(no subject)
We tend to think of our built environments as permanent, unchanging, even eternal. But, architecture and infrastructure are, in fact, downright ephemeral when we consider them on generational scale. For most of you reading this, the building you are sitting in now was not in existence 100 years ago. For a large number of us the building was not around even 50 years ago. Landscapes can change very rapidly.
Last weekend I was in upstate New York standing in a field of high grass laced with wild flowers and humming with bees. A ragged bush, 10 or 15 feet tall anchored the bucolic scene. Unless you knew what to look for, you would assume that the scene was one of unadulterated natural beauty.
But, this was no place untouched by man, I was standing on the foundation of a mansion the belonged to one of the wealthy heirs of the robber barons of the 1890s. The outline of the foundation was visible under a layer of thick moss and buried in weeds, the remains of the front steps descended in to a clearing and vanished in to the grass.
Through the 1910s and 1920s this "summer house" flourished-- I imagine the people who lived there thought it would last forever. Only the front gate remains, wide enough for carriages two-abreast, a metal spigot hints at the gas lights that one lit the way for guests. And there were once many guests-- because, we saw, not only the ruins of a single country manor, but of a small cluster of manors that once formed a kind of resort.
But all of this is gone today, and in 100 years time few people will remember.
Oddly enough, knowing that gives me some hope. You see, there are quite a few urban planners who are pulling out all of their hair because they feel the recent suburban expansion has gone too far too fast. The energy requirements for the type of dwellings we have built are too great and unsustainable at the present scale. And they are mostly likely right-- But, it's not as if anything will continue to exist if people stop taking care of it. The built environment persists only through human effort and if we change the focus of our efforts our built environment will change and, within only a few generations, it may be completely different.
How old is your building?
Will it still be around in 100 years?