Danish architecture and planning students, Mia Ann Bruhn and Birgitte Ravn Knop (below) have spent 1 1/2 months in Buffalo for an independent research project involving post-industrial wastelands. Their study will culminate in a 2-day only exhibit at the Grant Street Gallery, 216 Grant Street on November 3rd and 4th. The opening reception will be held from 6:30 to 9PM on Tuesday, November 3rd, and the exhibit will be available for viewing on Wednesday, November 4th from 9AM to 9PM.
Below is a Q & A with the duo in regard to their study, their findings, and what they’ll take home with them. Most foreign to the students was the strength of Buffalo’s grassroots movement in dealing with community issues, as shown to them, particularly by PUSH Buffalo.
Q:
What is the premise of your independent study?
A: As we are students doing our 10th semester at
the Aarhus School of Architecture, we were allowed to go away to do an
independent research project for two months. This gave us the opportunity to
get very close to a foreign environment, which we very much appreciate.
During our three years of study in the
Department of Landscape and Urbanism, we have focused our theoretical studies
on the phenomenon of “shrinking cities,” a tendency unfolding all over the
Western world as a result of suburbanization, de-industrialization and people
moving to leading city regions. The shrinkage leaves its most visible, physical
marks on cities like Buffalo. We are here to develop our understanding of these
places, which have been given innumerable names: “terrain vague,” “leftover
landscape,” “drosscape,” “wasteland.”
From the starting point of investigating the
spatial, material and structural qualities of different types of wastelands in
Buffalo, we aim to expand our understanding of those places and, consequently,
to see the different possibilities for re-interpretation and re-inhabitation
that the sites provide.
The term “wasteland” defines those places as
locations that, through their desertion, have been emptied of meaning, erased
from the city. They are zero-value sites in need of an injection of or
interpretation into a new meaning to regain life. And as such, they provide the
unique situation of having vast lands of new possibilities within existing city
fabrics.
Our method of investigation derives from New
York artist Robert Smithson whom, in the 1960s with his explorations of
deserted areas through land art, established a basis from which landscape
architects have developed their views and approaches towards wastelands through
decades. He wrote those forgotten places into re-existence not just as the
servant of some applied use, cast away after fulfilling its duties, but of
something containing an exact value within itself. It is through his
perspective that we try to see the wastelands of Buffalo by investigating the
spatial, material and structural qualities of different types of wastelands. It
is very much about challenging the way in which we perceive places!
Q:
Why Buffalo?
A: Being interested in wastelands as a type of
area within city structures and in the very different forms that wastelands
take, we needed to go to do our research somewhere we would be able to find
these different forms within relatively small distances.
Having heard about the situation of decline
[of the steel industry and subsequent housing overstock] in Buffalo it seemed
obvious to go here and it turned out to be a great choice! Not only did we find
those wastelands that so interest us, we also encountered a population of
open-minded, dedicated citizens engaging heavily in the development of the
city, both privately and professionally.
The places that we have been investigating are
more or less obvious members of the category “wasteland,” and the forms that
our research has taken in the different situations very much depend on our
immediate impression of each place in itself. In the deserted industrial areas
on the city’s South side, our attention was in particular caught by amazing
vegetation. On Main Street in downtown Buffalo, we focused on human use
patterns and daily rhythms. Looking beneath the elevated highways, we wanted to
know how these large -scale structures with their mono-functional use interact
with adjacent city areas. And what is the future life, we wonder, of vacant
lots?
As architects in a world of stagnating
economies, we do have a preconceived notion of a need to consider how
wastelands could be developed in ways less in the name of recreation, as has
very much been the fashion in the past decade, and more of working with
immediate and future challenges of the cities, such as grey-water treatment,
urban agriculture and green energy production. This does, of course, to some
extent influence the way we perceive the site and interpret its inherent
possibilities of development.
Q:
You had preconceived notions about Buffalo. How were they met, and what sort of surprises did you find?
A: Professionally we didn’t actually have too
many preconceived notions about Buffalo, as the whole set-up of our project of
investigation is built on the concept of perceiving the city when being there
in person. Using one’s body as a tool for measuring distances, spaces,
atmospheres, sounds and so on.
Of course it didn’t come as a surprise to us
that Buffalo was a city in post-industrial decline, and we did expect this to
be evident physically as well as socially. Somehow, what has surprised us the
most is the presence of quite a great number of impressive, well-maintained
mansions; from our Danish perspective we would have thought that this degree of
decline in a city would have wiped out rich people, too. We were very happy to
encounter the Elmwood Village and a more general awareness of local and organic
produce.
Our greatest and most positive surprise has
been, however, to find in Buffalo a society simmering with that very special
kind of nerve that is sometimes the positive outcome in places positioned on
the edge, literally or figuratively. This city has an impressive number of
dedicated grassroots organizations and arts institutions and practitioners! In
our perspective, this very much relates to the question of quality of life, and
it influences heavily on the environment with which we work as architects.
Q:
What do you see that’s being done right here, and what do you se that
could be improved on?
A: Our attention while being in Buffalo has been
directed towards the immediate experience of the place and so we have not spent
time looking into the city’s plans for future development. We find that the
extent of work that is being done at a grassroots-level is extremely impressive
and valuable to the city. The commitment that people put into their community
and the responsibility they take for the future development of the city seems
rather unique, at least seen from our Danish perspective; in Denmark the degree
of public investments into the discussions of city development would most
usually stay on the level of writing readers’ letters and setting up facebook
groups.
Grassroots organizations operate bottom-up and
are most often engaging themselves in immediate issues working on immediate
solutions to improve certain peoples lives. The work process in itself seems to
have the value of different people coming together, which we last experienced
at a workshop with the aim of creating ideas for the renovation of a
neighborhood park hosted by PUSH; this is certainly one valuable experience of
your society that we will take with us.
Our Danish education within the field of
landscape architecture and city planning attaches a high degree of importance
to process and development over time. We tend to always try to look at a given
issue in large-scale context, considering the city as an organism related to
timeframes more likely to be fifty years than two. From this perspective, it is
important that the different townships within the Buffalo region are able to
collaborate on the development of the city region.
Within this working frame it is essential to
discuss the roles of the grassroots organizations within society: How far do
they stretch, and what would be their most efficient shape and when do other
methods for city development become necessary?
Working as architects in a society of
increasing attention to consumption of resources in general and democratic
processes, we need to further develop our abilities to work together with the
future users of the physical settings we create. Here, the grassroots
organizations can really teach us something.
Q: Why should people go to your exhibit?
A: Our investigations take form as a number of
short stories told through different medias, such as map, collage, and
video. The stories are about the
wasted or underused spaces of your city, made by us as foreigners, and perhaps
this might give a different perspective to some of the issues that you as a
city have to deal with. We very
much want your opinion on that!
We hope that the exhibition will provide to
you an interesting experience and a contribution to your further thoughts on
possibilities and actions for a positive development within the wastelands of
Buffalo.