Devil's Den Justification

This whole project works on the model of reaching the individual and the sum of individuals affecting positive change at a massive scale. Such a large and broad issue deserves a unique approach to monument. For this, a large monument in a heavily populated area is less effective than the sum of a series of more intimate and personal interventions on a small scale. The monument that would affect an area such as my home county in rural PA would find itself in Gettysburg. Once in Gettysburg, it would be most effective in a social landmark such as the area of Devil’s Den…

…I will not deny my love for this site; it’s been my favorite place back home since I was five. Despite this, I have very clear reasons for designing here; I will continue to articulate them. This thesis is mine, and I find it more challenging and rewarding to design something that is personally relevant. This is a strong site because any resident of the town and surrounding areas has intimate knowledge of land. A message as large, hopeful, and important as the one I’m designing needs to affect the social atmosphere of Gettysburg, and I believe it has a strong chance of doing this in a site that is meaningful to such a wide breadth of people. Devil’s Den is a common destination for nearly all Gettysburg tourists. It is a median area of the site; tourists approach it during the middle of their visit when they are apt to break and spend an extended amount of time in one place. One rarely just passes by but stays to explore, picnic, or read. The area has little specific historical importance. There was a skirmish here, but there was no great battle. It was a temporary stage for sharp shooters, and after the battles bodies were dragged here for profitable dramatic if inaccurate photographs. This project is not simply a monument for the military dead of Gettysburg but touches many other issues, therefore this is better suited than other areas loaded with specific history such as the area of Pickett’s charge. Touching the ground on this site will be controversial, but I think it is justifiable. I could not justify adding anything beyond what exists on a site like Pickett’s charge for articulating my message.

The site has stunning and dramatic geology. It’s natural beauty and unique appearance is a powerful setting for contrasting the built form with nature. In such a setting, work by the hand of man takes a new significance as either powerful and beautiful, or intrusive and unworthy of sitting amongst its natural setting. What we can build here becomes obvious; either it is an extension of the attitude of the land or an intrusion on it, this can viewed as a critique of anything built today. The majority of structures in Gettysburg are built upon flat land; this site provides the singular opportunity in Gettysburg to build upon something other than a gentle slope or flat plane. Ground leveled for a new fast food chain (however obnoxious in appearance) is less offensive than an architectural work of art built here, why does our society allow this? We are desensitized to bad taste and accept it because there are no alternatives in places like small town PA. Just as the site begs the question of the beauty nature can construct, so too can it beg the question of the beauty/offense that man can construct, and ask the question “at what cost?” I want people to question the value of their environment in order to think harder about saving, using, or abusing the land in which they live, work, and visit. I want it to encourage thought and discussion of the value of remembrance, self-expression, and social property.

The site bends visitors into daring, exciting, and uncomfortable positions. The site influences users to be curious, adventurous, and experience the site. This will extend to the anti-monument I construct in order to make it more dynamic and intriguing.

This is a small site of significant value to Gettysburg which attracts hordes of residents and tourists. Users will not expect to confront these issues here; this relates to the denial or hesitance of our society to confront the large and difficult issues at hand. More will experience the monument even if unexpectedly than would travel out of their way to see it alone in a different setting. My ultimate goal is for this to be a coercive and enlightening work of art rather than propaganda disguised as architecture, and I realize this may be a fine line.

In summary…

- Personal attachment to site
- Intimate knowledge by most residents
- Highly challenging
- Personal relevance
- Highly meaningful to the town
- Devoid of existing monument
- controversial
- Many casual uses for site
– exploring, reading, picnicking, rest
- Visitors tend to wander and spend a fair amount of time here
- Lack of specific historical significance (as opposed to areas like Pickett’s charge)
- Natural beauty will encourage high contrast to built form
- Unique topography provides design opportunities like nowhere else in gburg
- Introduce a higher order of architecture
- Site encourages curiosity, exploration, and intrigue
- large exposure to tourists and residents alike
- the site acts as a geological form of bait for interaction

I think this description is pretty clear. If you think of any reasons I may have missed, please let me know. If none of this convinces you then I doubt anything else I say will do so, and I will move on and stop beating a dead horse… but I don’t think this will be the case.

Criteria Recap

Monument & Environmental Health

The search began in selecting a subject or event whose loss of property, lives, or scale of damage was monumental and of an environmental nature. This led to the exploration of unnatural disasters.

Unnatural Disasters

large scale environmental harm due to the animosity, apathy, accidents, or ignorance of man.

These disasters are described in general categories such as coal mine collapses, dam failures, industrial explosions and toxicity, government actions, nuclear accidents, oil spills, terrorism, etc.

Sites were initially selected for fitting one of these categories.

The Sites

New Orleans – toxicity (carbon dioxide causing more frequent and intense hurricanes), govt

Centralia – mine collapse and fire

Washington DC – govt

New York - terrorism

Gettysburg - govt

Sites were then evaluated on the criteria of cultural impact, political significance, inherent monumentality, financial impact, potential audience, and potential for physical and symbolic applications of sustainability

Gettysburg

Culture – “Gettysburg Address” synonymous with social and political resolution for remembrance and fighting for change, small town thriving on historic tourism, one of largest examples of environment preservation in US, overdevelopment feeding off tourism

Politics – decisive battle in Civil War

Monumentality – incredible number of lives lost, thousands of existing monuments, Gettysburg Address

Finance - huge tourism industry could easily support construction

Audience – nearly 2 million yearly tourists, 10,000 residents

Sustainability – solar, geothermal, wind, recycling, and social. Large, uneducated audience, large transportation footprint

The primary unnatural disaster is War. War is relevant today, particularly because of our war for oil. The need for oil relates to the problems of climate change, over population, and over development. Gettysburg is a beautiful historic town being transformed by large trucks and exponentially increasing traffic. This is a logical site for applying the idea of collective small changes affecting the environment at a large scale. The environmental impact from within the town center is not visible, but becomes clear as one travels through the overdeveloped fringes. The town is home to elegant historic vernacular architecture, but quality current architecture is either non existent or marked for demolition. I am interested in making architecture that is relevant and meaningful to me. A monumental area of preserved land littered with un-monuments. Site packed with meaning and significance due to local and national history. Attempt to confront the unsustainable residents and tourists of Gettysburg, a reaction to over development and environmental apathy. Gettysburg recently quelled the construction of a casino, but the massive development that began in anticipation continues. This area is known for its large scale preservation of land, this is an antimonument alluding to environmental and social preservation.

- War

- Oil - Overdevelopment and excessive large vehicle traffic

- Only current architecture is vinyl townhomes and big boxes

- “Modern” architecture always scheduled for demolition

- Monumentally preserved land marked only with (un)monuments

- Significant local and national history

- Environmentally unaware audience

- Amplifying the idea of environmental preservation

Way too long updated Abstract

Still roughing this out.

Monument is an evocative and artistic form of architecture tied heavily to cultural memory; architecture for the public good. The monumental built form reflects the aspirations of the time; it ranges from colossal gestures of social prosperity to a quiet remembrance of passing. Monument marks an important piece of history; a society invested a great amount of time, resources, and artistry to express itself through this built form. Monument encompasses amazing feats of design and engineering, embodiments of religious beliefs, political statements, commemorations of victories, and memorials to our dead. Monument addresses the concerns of a society, and maintains its significance through our interpretation of a society’s past.

What is today’s monumental social concern? Climate change and global warming are proving to be this generation’s paramount concern, the effects of which have the potential to halt social and industrial progress. While architecture is a leading advocate of combating global warming through technical sustainability; this intervention calls on it to deal with the bigger social issues linked to sustainability. Living sustainably is not just turning the lights off and recycling, but it is somehow reforming a consumer based society encouraged to drive large vehicles and frequent even larger super-stores. Our actions and buying habits put power in the hands of large corporations which buys them government influence. Government and industry are some of the largest perpetrators of environmental harm, leading to massive unnatural disasters such as industrial actions, toxicity, and war.

Just as small patterns of social action lead to large scale environmental harm, so too can small actions lead to positive environmental change. Educating the masses on the consequences of their actions can allow one to reflect on their life and decide whether or not they are acting towards better living for themselves and the community.

This education should be aimed towards society at every level, from dense urban populations to typical small town America. Small town America is described by such places as Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, at one time a crucial point in an American war. Currently benefitting from tourism as well as the victim of overdevelopment, this is a site capable of grabbing the attention of the both the curious tourist and the typical American family unaware or uneducated in the benefits of sustainability. The heart of this area’s leisure and educational travel is a natural monument on the Gettysburg Battlefield known as Devil’s Den. A place of natural beauty could be a site that would generate the curiousity and controversy necessary in attracting the masses to a thought provoking piece of monumental architecture. This site would provide a definitive monument amidst thousands of classically beautiful monuments devoid of emotion and impact. It would also provide the context for viewing the power of the built form amongst nature’s grandeur as well as its fragility. Locals and tourists may love it or hate it, but it would be a testament to our desire to shape nature to our liking and the positive and negative outcomes entailed.

The public is constantly tied to war, from a simple historic curiosity to funding the oil machine that drives it. It is the product of our society’s actions today as it was yesterday. Climate change is the product of today’s society as well as that of our immediate past. This architecture hopes to experientially allow the viewer to draw these conclusions and take away something that holds the power in changing society on both the small and large scale.

1/4 Jury

Last night was rough for all of us, but there was great benefit in having outsiders. I don’t think any of us were prepared to pitch our whole thesis, and we’re going to have to really focus on the meat of our ideas to distill our descriptions to a few minutes.

I really dropped the ball on my presentation, got nervous, and did a really poor job articulating my ideas and left out quite a few that might have been helpful to the outsiders. I think they generally got the idea and there was a lot of discussion from every juror; advisors and outsiders alike.

I need an effective diagram displaying my ideas. I don’t think they could easily wrap their minds around the social issues and current relevance I hope this monument to bring up. I’m hoping to allow visitors to draw conclusions from their own actions and the actions of people in power. Basically that there is a consequence to everything, and even war can be boiled down to consumerism and the general public. I’m thinking of a diagram like a March Madness bracket of ideas/consequences/effects or something like the food pyramid.

Andrew’s one juror brought up the ideas of sensory architecture, and that is a goal of mine. A site like this brings heightened awareness of the senses, and my architecture will extend this. Sensory perception is also why I did paintings as diagrams, I’ll be searching for more emotive ways of representing ideas.

The argument of whether or not to build here is something I was happy to have discussed. Some people will be offended by it, some people will be intrigued by it. In any case it will generate discussion and controversy that will get the gears turning in visitors’ heads. My hope for thought provoking architecture will benefit from a sacred site like this. I will not back away from “you should not build here.” This is part of the attraction and crucial to the effectiveness of the project.

Some things to work on:

Abstract/script to read from/memorize for the ½ way jury. I really need to be concise and clear and not stumble on my words like last night.

Ideas/chain of actions diagram

Determining best way to approach site, continue partis through drawing and model