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| | Lucia Pirzio-Biroli, Richard Haag, Peter Latz |
The following is a two part interview between two esteemed professionals in the world of park design: Richard Haag, architect of Gas Works Park in Seattle, Washington, and Peter Latz, creator of Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord in the industrial Ruhr Valley of Germany. Both parks share an uncanny resemblance in their transformation of abandoned industrial sites into meaningful urban parks, yet they were realized under entirely different circumstances. These spaces demonstrate the possibility — and necessity — of reusing urban cast offs. These types of sites typically occupy land that is at the center of our cities and cultural landscapes, and represent us collectively as a society. They’re not something to be ashamed of or to deny like an ancestor, guilty of some trespass, we would rather forget.
Richard Haag on Gas Works Park
Describe the site as you found it.
The 13-acre gas plant began manufacturing synthetic gas in 1906 on the shore of a bog. Coal carried by railroad fuelled the operation until a 1936 shift to bunker oil delivered by tanker when the Government Locks raised the water level 2 meters and the bog became Lake Union. The original site hardened and extended into the lake, forming a 20-acre peninsula; a layer cake of industrial afterbirth. In 1956, natural gas replaced manufactured gas as Seattle’s primary energy source. The derelict structures stood in decaying disarray in a toxic wasteland until the early 1970s when radical concepts of a new kind of public park took form.
How did your ideas come about?
Earlier commissions and commitments, some won, some lost, against the constabulary of convention set me up to follow what, I believe, is a universal fascination with decay. During the 50s and 60s the US suffered growing pains of rampant commercialism, slum clearance and urban renewal. Then there was the ghostly spirit of the site as I found it in 1969. I haunted that place and discovered:
• no sensuous earth forms, but a dead level wasteland;
• no craggy rock outcroppings, but peaks of rusty roofs;
• no thickets, but a maze of tubes and pipes;
• no sacred forests, but towering totems of iron;
• no seductive pools, but pits of tar; and
• no plants (not even invasive exotics) had been able to secure a root hold in 15 years.
It needed a new vision. Originally I pledged to save the most sacred structure, the largest oxygen generator tower. But why not save its spouse, then the two sets of twins—who would break up a family? The contract was signed in 1970 and the city occupied the site three years later. This lag time proved to be crucial to gestate our seemingly indefensible approach and sell the idea of a park — created in an aesthetic no man’s land and an ecologic disaster zone — to the public. We promoted the concept of a new kind of people’s park that paid homage to our rich Olmsted legacy, complementing it through contrast.
How was the park commissioned?
The commission for GWP was a consolation prize to break a hung jury on a competition for another park. There was no formal program for “Lake Union Park,” only a wish list of typical passive park activities. My firm was commissioned to propose the scope of services, including site analysis, program of activities, a conceptual Master Plan, design development, construction documents, and supervision. As necessary, consultants were brought on board, the architect was in my office. The sculptor, Charles Greening was chosen to design and build the auto-gnomic sundial.
When did work begin?
Actual selective demolition contracts were let in 1971. In 1972 some adaptive use contracts followed our pioneering in situ bio-remediation experiments of revivifying indigenous bacteria to devour hydrocarbon pollutants proved to be successful (see ARCADE, 19.4, Spring 2001, “Gas Works at Work” by Patricia Tusa Fels). Without this demonstration, the concept would have collapsed, leaving Seattle with a clay-capped conventional park, sans structures, or worse, the site would have been traded or sold to a developer.
When was the site realized as you envisioned it?
In 1973 the Seattle Parks Department took possession and contracts for the adaptive use of the boiler building into the picnic shed, and the exhauster building into the play barn, were let. Subsequently other construction followed but today the park is not complete as approved.
Why do you think your ideas were accepted? Was there public debate surrounding them? If any, what was the impact on the project?
In 1970 the cultural climate was in a state of shock from the Vietnam debacle, the emergence of the civil rights movement, and the disaffection of young citizens against the ‘system.’ The concept of crafting a park featuring ‘forgotten works’ greatly appealed to the younger generation while older generations lobbied for the stereotypical image of “park” such as English pastoralism. A divisive public debate raged, fueled by the two daily newspapers opposing one another. Although the concept — not yet defined in a master plan — was endorsed by the Seattle Design Commission and American Institute of Architects, the Parks Department called for a public presentation to the City Council. Ten days later the Council unanimously approved the concept and program. The master plan took form, emboldened by strong political support. Important factors contributing to the realization of the park, a ’fossil’ factory in a degraded site, were:
A. 3 year lead time to study the site, develop an approach, and promote it to the public.
B. First demonstration of bio remediation.
C. Public demonstration of adaptive use, by recycling the black smith building into our on-site design office.
D. Develop a new math: by applying the savings accrued by not demolishing, the cost of reconstruction of historic buildings is less expensive than new construction.
E. Under the current policies of the Environmental Protective Agency, the Department of Ecology and Barrier Free Legislation, Gas Works Park could not have been built. Replication of the GWP prototype will not occur in the US unless we invoke good science and good economics against the conspiracy of the regulators and their engineers.
F. The site analysis directly supported the concept, which is not surprising since the concept (by revelation) preceded the site studies.
Was the park realized with private or public funding?
Funding was public. Funding for the future camera obscura, tower walk and interpretive center, however, may be private. The city was coerced by the State Department of Ecology to install a redundant $5 million benzene extraction system that negated the bioremediation process. The ongoing threat to demolish the 6 generating towers has been fended off by the concerted effort of a private watchdog non-profit, The Friends of Gas Works Park (FoGWP) founded in 1994 and successful in having GWP designated a City and State Landmark. National Registration is pending. (The mission of the Friends of Gas Works Park is to promote the acclaimed park design of Richard Haag; interpret the park’s industrial past and technology through imaginative re-cycling of the totemic artifacts of this former source of industrial light and energy into a place of recreation and cultural renewal for the benefit of the local, regional, and international community.)
How do you think Gas Works Park has impacted thinking about public parks?
Gas Works Park is well accepted as a special people place, a park with the greatest sense of light, space, weather, prospect and refuge that is presided over by the worlds only surviving ruins of a gas works.
Peter Latz on Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord
What was the site like when you found it?
The future landscape park was a huge 230-hectare conglomerate of sites shut down for years like the cokery and the mine; sites recently shut down such as the blast furnace plant; and of parts still in production like the foundries. All stages of succession and functions of this large “collective combine” were identifiable, particularly the railway connections. They were almost the only links to other parts of the plant. At the beginning of our project they were still in good shape and very visible. Today you can reach the heart of the park with railroad cars. We experienced the “brownfield” and the plant just left and cooling down with the liquid iron of the foundries.
How did your ideas come about?
In the early eighties we worked on the “Hafeninsel” or “River Port Island Park” in the Saar region, at first only theoretically. Realization began in 1985 and it was inaugurated in 1989. There I learned how the genius loci can be fixed to ruins of the past and linked to new elements and new uses. As a child, in the evening, the light of the Bessemer converter of a nearby steel mill coloured the ceiling of our bedroom deeply red. I also saw clearly that the total demolition in the southern Ruhr, beginning in the sixties and called “modernization,” destroyed the relationships and history of many people. Another essential influence was the mid-European archetypal myths. Could they be transposed on to the special place? Can individual memories and stories that are not associated with the place but with culture gain recognition in this system? How will a blast furnace turn into a dragon?
What was the nature of the competition you won for Duisburg?
It was an international invitational competition based on the invitee’s experience and past work. It was also cooperative. The individual teams worked at the site in the same large room. The competition lasted one year. We were obliged to give interim reports every three months, explaining the reasons for our results and discussing them with numerous citizens’ committees and interest groups. There was no program. The program was the object of the competition to be developed by the competitors. The project itself was independent but was a part of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park. There was only one architect on our team. Throughout the development of the project, however, numerous engineering firms, pollution specialists, industrial archaeologists etc. were consulted for the respective parts being prepared for realization. Consequently the teams were very flexible. The jury participated throughout the process: the town of Duisburg, the IBA Emscher Park, the citizens’ groups, some specialists of our profession, and politicians of the town.
When was the competition won and work begun?
We won the competition in 1991. Work began immediately. The first stages could be identified as the “Securing of Spaces.” The different parts of the park were single, very restricted projects, that had to be coordinated individually with the politicians and promoters.
When was the park realized?
It will always be necessary to complete something. You could, however, define the end of construction in the year 2002. I would like to stress one very important phase within this realization: the difficulty of dealing with the non-gramineous neophytic vegetation, imported from all over the world during the active processing of iron ore, and by now an important part of the ecology of the site but outside the gardener’s repertoire. We had the time to test, develop and train gardeners for the specific task. They have taken on the vegetation management completely and become skilled enough to preserve these special fields of vegetation (in this case three types).
Why do you think your ideas were accepted?
We were convinced it should be possible for all groups of users to develop their own specific interpretation of the space. Our interventions were cautious and sometimes hard to recognize. The possibility of climbing the blast furnace, an important part of the park, found its expression in detail. A principle of the design is that nothing should work against the existing pattern, no bridges or paths lying at an angle to the original structures. Our idea was to accept or find it interesting to walk like the locomotive runs; the users should adjust to the movement of the locomotive, not merely walk in its path. In this way we preserved a great deal of it while at the same time changed the use completely.
What was the cultural climate of the time?
The Ruhr district had become an economic disaster. Renewing this formerly very important industrial area of Europe was a local tour de force. The old rules tried earlier in the southern Ruhr had proven unsuccessful. The need for new symbols and new ideas was one of the reasons for the IBA Emscher Park.
Was there public debate that surrounded them? If so, what impact did it have on the project?
There were strong political debates during the planning of the project and its realization. Even the union of landscape architects campaigned against the project saying our ideas offended the eternal rules of the profession. The resulting project was more precise, especially with respect to the users’ ability to interpret it. Through open dialogue they gained insights into other levels of planning. The main principle of this park was that it be strictly realized in its structure and be eternally open in its details. Discussion with conservationists, hydraulic engineers, the water resources office etcetera, strongly influenced the different planning stages. It is difficult to compare the spatial sectors — the water system with the bunker gardens for instance — because they had very different degrees of freedom. Economy was an important principle employed by the IBA Emscher Park. Every time a planner proposed a more economic solution, he realized it. When the cost was higher he was obliged to find another solution.
Was the park realized with private or public funding?
It was realized with public funds. Some objects, however, especially buildings, were put into private ownership contributing considerably to the park’s budget. Today a management company operates these buildings, earning money leasing them and securing their maintenance. The maintenance of the park in general is still public responsibility.
How do you think the project has impacted thinking about the public park?
I don’t think breaking or changing paradigms impacts societal understanding or that users and municipal administrators see the identities of parks differently, just as our profession doesn’t. Every visitor to the park — and there are many thousands — is surprised by the number of people using it even in winter. Residents of the surrounding quarters and region are using it so naturally as if no other parks ever existed, without realizing this completely different approach. I’m especially happy that the youth have conquered it and use it until late at night. Young people, even on ice-cold New Year’s Eve, are up on the blast furnace’s charging platform. The worldwide recognition of this park has given me more confidence in my “structuralist” approach, understanding existing structures as information systems. It has reinforced my theory that landscape is composed of a wealth of selectable information layers covering one another up and presenting themselves as coincidental images only to the beholder. It is most important to maintain these information layers and complete them—the opposite of mono-structured information. I expressed this in my teaching long before these parks were realized. At Saarbrucken I submitted, for the first time, the different information layers of a park as a plan refusing to draw an overall design or master plan
Palimpsest correctly describes this park, more precisely an endless Palimpsest. (Reference “The Anti-Olmsted” by Arthur Lubow in the May 16, 2004 issue of the New York Times Magazine. Alan Tate said “These landscapes are palimpsests…No matter how little we intervene, we’re putting another layer on top of what was there previously”) I am convinced that the public will bring further information layers to it – even if they are only idealistic.
Contrary to other projects, artists are not in the foreground here because the whole work has become an open artwork exactly on the basis of Palimpsest. The real knowledge about the production characterizing this space for 150 years defines the genius of the place, not its ruinous character. This also applies to numerous scientific details of the technical and social processes, the connection between the plant and its social surroundings. Landscape is the cultural result of the work of generations. To preserve these cultural layers and feature them, the “new design” should exercise restraint.
A principle objective here is not only transformation as an abstract system, but the addition of information layers, not functional ones. Instead of ore, the storage bins of the bunker plant now shelter water, seal polluted material, or, beautifully, gardens. Without relinquishing their image of heavy brutal concrete walls continuing to be containers, they are filled with the most important repertoire of our ideas, the reiteration of paradise and so forth.
In an ecologically or more sustainably oriented world, nature and technology have to present themselves homogeneously or even identically. For a new clean water system, we used the profile of the old wastewater channel to avoid contact with the polluted ground all around. This artefact restores natural processes in an environment of devastation. The processes follow the rules of ecology, but are initiated and maintained by means of technology. Man uses this artefact as a symbol for nature, but remains in charge of the process. The system is both entirely natural and entirely artificial.
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RICHARD HAAG, FELLOW ASLA, HON. AIA, PRINCIPAL LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
Mr. Haag's creativity and sensitivity to the natural environment and adaptive re-use of existing structures and facilities has been expressed in more than 500 built projects. He has received numerous honors and awards including a Fullbright in Japan, a residence at the American Academy in Rome, the ASLA Medal for 2003 and is the only person to twice receive the American Society of Landscape Architects Presidents Award for Design Excellence: Gas Works Park, Seattle, Washington, and The Sequence of Gardens at Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, Washington. He is the founder of and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, and continues to teach and lecture internationally.
Peter Latz is a German born landscape architect practicing in Europe since 1965. He has been honoured recently in 2001 with the Grande Médaille d’Urbanisme, Académie d’Architecture, Paris, and in 2000 with the First European Prize for Landscape Architecture, Rosa Barba, Barcelona. He teaches and lectures internationally and has been a professor and chair of landscape architecture and planning at the Technical University of Munich since 1983. He is presently an adjunct professor at the GSFA at the University of Pennsylvania. |
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