“The edge is at the center, we just need to adjust our focus; in other words, that which lies behind our eyes is as crucial as that which lies in front of them.”
(fig. 1) Historical development of Savannah Plan indicating the initial four squares from 1773 and culminating with the full twenty-five squares in 1856.
(fig. 2) Factors Walk at Eastern end of Waterfront.
(fig. 3) Post Card showing waterfront with the Cotton Exchange Building and City Hall. The new Hotel is at extreme right.
(fig. 4) Factor’s Walk near City Hall with ramp leading to Bay Street.
(fig. 5)City Hall, 1910, Bay Street elevation looking north from Johnson Square up Bull Street.
(fig. 6) Cotton Exchange Building, 1866 Bay Street elevation.
(fig. 7) Bull Street looking south from City Hall towards Forsythe Park, Johnson Square is the foreground.
(fig. 8) Mary Miss, “Perimeters/Pavilions/Decoys,” 1978.
(fig. 9) Peter Gordon’s etching of Savannah, 1734.
(fig. 10) Johnson Square, 1733 with the Nathaniel Green Monument, 1830. City Hall is in the background.
(fig. 11) Tomo Chi Chi, Mico of the Yamacraw, and his nephew Toonahowi.
(fig. 12) Wright Square, 1733 with the William Washington Gordon Monument, 1884.
(fig. 13) James Edward Oglethorpe
(fig. 14) Chippewa Square, 1815 with the James Edward Oglethorpe Monument, 1910.
(fig. 15) Madison Square, 1837 with the Sargeant Jasper Monument, 1888.
(fig. 16) Monterey Square, 1847 with the General Pulaski Monument, 1855.
(fig. 17) Forsythe Park, 1851 with the Fountain to commemerate Governor John Forsythe, 1858.
Framing the Center or
Placing the Post Humanist Subject or Various Places
Introduction
To begin with, when I say “Framing the Center,” I mean literally a Lacanian frame-that which surrounds the mirror. In other words where Ludwig Hilberseimer elevated that mirror frame to primacy1 (Hilberseimer is seen as merely a paradigm of a modernist tendency), and where I will argue Rem Koolhaas re-establishes the Arcadian space in the mirror - via an exclusion of an identifiable framing device - I propose both components be adjusted or at least brought into question. The same two figures if seen - for the time being - as paradigms of their respective moments, then a similar analysis of the place of the subject could be elucidated.2
Savannah, a planned city, was laid out in 1733 according to the designs of James Edward Oglethorpe who utilized military planning techniques brought over from England. The execution of his plan was initiated by a small group of settlers, some of whom were pardoned criminals exiled from England and placed under the supervision of Oglethorpe. The first two squares and wards Johnson and Wright respectively - were accomplished in the span of two weeks, and hence, Savannah was born. Although a complete historical analysis of the development of Savannah is beyond the scope of this paper there are numerous texts on this subject - allow me to at least establish a couple of points that ultimately transcend this site, and as such serve as the basis by which this process and project should be analyzed. First, the paving of Factor’s Walk (fig. 2, 4), was generated by stones used initially as ballast to stabilize the ships transporting goods to the New World from England. Second, the burial site for Tomo-Chi-Chi, chief of the Yamacraw Tribe (fig. 11), who died in 1739, occurred at the ‘center’ of Wright Square - the second square laid out in Savannah. A monument to William Washington Gordon (1796-1842), founder of the Central of Georgia Railroad, was placed at this point in 1844, one hundred years after the burial of Tomo Chi Chi (fig. 12). Further, in 1889 The Georgia Society of Colonial Dames placed a large boulder in the Southeast corner of this square to commemorate Tomo Chi Chi’s burial now displaced from the center, one hundred and sixty years after his death.
Studio Work: Savannah Revitalized
This project/process/analysis was, from its inception, about death and transfiguration, displacement and exchange. The first area of concentration was the waterfront. A waterfront that -- if one could picture for a moment without its wall and Factor’s Walk -- one could argue is marginal. This picture of the waterfront -- if held onto for a moment longer would be slightly more convincing with the recent insertion of the waterfront hotel, the decaying city behind, and the further marginalization of the waterfront by tourism (fig. 3).
Extracting from this picture of the waterfront two emblematic buildings: First, City Hall - a universal symbol of Western Imperialism -- given the sublimation of Native Americans (fig. 5); Second, the Cotton Exchange Building c. 1886 a symbol of nineteenth century industrialization and oppression --slavery of African Americans (fig. 6), one could propose a Time Landscape3 that sees these two buildings set amongst Factors Walk, freestanding in front of the decaying city. In other words, a proposal that would literally deconstruct the entire chain of buildings along Factors Walk, leaving City Hall and the Cotton Exchange freestanding markers to Savannah’s, and by extension, our own past.
The second area of concentration was Bull Street, or better, the ‘Axis of the Monuments’ (fig. 7). This axis serves to connect five of Savannah’s main squares between City Hall on the North to Forsythe Park on the South. Placed at the center of each of these squares is a statue commemorating significant (white male) figures in Savannah’s history, one of which, William Washington Gordon (fig. 12) served to displace the burial site of Tomo Chi Chi, as mentioned previously. In addition, both Forsythe Park and City Hall contain monumental fountains (fig. 16). The fountain at City Hall is located inside the ground floor rotunda. Given this situation -- the five monuments anchored by fountains at either end of Bull Street -- I propose a counter-monument to the ‘Yamacraw’ in the form of a line or trough, one foot square in section and open at the top, which will be flush in the center of Bull Street and run its full length, thus undermining the five monuments and terminating at each end in the fountains. Further, this trough will be lined with stones in single file and covered with a durable top of steel grate enabling visibility as one passes over it.
This is surely not an adequate proposition though. One must project the possibility of new life into the city behind the waterfront...but how? If the waterfront as reconstituted above serves to anchor the northern edge of the city (by city I refer specifically to the original twenty-five squares and wards laid out beginning in 1733 with Johnson Square-- the first square on Bull Street--and culminating in 1851 with Whitefield Square, see fig. 1), then why not address in a similar fashion the western and eastern edges or West Broad Street and East Broad Street respectively. Would this not help to clarify what are already divisions or interruptions in the original plan of Savannah? By interruptions, I refer to the urban renewal project of the 1960’s that eradicated two squares along West Broad Street -- a marginal neighborhood at the time -- to make way for a Civic Center.
It seems quite logical to project future intense development adjacent to the western edge, (by intense development I refer to a maglev high speed rail station/interchange for service from Atlanta to the West and Boston/Miami in the north/south corridor). One can easily project a complex of buildings to not only anchor the western edge of the center but also house dwellings; workplaces, shops, schools, museums, housing. This complex would overlay its context and organize its diverse potential. Anchoring the eastern edge would be a Time Landscape which corresponds to and expands the original Trustee’s Garden -- an experimental farm laid out by Oglethorpe in 1733 and soon faltered as a result of privatization in 1740 -- into the adjacent rail yards. The specific use characteristic of this Time Landscape would remain open.
What about order? For this I will rest on a strong reading of MaryMiss’, Perimeters/Pavilions/Decoys, (fig. 8).4 To this reading I suspect one could easily interpret the grid of wards and squares as pictorialized by Peter Gordon in his etching from 1734 (fig. 9), as a diaphragm, an attempt to control nature ‘literally’ and ‘phenomenally.’ Given this reading, it seems quite logical to operate on two planes: The first plane being the Time Landscape although of indigenous growth none-the-less reified as artificial; the second plane being the city as overlay -- a vertical displacement -- by dropping the squares and overall perimeter of the central city twelve and a half feet, revealing thinness in all its exposed edges. In addition to this reading I propose the indexing of all twenty-five squares chronologically in the new construction along the western edge. A “bridge for the peripatetic” will span each square but remain disjunct, only to be recollected at the western edge adjacent to and within the new construction. I propose in addition to this indexing of the squares as they are reconstituted, a similar indexing of the waterfront properties; such that a sequence of deconstruction (the waterfront buildings), reconstitution (the squares and edges, or diaphragm), and indexing (the new construction) occurs over extended time. Extended time in the sense that this process would be gauged to ‘real’ economic time, in other words, tied to the market’s demand. Add to this sequence the placing of animals on the sites of the displaced waterfront buildings, such that during the unfolding of this series of events a Zoological Garden evolves.
I will suggest that this series of events be read as an attempt to ‘map’ the city of Savannah ‘cognitively’ as has been outlined by Fredric Jameson,5 the dialectic between the here and now of immediate perception and the imaginative sense of the city as an absent totality--presents something like a spatial analogue of Althusser’s great formulation of ideology itself, as “the Imaginary representation of the subject’s relationship to her or his Real conditions of existence”...which...has the great merit of stressing the gap between the local positioning of the individual subject and the totality of class structures in which she or he is situated, a gap between phenomenological perception and a reality that transcends all individual thinking or experience.
The extent of the mapping I am proposing thus far seems to be an inadequate proposition though, as Jameson' goes on to state in the same article, an article in which he seems to be suggesting the impossibility of a pure socialist state...if capitalism does not exit, then clearly socialism does not exit either...one might better spend time adjusting and reforming an eternal capitalist landscape as far as the eye can see.
To continue with Savannah then...why should the buildings being removed from the waterfront -- as elsewhere -- cease to exist? Why not utilize these material artifacts to construct walls in the reconstituted squares? Better yet, would it not be conceivable that an international network of exchange come into being. A network whose goal would be to categorically document all cities/sites globally; sites in which reclamation and or destruction are occurring, (i.e. Berlin, Bagdad). Such a network could thus establish an exchange of material artifacts globally. One would, given such an enterprise, want to systematize an exchange value though. An exchange value that would place a significance ratio on the participating cities, such that a degree zero line is established in which those cities deemed significant would be assigned a significance ratio -- above the degree zero line -- in ascending order, while those cities deemed less significant would be assigned a significance ratio below the degree zero line in descending order. This degree zero line would then enable each participating city to exchange material artifacts in a climate of significant parity. Is this not to suggest that we envision the city as a museum? A museum residing in stasis however, with its diverse collection of artifacts...buildings and sculptural monuments...fixed to the past. Is this not further to suggest that as a museum, why not allow these artifacts the same privilege as art objects. In other words, why not allow these artifacts the privilege of exchange, of exchange value, of complete commodification? In a sense, to see such a process as a counter to current reproductive capacities prophetically outlined by Walter Benjamin, and as brought into the present -- and one could say idealized into the immediate future -- by Paul Virilio, as he continually reiterates in his various texts. Texts in which the normative perception of space in relation to time has been supplanted by a new mode of perception relating space to speed, and of which we must currently contend. In other words a time speed relationship in which our experience can be relegated to the mere flipping of switch...the monitor, video etc...
This network, or better, corporation for argument’s sake, we could call the GNP Corp., or Global Non-Profit Corporation. One of its responsibilities pertaining to the proposition outlined above would be to oversee and direct this global exchange of material artifacts, as well as establish the relative significance ratios. In addition, the GNP Corp. would potentially direct the employment of scores of previously unemployed people in this enterprise . One immediately thinks of the assimilation of under-employment in the former East Bloc Nations, but certainly there exists the need to absorb the potential work force globally. It seems to me that a case could be drawn from previous efforts, such as the TVA or WPA programs of Roosevelt, or the artificial propping up of the various military-industrial complexes through sporadic conflicts that serve to replenish the weapons market as well as continue the employment of scores of military personnel.6 ...Why? As the perception of the globe becomes smaller, and the distance for communication less, can we not ask....Why? Why are we doing this? What are we waiting for? Can we not project an activity that occupies scores of people while we wait, for whatever it is we’re waiting for? There are those who project activities for the scientific community, the people who are arguably looking into these questions? What can the rest of us be here for?
In light of these questions, I read ideology by the Althusser definition -- as that structure or belief that is non-scientific.7 If this is so, I paraphrase Marcel Duchamp in an attempt, albeit on my part, to respond to this split between scientific fact and ideology, or in this case between science and art: After all, we have to accept those so called laws of science because it makes life more convenient, but that doesn’t mean anything so far as validity is concerned. Maybe it’s all just an illusion. We are so fond of ourselves, we think we are little gods of the earth -- I have my doubts, that’s all. The word ‘law’ is against my principles. Science is so evidently a closed circuit, but every fifty years or so a new ‘law’ is discovered that changes everything.8
Along with this global exchange network is the projection of housing not just for the displaced or nomadic subject, but for the ‘homelessness’ in us. Generation of housing will be a key component in this exchange process, and it is there that we must now turn.
An Opening
Through this analysis there is an identification of some general subject groups. Groups of subjects that could form a counter force to what has been deemed usefulness, in so far as science will allow. This is by no means a proposition for all, it seems there can be no such thing. This opening is for those who wish to participate, those who find places in transition, those who constitute their own. As such and with the full weight of this analysis its problems included I wish to now turn my attention to the second city in this process...Berlin.
(Endnotes)
1 Notes: Kurt Goodrich: “Indeterminacy and the Presence of Absence in the Work of Rem Koolhaas”, Fall 1992 see appendix.
2 Ibid
3 Alan Sonfist: Time Landscape, 1962
4 Mary Miss: Perimeters/Pavilions/Decoys, 1978; In this piece she problematizes structuralist binary oppositions such that; if the man-woman opposition is juxtaposed with the man-nature opposition, then by this prin- ciple woman is equated with nature. With this opening she then posits the “piece” in a cleared field (white male displacement of nature) thereby inscribing the opening as gynecological and as such renders the image of white male raping nature.
5 Fredric Jameson: “Cognitive Mapping”, in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, Chicago, 1988
6 To continue fabricating this picture of the military-industrial complex allow me to project for a moment longer—a projection that fully acknowledges the analysis of Walter Benjamin in his essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in which he states, If the natural utiiization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. The destructiveness of war furnishes proof that society has not been mature enough to incorporate technology as its organ, that technology has not been sufficiently developed to cope with the elemental forces of society. The horrible features of imperialistic warfare are attributable to the discrepancy between the tremendous means of production and their inadequate utilization in the process of production—in other words, to unemployment and the lack of markets. Thus, what has been for the better part of this century an evolution of a bi-polar globe is simply not the case anymore. The ultimate dual and its internal engine to arm and prepare itself for conflict—an engine that drives a large part of the global economies—is being dismantled. In the East the pace of this dismantling— relatively speaking—is appearing overnight. In the West there are those who still wish to maintain and/or fabricate new reasons for maintaining this build- up. As a matter of speculation you could imagine the fascination with “Star Wars”—not only the realization, but the film and popular literature—to be an attempt to instill public belief in such ludicrous fantasies that there exists threat from space. The fact that half of the bi-polar equation is collapsing under such artifice opens the flood gates of displacement—speaking of the subject—which in and of itself would be enough to justify rethinking. What today may seem useless, may tomorrow embody usefulness. Let’s hold this for a moment longer, consider that when two magnets are juxtaposed they tend to repel each other. If one of the magnets is withdrawn the remaining magnet shifts to the center of the respective field, that vast middle ground that could bare such a corporation.
7 Louis Althusser: “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, La Pense’, 1970 page 244
8 Calvin Tomkins: “The Bride and the Bachelors”, 1965 page 34