All work produced for individual study and compilation of undergraduate thesis prepared at Virginia Polytechnic Institute College of Architecture and Urban Studies by Chelsea Kilburn, 2013-2014
FIELD WORK Alberta 1
Drumheller
6
2
West Edmonton Mall
14
3
Fort McMurray
22
Northwest Territories 4
Pine Point
30
5
Yellowknife
38
6
Diavik Mine
46
This book attempts an analysis of place from a distance. It is to be considered an artifact of the work and used as a means of furthering an understanding and establishment of each place’s narrative within the greater landscape.
1
Alberta
Drumheller
Site 1
8
Alberta
The Red Deer Valley, also known as Dinosaur Valley, is the last stretch of the North Dakota Badlands into Alberta. This intersection of the praries, rockies, and tundra with a near desert-like environment is not only shocking, but outwardly ancient, as the landscape speaks to the slow seeping away of time. Precariously balanced hoodoos and winding bands of striation bear witness to the extreme weather conditions. Section is ubiquitous in this place; Albertosaurus is pulled from the ground, the Red Deer River carves a path through the craggy terrain, and eroded peaks slump back into the valley.
Site 1
9
Site 1
10
Site 1
11
It’s an interesting cycle-- dinosaurs, coal, energy, and then the shit we make and can’t return to the earth. The most uninhabitable landscapes seem to enjoy holding onto their reserves, placing the oil and diamonds in the most intense natural situations.
Site 1
12
Site 1
13
2
Edmonton
Site 2
16
Although not a direct extraction from the ground, the West Edmonton Mall is the direct product of such a process. Once the largest indoor shopping center in the world, the West Ed. is now a cartoon of its former glory, complete with an artifical beach, roller coaster, and ice rink. What is explicit on the site is the consumption that takes place-a consumption of materials that once belong to the ground but have been abstracted so that the everyman can understand them and their immediate impact on his life.
Site 2
17
Site 2
18
Site 2
19
In the enviornments investigated in this set, one is able to explore the character of both the operational and metaphorical relationships between natural and manufactured systems.
Site 2
20
Site 2
21
3
Fort McMurray
Site 3
24
The third site returns to the ground in the intense manifestation of the oil sands outside of Fort McMurray, Every year this is where thousands of migrant workers race to the site where the earth can literally be squeezed for its profits. They come to this alienating land to make instant money and abruptly leave to buy a big house in Calgary. The oil sands stretch for miles, just black, shining expanses that provide energy for most of western Canada while producing an unimaginable amount of carbon dioxide.
Site 3
25
Site 3
26
Site 3
27
When looking at the sands from a distance, a wonderfully strange image reveals itself, like a Barnett Newman canvas. Perhaps this is a fitting way that the ground reconciles itself to the changes we have made on the landscape-- everything must be abstracted to a degree so that it can be romanticized and therefore understood by man. Site 3
28
Site 3
29
4
Pine Point
Site 4
32
Pine Point was once a thriving zinc mining community, active from the 1950s through the 1980s. Built by the Cominco Mining Corportationm the settlement consisted of workers and their families, but when the mine was declared no longer profitable, the site was abandoned. All that remains is an imprint on the southwestern edge of Great Slave Lake where the townsite was situated. Building foundations and stacks of drill cores stand alone in the landscape as a type of land art and a marker to those who still return to their hometown for an annual visit.
Site 4
33
Site 4
34
Site 4
35
I stumbled across information about Pine Point by accident. I had been Google Map-ping my way around Great Slave Lake, and through related searches came to a site called “Welcome to Pine Point,” an interactive project by artists Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons. It’s a poignant work, and feels like a scrapbook with superpowers. Site 4
36
Site 4
37
5
Yellowknife
Site 5
40
Located on the opposite shore of Great Slave Lake from Pint Point, across the Ice Road from Hay River is the city outpost of Yellowknife. First profitable for its gold mining industry, the city later grew to become a support center for the various First Nations groups present in the area and the diamond mining companies coming into the surrounding territories. The Canadian Shield provides a spectacular compliment to Great Slave Lake; both are seemingly endless planes of nothing, yet their are astonishing in their bareness, an area naked and exposed withstanding the harsh cold until it can return to itself under the inevitable snow.
Site 5
41
Site 5
42
Site 5
43
The sky is as important to the NWT as the ground is, with the aurora borealis presenting a brilliant display almost nightly. Outer space seems closer to the earth at Yellowknife: Soviet satellites tend to make crash landings in the area, and NASA dedicated the Mars Rover’s expedition to the alien-like landscape.
Site 5
44
Site 5
45
6
Diavik
Site 6
48
300 kilometers north east of Yellowknife there is a lake known as Lac de Gras in the local French. On the northern peninsular extending into the lake is the Diavik diamond mine. One of the largest open-pit mines in the world, Diavik bores into the earth gloriously, an object just as captivating in its form as the gem extracted from it. An incredibly small population experiences the mine, and only at certain times of the year. Because of its location within the Arctic Circle, access is limited and often only available via propeller plane.
Site 6
49
Site 6
50
Site 6
51
The mile-wide hole is almost unfathomable. The sight must be absolutely awesome when viewed from a prop plane, especially when the lake freezes and is covered by snow-- it is then that the abyssal hole stands out violently against the piercingly white plane that is the ground.
Site 6
52
Site 6
53
54
Image Credits
1 pg 6 pg 8 pg 9 pg 10 pg 11
Drumheller, Google Maps Near Drumheller, AB 1982 ,George Webber Country Elevator, Drumheller, AB, 1985, Harry Palmer Postcard 365: View of dolomites Drumheller, AB, Vogue Studio Dismantling Crew, Atlas Mine, AB, Lawrence Chrismas Photographs of Albertosaurus furculae, Ole Bang Berthelesen
2
West Edmonton Mall, Google Maps West Edmonton, Water Park: YEG Monochrome West Edmonton Mall, MoreThanMapleSyrup West Edmonton Mall, MoreThanMapleSyrup MAC Cosmetics
pg 14 pg 16 pg 17 pg 18 pg 19
3 pg 22 pg 23 pg 24 pg 25 pg 26
Athbasca Oil Sands, Google Maps Alberta Oil Sands, Charles Cannon Oilsands, Charles Cannon Untitled, J. Henry Fair Untitled, Ray Wegner Man Looking at Oil Flowing Freely from Tar Sands Exposed to Heat of Sun, Rutherford Caley
4
Pine Point, Google Maps Acres of drill cores at the Pine Point lead-zinc mine, Mike Beauregard -Tracked Vehicle, Pine Point Revisited Pine Point, NWT, Catherine Meyers
pg 30 pg 32 pg 33 pg 34 pg 35
5 pg 38 pg 40 pg 41 pg 42 pg 43
Yellowknife, Google Maps Postcard with inscription “First Gold Brick”, NWT Archives Several Men in Mine, NWT Archives Great Slave Lake ice roads and Yellowknife from the helicopter, Heather at meandthenwt.ca Northern Lights, Bill Braden
6
Diavik Mine, Google Maps L&N Diamonds Underground Mine, Rio Tinto Mine, Rio Tinto Environment, Rio Tinto
pg 46 pg 48 pg 49 pg 50 pg 51
55