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RAM

The drums grip the heart

The dust leaps with the bass

The fleshy bees sway

The balcony heaves with the passion

The prostitutes glide and clatter

The suits come and go

The do-gooders huddle in the corner

While aid workers hold down the center tables

The Haitians dressed to kill – no that has passed

And Graham’s extras totter in the shadows

I sleep in the annex

Sliding down the hill

- Andrew B. Wright

The Hotel Oloffson is an inn in central Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The main structure of the hotel is a 19th century Gothic gingerbread mansion set in a lush tropical garden. The mansion was built as a residence for the powerful Sam family, including two former presidents of Haiti. The hotel was the real-life inspiration for the fictional Hotel Trianon in Graham Greene‘s famous 1966 novel The Comedians. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the hotel enjoyed a brief period of fame and good fortune. Celebrities such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Mick Jagger were regular guests. Throughout the political upheaval of Haiti in the 1990s, the hotel has been the regular performance venue of the mizik rasin band, RAM, famous for their protest music during the Raoul Cédras military dictatorship from 1991 to 1994. Their Thursday evening performances at the hotel became one of the few regular social events in Port-au-Prince in which individuals of various political positions and allegiances could congregate. Regular attendees of the performances included foreign guests at the hotel, members of the military, paramilitary attachés and former Tonton Macoutes, members of the press, diplomats, foreign aid workers, artists, and businessmen.

Hotel Oloffson Website

“Hope and Lodging in Port-au-Prince: The Oloffson is a magnet for intellectuals, writers and the criminally inclined. Lisa Wixon reveals why it offers hope for Haiti’s future.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Oloffson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_(band)  

By Andrew Wright

“The Three Hundred Dollar House, you mean three hundred per square foot?” A friend’s incredulity summarizes the responses I heard to the title of a workshop at Dartmouth College.  He and I worked together on a project costing multiples of 300 dollars per square foot, his career is in construction, and he knows the price of a pound of nails. The thought of building a house for $300, even at the most minimal standards, seemed an impossibility.

The initial idea of the THDH* was the brain child of Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at the Tuck School of Management at Dartmouth College and Christian Sarkar, referred to as the disruptive fellow in the back. They conceived of the “brand” to bring attention to the issues of housing for the very poorest in the developing world. By provocatively setting the price that low they hoped to push architects, engineers, planners and financiers to explore innovative designs and economic models. They organized an online international competition to initiate the process. Coincidentally the competition drew 300 hundred entries.

From these entries a jury selected six finalists. Many of the finalists were able to attend a workshop hosted by Dartmouth in Hanover in January 2012. The workshop’s goals were to capture the energy sparked by the competition and to explore the steps necessary to create something that would cast a shadow. The workshop, organized by Jack Wilson of the Studio Arts Department, focused on Haiti because of Dartmouth’s connections to the country and its pressing needs.

In addition to the finalists, Dartmouth students and faculty from the engineering and business school, participants from Haitian groups and a handful of engineers and architect were invited. I was included because of my familiarity with designing and building in Haiti. For three intense days the participants wrestled with the issues of urban and rural housing, community development and financial models.

Two Haitian communities, one rural and one urban, were the focus for the workshop. Strong organizations within both communities had originally provided medical services and then branched into social services. Fond des Blancs, a stable rural community relatively untouched by the January 2010 earthquake, benefited from the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation. Cite de Dieu is an urban “slum” in Port-au-Prince. After the earthquake GHESKIO Center, a nearby clinic, filled a vacuum left by a weak and overwhelmed city government by providing not only community medical services but also other significant municipal functions.

Fond des Blancs, Photo by John D. Wilson

During the workshop it fell to me to wear an unfamiliar hat. Instead of my architect’s role Jack asked me to lead the group on community development and infrastructure. We were charged with addressing eight areas:

• Energy Communications
• Transportation
• Potable water
• Sanitation
• Waste Management
• Employment

This formidable list was initially an obstacle. We could not find the key to unlock the process of thinking about the issues of Fond des Blancs and Cite de Dieu. We had too many avenues and too little time and data. It was Jean St Denis, a community organizer from Fond des Blancs, who set us on the right track. He gently repeated until we listened “employment is the key”. He pointed out that even if it was possible to build a three hundred dollar house it still had no viability unless a person could afford it.

Cite de Dieux, Photo http://www.conservationtech.com/PROJECTS/2010HAITI/haiti%283%29maps.html

With that insight we looked closely at the issues that inhibited the economic and employment picture of Font des Blancs. We acknowledged that as an island nation with minimal natural resources Haiti’s economic base will eventually lie in exporting their unique products overseas, but assuming that walking must come before running we decided to focus on the local market in town. A list of items available there was developed. The question was raised why there was no fish available at the market even though the town was only 20 kilometers from a coastal fishing village. Jean St. Denis concluded that the issues were not so much physically imposed as the result of culture and customs. He promised to return to Fond des Blancs and institute a motor bike delivery service for fresh fish preserved in ice.

We recognized that many of the issues of poor employment options were not so easily addressed and that it was presumptuous of us to propose solutions from Hanover for Haiti. The general consensus of the workshop participants living in Haiti was that the issue was not a lack of financial resources. There are non-governmental organizations and international governmental agencies looking for viable projects to support and fund. Haitian groups with plans and community backing were in demand. To help Fond des Blancs gain visibility we suggested that a formation of a community development council was a start. The council of the leaders and change agents of the community would analyze in a more thoughtful and through way the steps that we had started.

To that end we created a Facebook page Fond des Blancs as a simple step to help increase the visibility of the community. Please feel free to add your comments there.

Unfortunately we were forced to leave the issues of Cite de Dieu for another time or another group. Besides not having enough time we realized that the urban context had different circumstances. In particularly it is a more fluid and open system.

So if you have read this far and you still do not have the answer to the question “can you build a house for 300 dollars”, the answer is no, at least not in Haiti at the present moment. There does not seem to be a silver bullet for the issues of housing costs, much less the expensive infrastructure. Industrial housing solution is effective in areas with good transportation access and high site labor costs. Lowered costs generally only apply when the scale of production is hundreds, not tens, such as in Levittown, NY after WWII. Traditional materials and forms frequently effectively meet the needs of people who for financial reasons must build their housing in stages. Framing systems which over time may prove more cost-effective, but their introduction into the Haitian market is at a nascent stage.

Immediately after the earthquake there was a plethora of proposals for inexpensive relief housing from designers, architects and engineers of the developed world. Many of these proposals had little relation to Haitian needs and housing expectations, nor to the climate and construction realities of the country. Thankfully most proposals did not get beyond the talking stage.

At the Dartmouth workshop the two (rural & urban) housing groups had members who understood the issues relevant to Haiti much more clearly. The groups developed designs based on habitable standards and traditional materials and layout. They responded to the difficulties of building in Cite de Dieu, with the existing poor soil conditions and flooding. In Fond des Blancs the traditional form of front porch, sleeping quarters and rear yard for cooking were respected.

Cite de Dieux, Photo by John D. Wilson

However, in both locations the costs were in the thousands of dollars, not in the hundreds – even when pared down to the “basic starter unit”. So if the number was wrong, does that invalidate the process? Without that number or another like it, the workshop would not have gotten off the ground. If you can harness the energy of the workshop into a prototype, if a student’s career takes on an added dimension, if the arrival of fresh fish in Fond des Blancs triggers the birth of a stronger market, then the workshop was a success.

*www.300house.com

The company that I work for, Tonetti Associates Architects (TAA), has recently completed the design for a Family Health and Nutrition Center for GHESKIO (The Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections) Clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Our involvement in Haiti, in the wake of the destruction left by the January 2010 earthquake, has led us to ask questions about what post-colonial critics call “neocolonialsm,” a term often used to describe developed countries’ involvement in the developing world; it implies a form of contemporary “economic imperialism,” In this article, I will explore these questions, also in light of my recent experience of visiting Port-au-Prince.

My first impressions of Port-au-Prince – after a mere 42 minutes flight from Miami – came from the passenger seat of a car with darkened windows as the driver sped, honked and bounced his way down the unpaved streets from the airport to the GHESKIO Clinic. As I looked out, I saw all that I had heard about Haiti: the poverty, the vast tent cities of those who lost their homes in the earthquake (today more than a half-million people still live in tents), the heaps of garbage bordering the roads. At the GHESKIO Clinic I saw people in pain, patients waiting patiently for their treatment or standing in long lines to pick up their HIV medicine. I heard the deafening city noise and felt the immense heat and humidity that hits you in your face every time you leave an air-conditioned building or car.

During the following days we spent at the GHESKIO Clinic, doctors would mention on a regular basis that they had lost yet another cholera patient.  There was much that was disturbing, but also much that was impressive. I saw beautiful people who showed strength, perseverance, and even humor in the face of suffering. The images of destruction were contrasted by images of great natural beauty, such as the view down into the valley from our hotel terrace, where foreign NGO workers would enjoy colonial breakfasts.

On my flight back to JFK, I became aware of the conversations around me; most passengers were NGO workers, returning home from Haiti. They all seemed to have stories of prosthetic devices or churchy missions that they exchanged with serious yet content countenances. In a New York Times article entitled “Haiti’s New Tourists” (September 6, 2011) the Haitian journalist Isabelle Dupuy writes, “A new form of tourism is emerging. Through hard work, compassion and – let’s say it – a bit of misery voyeurism, it offers redemption with a tan. (…) In exchange for your money and your help, Haiti offers immediate, terrorist-free access to a version of the human condition right near home. You can be digging a well in Leogane in the morning and be telling the tale in Manhattan in the evening.”

I don’t mean to sound dismissive of foreigners’ contributions to Haiti. It seems that without their money, clothes, aid workers, medical knowledge, and yes, perhaps architectural designs, there would be little hope at all in Haiti, especially post-earthquake. However, I have to think of of the words of Philippe Gerard, who writes in his book, Haiti: The Tumultuous History – From Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation, “the answer to this oft-mentioned question – what the United States should do to help Haiti – is simple: As little as possible.”

According to Girard, the term “foreign neocolonialism” is a common refrain in Haiti today, despite the aid-donor’s good intentions.  He explains how foreign help can do more harm than good by creating conditions of dependence.

So what are we left with at TAA in terms of justifying our involvement in Haiti? How can we help developing countries appropriately, when we don’t find ourselves able to turn our backs?

These questions about appropriate aid have particular relevance also to the field of architecture. In a New York Times article entitled “Hands off our Houses” (June 1, 2011), Mathias Echanove and Rahul Srivastave explained some of the issues that may arise when architects from so-called developed countries assist in low-income housing projects in the developing world. Echanove and Srivastave discuss a competition where students, architects and businesses were asked to design a prototype for a $300 house to improve the lives of millions of urban poor around the world. Unfortunately, “the person whose input would matter most is left out of the competition: the person who is supposed to live in it.” Reality is more complex than the contest implies.

Echanove and Srivastave detail the potential problems with the project by discussing its applicability to Dharavi, a slum in the outskirts of Mumbai, where space already is scarce and a typical home is worth at least $3000. Houses are upgraded as income increases, which wouldn’t be possible with standardized $300 houses. Also, because construction is an important local industry in Dharavi, pre-fabricated $300 houses – built with non-domestic materials – would put many people out of business: “The $300 house responds to our misconceptions more than to real needs. The dynamic needs, interests and aspirations of the millions of people who live in places like Dharavi have been overlooked. While businessmen and professors applaud the $300 house, the urban poor are silent, busy building a future from themselves.”

Despite the potential problems articulated by critics like Girard, Echanove and Srivastave, I believe that there is a way for foreigners to effectively assist a country in need, but it requires some thorough investigation. If we want to make a meaningful difference, we should discover people’s real needs, interests and aspirations.  We cannot know and should not assume what people are in need of, but should instead question, listen and watch. We cannot find a deeper understanding of a place, its people and their needs without taking into consideration the results of thorough anthropological research. In my opinion, we can get glimpses of truth if we are willing to make the effort.

As we engage in this process, we must also look to ourselves. Why do we want to intervene? Is it perhaps about control, dependence, superiority? Are we helping in the right places? Since the earthquake, Haiti has had more nongovernmental organizations working on its shores than any nation in the world save India (which is a hundred times more populous). Do we find there is somehow more honor in helping the people of Haiti than in helping the millions of people living below the poverty line in the United States? Is it possible that our state and economic institutions dictate in which direction we are looking, and with what kind of attitude?

We must also question the sources of information that feed these motives. It is important to be aware of what journalist Gbemisola Olujobi calls “disaster pornography.” Reports that are biased and sensationalized sell, even if they generalize, are inaccurate, and dismiss any potential for progress.

A recent study by the Trans Africa Forum that looked at stories on Africa by The New York Times and The Washington Post found that they tended to fall into three categories: “AIDS, development and conflict.” Western media blocks out “Africa’s stock market, high rises, internet cafes, heart surgeries (and) soaring literacy.” This kind of disaster reporting causes negative perceptions that lead to lower levels of foreign investment, which could otherwise contribute to growing a stronger economy.

Despite reliance on foreign help being one of the main causes of Haiti’s misfortune, according to Philippe Girard there are in fact ways in which the United States could help. Besides assisting in short-term disaster relief in the case of a major hurricane or earthquake (here pre-fabricated $300 houses may come in handy as a more sanitary and robust alternative to tents), US businesses could help creating the conditions for lasting self-driven economic growth in Haiti by investing in areas where Haiti has a competitive advantage, like labor-intensive industries, handicrafts and tourism.

So how have we at TAA justified and conducted our engagement in Haiti in light of all of these issues surrounding foreign assistance? For one thing, we responded to a real and immediate need. After the earthquake, cholera and malaria spread easily in the unsanitary conditions of refugee camps and tent cities. The GHESKIO clinic staff asked for our help because there was a lack of qualified architects in the country.

For another thing, we did our research. The TAA staff visited Haiti five times during the design process in order to gain insights into the needs of future patients. We observed the use of the current buildings, had numerous conversations with the clinic’s staff, and used all of this information in the design. Since most of the patients cannot read, we made navigating the interior simple and clear. Additionally, the design incorporates an internal shaded covered street, popular in Haiti, which creates natural ventilation and allows for children to play about during the long waiting times.

Finally, we made sure to examine our motives. We believe that any creative process requires introspection. We have not made any profit from the project, and from the beginning, it was our priority hand over all construction documents to a Haitian construction manager and local contractors.

Through our work with the GHESKIO Clinic and our experiences in Haiti, we have grown personally and as a firm.  Although we did not make a monetary profit, it has been a deeply valuable experience for us. We believe in Haiti’s future and encourage everyone to keep asking, “How can we help?” All the answers are out there.

Thanks to a Siren call at a flea market, I recently found myself with several dozen issues of ‘Pencil Points, A Journal of the Drafting Room’ dating from the nineteen thirties and forties. ‘Pencil Points’, as its subtitle indicates, focused on the toilers of the architectural firms. Its readers had aspirations no higher than the drafting room. They wore green eye visors, celluloid cuffs and cotton jackets. Along with Microtomic Van Dyke drawing pencils, this group – for whom drafting was their true job description – has largely disappeared, to be replaced by graduates of architectural school who hope to quickly work their way out of the title. ‘Pencil Points’ also has disappeared. It merged with ‘Progressive Architecture’ in the mid forties, and with the merge, the magazine gradually lost its drafting room orientation. ‘Progressive Architecture’ became the most influential of the “glossy” main stream architectural magazines but ceased publication in December 1995.

Both the articles and the advertisements of these early issues are interesting as paleographic markers defining the state of the profession in the 1930s and illustrating the evolution of our field in the intervening seven decades.

The articles in the issues from the early 1930’s do not directly acknowledge the economic maelstrom that the profession was facing. The lead-off article of the October 1932 issue was entitled “Architecture, Art or Science?” The author, Louis La Baume, grappled with the role of art and science in architecture and wisely decided that this role could not be defined in words. This article was followed by an illustrated monograph on “Early Interior Doorways of New England” and another illustrating the comparative details of dormers in traditional residences.

Though not stated, the profession’s turmoil can be inferred. The exquisitely drafted dormer drawings were prepared by the “New York Architects’ Emergency Unemployment Committee”, whose descendent seems to be the “Not Business as Usual” committee of the New York City Chapter of the AIA formed in December 2008. The NBAU web site makes clear the challenges the profession faces: “The economic downturn has had a significant effect on the design community in New York City. The NBAU program focuses on what design professionals need to know and do for themselves and their firms to thrive”.

Another example of the hard times in the 1930s is the employment listings at the back of the October 1932 issue. There are no listings for help wanted. The ads for the positions wanted include such plaintive supplications as “Willing to take any position and salary offered” and “will work for $35.00 per week anywhere”. These sound agonizingly familiar to anyone looking for work today.

The difference between the magazine’s buildings featured in the advertisements and those in the articles illustrates clearly a profession that was reluctantly posed at a threshold. A modernist design for a “filling station” appears in the advertisement of the Vitrolite Company, a manufacturer of steel enameled panels, promoting their product as “modern, cheerful, distinctive – as well as dignified”. Republic Steel claimed a multitude of applications for their ENDURO stainless steel including a curtain wall on the Yonkers Statesman Building. But this luminal moment is not reflected in the articles; the writers were rooted in a comfortable upper middle class profession looking backward to historic European examples, using exquisite draftsmanship to create designs for a world that was fast disappearing.

The advertisements also reflect a technical and practical aspect of the profession that has disappeared at least from current architectural journals. Along with advertisements for the tools of the trade – such as Higgins drafting inks, Esterbrook pens and the Sketch Book Atelier – there were ads for rigid conduit from General Electric, wire fabric for concrete floor reinforcing and cast iron pipe from Youngstown Steel. The architects of the 1930’s had not relinquished as much of the control of building systems to the engineers as the professionals do today.

Being ‘A Journal for the Drafting Room’, the October 1932 issue also has a detailed and lengthy article on the “Whys and Wherefores of the Specification – Plastering” part of a monthly series of technical specifications. Unlike the “Continuing Education” articles in today’s ‘Architectural Record’, this article was a serious effort to educate. It presupposes a considerable level of professional technical knowledge.

So what are we left with? Where are we when compared with our predecessors of seventy years ago?  We have a profession deeply damaged by a severe economic downturn. We have a segment of the community deeply distracted by buildings which have ignored at least some of the Vitruvian rules of fermatas, utilities, venustas. Many critics ignore discussions of process, function, aesthetics and the placement of a building within a context. We have a profession less in control of the construction process and in danger of being relegated to the role of designer rather than master builder.

However, it seems we freely recognize these short comings. During these bad times architects have the opportunity to rethink their roles and redefine where their greatest opportunities and strengths lie. ‘Pencil Points’ of the 1930’s and indeed the ‘Architectural Record’ of 2011 do not reflect the fact that the construction industry, and in fact all of civil society, has a great need for people who care deeply about the shape and form of our built and natural surroundings.

While we are still finding it hard to adequately describe post-earthquake Port-au-Prince/Haiti as we have experienced it during our last visits, we hope that the images below will provide at least a small glimpse into the city’s current reality. Most pictures -except for the ones taken in GHESKIO Clinic- were taken through dusty car windows while speeding through the streets of Port-au-Prince.

All images ©Nora Mertens, 2011

The original fort was built by the French between 1754 and 1757 during the Seven Years’ War, often referred to as the French and Indian War, to control the south end of Lake Champlain and prevent the British from gaining military access to the lake. Thus it was of strategic importance during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again played a role during the American Revolutionary War.

During the 1758 Battle of Carillon, 4,000 French defenders were able to repel an attack by 16,000 British troops near the fort. In 1759, the British returned and, under the leadership of General Jeffery Amherst, laid siege to the Fort. The French were ill equipped to withstand the superior numbers of the British, and after a four-day siege, they abandoned the Fort after blowing up the powder magazine (the building which Tonetti Associates recently rebuilt). During the American Revolutionary War, the fort again saw action in May 1775 when the Green Mountain Boys and other state militia under the command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured it in a surprise attack. Cannons captured were transported to Boston where their deployment forced the British to abandon the city in March 1776. The Americans held it until June 1777, when British forces under General John Burgoyne again occupied high ground above the fort and threatened the Continental Army troops, leading them to withdraw from the fort and its surrounding defenses. The only direct attack on the fort took place in September 1777, when John Brown led 500 Americans in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the fort from about 100 British defenders.

The British abandoned the fort following the failure of the Saratoga campaign, and it ceased to be of military value after 1781. It fell into ruin, leading people to strip it of some of its usable stone, metal, and woodwork. It became a stop on tourist routes of the area in the 19th century. Its private owners restored the fort early in the 20th century. A foundation now operates the fort as a tourist attraction, museum, and research center.

In the following please find visual documentation.

 After the devastating earthquake in Haiti (January 2010) and due to increased needs, GHESKIO Clinic, a pioneer in the research and treatment of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Haiti, has enlisted Tonetti Architects (TAA) to design a new facility in an effort of expanding their services; not only treating and consulting the poorest of Port-au-Prince’s slums, but also the inhabitants of the tent cities (refugee camps).

 The Center, to be built by Haitians, will provide nutritional guidance to new mothers, and integrate obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, adolescent, family planning and research within a single complex.

 We have visited Haiti twice during the past months to discuss the project with the GHESKIO staff. In the process we gained an understanding of local climatic, environmental and social conditions.

 Organized around an open air pedestrian street, our design makes use of natural ventilation and the latest technology on earthquakes and hurricanes.

About GHESKIO

Cornell’s GHESKIO (The Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunis tic Infections), a nongovernmental research and treatment center, was established in 1982 in Haiti, the WesternHemisphere’s poorest nation and the one with the highest HIV burden. It was the first institution worldwide fighting HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and counseling families of those infected.

 The clinic has continued its free medical aid, never closing its door to patients in nearly 30 years, and has quickly expanded its treatment and research to other sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases, blood safety and the prevention of congenital syphilis.

 Since the earthquake in January 2010, GHESKIO has expanded its services and its outreach to the local communities (inhabitants of slums and tent cities). GHESKIO has been dedicated to the treatment of cholera (250,000 people affected since the outbreak in October 2010), offered humanitarian relief to 7000 refugees, and provided clean drinking water and sanitation to more than 1000,000 people of Port-au-Prince’s slums.

 The clinic has rebuilt most of its buildings that were destroyed by the earthquake, hiring unemployed Haitians staying in the organization’s refugee camp tocomplete reconstruction. Vocational education classes have been started to help prepare adults in the community for employment; recently GHESKIO has opened an elementary school to make free education available to the refugee camp local community.

 Numerous organizations, ranging from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to MAC Aids Foundation and Cornell Community, donate money to GHESKIO.

Watch Video on GHESKIO

Photographs by Nora Mertens

On a recent trip to New York City, I finally made it to see a long time fascination of mine: Coney Island. My interest in Coney Island stems Rem Koolhaas’s analysis of the island in Delirious New York. In his essay, Coney Island: Technology of the Fantastic, he outlines the role Coney Island played in generating the 24-hour metropolis and consumer culture that transformed New York City at the turn of the 20^th Century.

According to Koolhaas, Coney Island always existed in binary opposition to Manhattan. At the beginning, Coney Island was a natural landscape with quiet beaches; a relief from the congestion of Manhattan. As the island became more popular and more crowded, it could no longer exist in its current state and had to swing to the opposite binary, one of extreme artificiality and urban intensification. Mutating the island into a city of lights and artificiality, a place where pleasure was created and consumed, required technology. To borrow from Koolhaas, technology of the fantastic was used to create a synthetic reality. Technology of the fantastic was used to create an urbanism and social environment that the public demanded and consumed, one that became a laboratory for Manhattan.

A bizarre landscape of theme parks evolved on the Island, each trying to outdo the last. Dreamland was home to over 1,300,000 electric lights, creating a second city of lights that was the advent of the 24-hour metropolis. Attractions like Fighting the Flames, The Fall of Pompeii, Barrels of Love and Lilliputia developed in line with the public’s demand for the fantastic and bizarre. Each relied on technology to create and sell a synthetic reality to be consumed by the public. Further, cardboard was a predominant building material, resulting in many impossible spires and useless space. However, the architecture was convincing enough to support “the formula: carboard + technology (or any other flimsy material) = reality.” Coney Island’s extreme artificiality and wonderland of lights and attractions prompted some critics to call the place “The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium.”

These factors of technology, synthetic reality, urbanism and the bizarre served as a laboratory for Manhattan, creating a new urbanism and consumer culture to go with it.

That was Coney Island then, but what about now? What is it and how does it function in the metropolis?

To me, it seems like it is caught between lives, between what was then and what it is now. It was interesting to see how my preconceptions of the place both aligned and strayed from what it actually is. It is still a weird outpost at the end of the line, but it is not the abandoned landscape devoid of life that I imagined. In fact, it still seems to be quite popular among the public, offering a unique blend of attractions amid the fading glory. Some of the old attractions, or remnants of them, still exist. You can eat a hot dog at Nathan’s hot dogs, home to the world’s first, ride the old Ferris wheel and other carnival rides. Coney Island retains some its old former weirdness, with fading signs and structures from the previous century, as well as attractions like Shoot the Freak. “Come on up, ladies and gentlemen, shoot the freak and the rest of your day will be gravy.”

Coney Island has certainly changed, but it still exists in binary opposition to Manhattan. Once an intensification of urban pressure, it is now an exhale from the pressure and crowds of Manhattan, a world apart from the museums and fashion of the other island. The attractions and landscape of the island have changed drastically during its lifespan, but the motivations to go have not. It is always has been, and still functions as, an escape, a chance to find, and even temporarily live in, a different reality.

http://www.paulgoss.com
http://www.architectureanthropology.com

Mark Twain wrote:

“I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none of the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we render the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English: it is un-American; it is French…of course Satan has some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may be a poor one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us.”

I am not going to come to the defense of Satan, or comment on Mark Twain’s opinions of the French, but I want you to suspend your preconceptions for a moment and consider with me that stepchild of the preservation movement, architectural reconstruction. It is my destiny to make this argument, since for the last six years I have been deeply involved in the reconstruction of a French Military Building, the Mars Education Center ( le Magazin du Roi) at Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain in New York State. I want to engage you in a making a case for architectural reconstruction within a historic site.

Allow me to set the stage:  The Ticonderoga peninsula on Lake Champlain, NY, has many stories to tell, but for North Americans, the role it played in the Seven Years War and Revolutionary War dominates.  In 1755, the French, realizing the site’s importance for their control of Lake Champlain, began constructing Fort Carillion on the peninsula’s high ground. After four years of labor by thousands of soldiers and artisans, the French were forced to abandon the fort by the attacking British, but not before exploding its gunpowder magazine. The British took the fort, renamed it Ticonderoga, made some basic repairs, and lightly garrisoned it. However, the fort lost its military significance even before the end of the Revolutionary War, and the harsh Adirondack winters proved the ephemeral nature of European building techniques in a freeze thaw climate.  The fort was fast becoming a picturesque ruin.

Financier William Ferris Pell eventually rescued the fort from further destruction and, early in the 20th century, in one of our nation’s earliest preservation efforts, Pell family members initiated the fort’s restoration, opening it in 1909 as the country’s first open-air museum. Since that time, through its buildings, collections and programs, the fort has instilled in its visitors a sense of the history and culture of this mythic place. The site was always interpreted physically as a British/American fort, and the east side – the French gunpowder magazine – was never restored.

Reconstruction & Honesty

The tension between reconstruction and honesty was evident early on.  In 1846 at the inception of the awareness of the issues inherent in reconstruction and restoration, John Ruskin wrote in the Seven Lamps of Architecture: “It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture.” The difficulties of “raising the dead” have been well documented in the ensuing 150 years. The goal of historic accuracy has become enmeshed with present concerns on countless projects.

This was codified in the Athens Charter of 1931. There the preservation and architectural communities set out to proscribe the popular restoration/reconstruction epitomized by the work of Viollet-le-Duc, and these popular American open-air museums. The professional approach became one of respecting all previous intervention, and encouraging a view of old buildings as historical documents.  Viewed as such, ‘historic’ buildings could be studied and admired but never copied. The honesty of structure that le-Duc saw in Medieval structures had been transformed into an honesty of visual intention and a concern of falsifying history.

A Means of Education

In the spring of 2000, the Fort Ticonderoga Association brought my firm on board to develop the program and schematic designs for the reconstruction of the East Barracks. We were aware that the re-creation of this 18^th century building from the available sources presented an ethical and technical dilemma;  We have little direct physical evidence about the building’s configuration or tectonics and no existing immediate prototypes.

The decision to attempt a French, rather than an English reconstruction, came to members of the team, professional consultants and Fort staff alike.  We realized that we should be designing a French building portraying as accurately as we know the exterior appearance of its progenitor, while simultaneously accommodating a 21^st century building program and the systems that support it. The exterior of the building is as authentic a reconstruction as we know how to do in the early 21^st century, based on our research while the interior is an unabashedly modern building.

Responsible historic reconstruction is, in part, defining the past – within admittedly artificial time constructs – and accepting our role as stewards. If historic places represent our ancestors – and they do – treatments shouldn’t be undertaken at their expense. It is appropriate to reconstruct when it deepens our understanding of the past; when in the process one does not destroy resources or artifacts that are currently telling their own story.  Reconstruction should always be as honest and respectful as possible toward people from the past, the built environment, and time.  We construct artifacts to give meaning to our lives. An architectural reconstruction is such an artifact, and it empowers the interpretation of history to create deep and abiding meanings.

Mine is not an argument for revisiting architectural classicism, new urbanism, and certainly not the silliness of post modernism.  I am talking about reconstruction within the context of an historic site with the intention to educate. I acknowledge that reconstruction will open the door to human error in decision-making. The concepts of the current designer, the proposed program, and the contemporary technology create an illusion that illustrates the reconstructor’s vision of history. But if we don’t attempt to reconstruct we have lost an opportunity to expand our understanding of the past. In this context effort of reconstruction matters because it lasts and it is a tangible means of explaining the historical record.

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