew from concerning to deafening and downright alarming not only to me, but also to the other drivers in traffic – that’s when I knew it was bad; I had other drivers yelling their personal diagnosis’ at me above the roar of metal on metal.



There she is - hiding in the woods

 The shock of the proposed repair bill was enough to make me laugh at the mechanic, who smugly starred me down,  his body language conveyed the message clearly, “well, I’m your only chance, so you better just pay up”, ha, little did he know who he was dealing with. I walked away (actually got a ride from a coworker) with my head up, committed to washing my hands of the trucks and suvs I had become so accustomed to and devote myself to my bike.


Now, this poses several issues – all surmountable, but not without some sacrifices. First and foremost, we live in a country built on the personal automobile. Never mind the cultural stigma of not owning a car, in most of this country it is simply impractical to use it as a means of real transportation as opposed to a hobby. The infrastructure is single-purpose, the planning is short-sighted, and distances between many necessary, day-to-day places too far. I won’t belabor the point that the current state of our transportation infrastructure has been influenced by corporate interests, market demand, and cultural flaws, but it has subsidized an addiction to oil and the automobile.


Here is the point I will belabor – we are primed to become a nation of the Bicycle.



"Yeah! Burn those dinosaurs!"

 

Lets start with the freedom of the car. A selling point of every car commercial – the open road with the wind in your hair – it plays to powerful underlying sentiments quintessential to American culture. In keeping with the tradition of freedom of movement and individual choice (long used as rallying cries against trains and other mass transit) the bicycle is champion. Conveniently, few car owners have ever thought of freeing themselves from the constraints of gas station locations, but it is a limiting factor. The bicycle takes these shared ideals and brings them to a whole new level: they allow you the ultimate freedom of movement as far as your own legs will take you. You simply fuel yourself, and hop on your self-powered machine. No more burning subsidized dinosaur goo – how is that for real personal freedom?

In terms of the physical makeup of our towns and cities – think for a second how much surface area is devoted to the automobile. Parking lots, highways, interstates, all built to store and accommodate our two-tons of personal armor, our carapace of sorts, enclosing a living room on wheels. Our cities have been transformed into places for our cars, not places for people. The bicycle, as opposed to an automobile, is a human-scale machine. They lack noisy, polluting combustion engines, can only go as fast as you can peddle, and cost far less over a lifespan. Most of the mechanical needs of a bike are so simple a child can do it. Gone are the days of DIY auto repair, today it requires specialist, a computer technician, and a garage full of specialized tools – not so with a trusty bike.





The only parking lots I dream about. Thanks Wikipedia.



On the East Coast, especially New England, towns were spaced a long walk apart, usually about 6- 10 miles. With sprawling infill and urbanization, the density is perfect for biking. So many times I hear people in the dense, older suburbs of DC where I live in say, “ I could walk it, but its just a bit too far”, that’s where the bike comes in. It is ideal for the suburban ring, as well as the city of course, but it expands your radius of travel 10-fold without burning anything except a few calories.


On that note: http://velocracy.com/2011/07/12/how-the-transportation-future-was-won-by-the-dutch/


Can you imagine, for a second, a city devoid of all combustion engines? There is a place you can experience this phenomenon – Venice, Italy. As night falls in the city, and the bustling crowds retreat, the silence becomes conspicuous. No rumbling freeways in the distance, no blaring horns, just the quiet lap of water in the canals. Imagine instead hearing birds, quiet sidewalk conversations, and the “whizzz..” , of a bike zipping past.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Ok, do you want to tie this to some of the political issues of the day? Sure, let’s go there:

·         Riding a bike could greatly reduce obesity = lower healthcare costs.

·         Riding a bike reduces pollution – air particulates and smog, noise pollution, and runoff of all the fluids that leak from our beloved vehicles. = lower healthcare costs from environmental hazards, lower environmental cost of clean-up and regulation.

·         Riding a bike saves money – no more car insurance, maintenance bills, gas bills, and car payments = lower household debt.

·         And, in this political season it must be said, riding a bike could help create more jobs – with an increase in demand for bicycles there will be an uptick in small business (bike retailers, many locally owned), manufacturing, and all the related apparel and accessory industries. As well as infrastructure/construction jobs to widen the roads a bit and paint all those bike-lane lines.

For a complementary list of additional factors that keep us in our cars, look no further:
http://www.theurbancountry.com/2011/05/making-sure-nobody-walk-or-bikes.html


So, if we assume some of the infrastructure is in place(http://velocracy.com/2011/07/11/the-case-for-separate-bicycle-infrastructure/ ) – paths, roads, trails, alleys, etc. (ah, the versatility of the bike!) – minus a few extra bike racks, what is holding back the bicycle uprising? It is held up by oil subsidies, cultural norms perpetuated by archaic industries, and the lack of a legal framework that gives bikers rules and rights like the auto-driving public. Historically, the “right-of-way” that we refer to as our roads were reserved by the government for the travel of all people; cars are just big enough, loud enough and dangerous enough that they have edged out everything else. In the US, biking remains the marginalized mode of transportation. Many cities have taken steps to remedy this, most recently, L.A., an auto-addicted metropolis if there ever was one. The recent legislation, Rosendahl’s Ordinance, (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/22/opinion/la-ed-cyclists-20110722) outlines the rights of bikers not be harassed or otherwise intimidated by drivers. While cities continue to build bike lanes on the unprotected shoulders of busy streets, they often fail to acknowledge the real needs of the biking community. 


With a continued focus on national health and the economic issues facing America’s urbanizing population, planners, politicians, and drivers should take note. Increased use of bikes, through ownership and bike-share programs, is a continuing trend. As personal vehicles become less attractive, due to costs and associated health and environmental issues, biking has the potential to become a dominant mode of transportation in some parts of the US. 


If you are interested in reading more on bikes, and lots of beautiful picture of people on them, you need to check this out:
http://www.velocracy.com/
From the Velocracy site: "Worldwide, less than 8% of the population owns cars, but everyone is paying a huge price for their existence and abuse, and the Western world, even the United States, is starting to realize that."


For the truly chic:


Courtesy: Copenhagen Cycle Chic



http://www.copenhagencyclechic.com/

If you want to be on the cutting edge of biking, and have the hottest set of wheels when gas gets to $10 a gal. check this out:

http://weburbanist.com/2009/03/03/futuristic-strange-concept-bicycles-designs/

And to wrap it up, a short photo study from Amsterdam. Here it is understood that the bike possesses all the desirable qualities of urban transportation - and they do it with class:


http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/ 



Courtesy: www.ski-epic.com

 

 It amazes me that a country with such a strong cultural tradition of personal independence, DIY ethic, and appreciation for the self-driven (literally!) that the bicycle has remained marginalized, for hobby and recreation, in the US. I think its time we give bicycles serious consideration as an integral part of our transportation system.



Reflections on Montana

Photo: Adam Sexton

It’s really a matter of scale. At least that is what sticks with me.  I had never really felt the sensation of “vastness” before this trip, not in the way I experienced it in Montana.

First it was the mountains. While driving up and out of Helena, MT our first day there, we ogled the craggy hills that dwarfed just about everything on the east coast. A friend of mine remarked, “every hill here would be a historic monument back east”, true, I guess it’s all relative.

In Butte, Mt, we witnessed the one of the largest Superfund sites in the nation – the Berkeley Pit. This mother-of-all-pits has water with the same acidity as lemon juice, is home to a few bacteria that thrive on heavy metals, and is threatening the local water supply with serious consequences predicted by 2024. Dug out of what was called “the richest hill on earth” by the Anaconda Mining Co. it produced a staggering quantity of copper from 1955 till its closure 1982. At a mile and a half wide and nearly as deep, it is a testament to human power. As disturbing as it is to see environmental degradation on such a massive scale, it is consistent with its surroundings. In a place where human and geological scales are in such apparent contrast, it seems as if the pit is simply the human response to a landscape so vast. As much as it was necessary to open this hill in order to extract the ore as efficiently as possible, it is hard to ignore the human tendency to feel insecurity and belittlement in a place where the natural world is as raw, and survival as harsh, as it is in these dry mountains. What better way to assert man’s dominance than to make an inverse mountain?

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Our traveling band moved on the next day to Glacier National Park. This unbelievably majestic patch of earth is a real national treasure. Despite being heavily visited by tourists from all over the globe, the park has managed to avoid the ‘amusement park’ feel that might overwhelm any other place. This park is immune to such plights. You could see it in the faces of the visitors, no matter how many trinket shops and faux chalets greet you at the park entrance, the mountains steal the show. The land held the power to shut people up. The mountains looked down upon the people with a smug regality: “Yes, you can admire us, and yes, nature has the power to wipe you from the face of the earth without a trace.” We had entered a time warp of sorts. The world we entered operated in centuries and eons, not days and hours. Tourists openly gawked and snapped pictures with hopeful desperation, trying to preserve their sense of wonder and amazement, and bring it with them. Looking back through my pictures I now realize it is not a sensation that transports well.

Photo: Adam Sexton

The four+ hour drive back to Helena is when it hit me. Descending from the jagged peaks and valleys of the Rocky Mountains and arriving on the high plains we were met with a landscape surreal and completely alien to me. Let me just say now, I have only been west of the Mississippi one other time, and my appreciation for land and space at that time was quite limited. A golden, gently undulating surface, stretched to the horizon. Crumbling rock broke the surface at the crest of the steeper hills, like white-caps on the open water, and the vast openness was overwhelming. For miles we drove, cresting over slight hills that opened onto 10 mile straight-aways. Even at 90 mph the land seemed to slowly drift by as dusk set in over a hazy saw-blade in the distance.

Photo: Autumn Visconti

I can’t quite explain all the emotions brought about by being in a place so vast and devoid of other people. I may have discovered I have slight agoraphobia. Maybe it was the contrast to our Prius, packed with 5 people and all our stuff? Maybe it was sheer exhaustion? Or, most likely, it was the result of spending 3 days within 10 feet of of my closest friends. Whatever is was, the landscape of Montana  provided more than just an incredible backdrop for a group of friends reuniting; it had the power to set the mood, consume our attention, and overwhelm our senses.

Photo: Adam Sexton