Ralitza
Boteva
Emmanuel J.Petit
“Gardens
are not meant to free the soul or reveal a hidden truth. They are created
to dazzle the eye and enchant the heart. They are pure pageantry and splendor.
Gardens are poetry, not truth.” -Francois
Crouzet
The project
explicitly engages with an allegorical world related to 'the ground.'
In reference to ideas of 'mother earth' and 'the promised land', the park
is meant to give an optimistic account of expectations ascribed to the
spot of land, where the first pioneer settled. For that reason, we take
on the traditional metaphor of 'the city as a human body' by defining
DuSable park as a site where the city of Chicago finds its origin in the
settlement; the ground is literally ‘pregnant’. A technological
image from medicine -an ultrasound image of a baby in the mother’s
womb- ‘reveals’ this idea by supplementing the ground with the
discourse of 'promise' and 'expectation'.
In the context of parks and gardens, 'promise' and 'hope' were caught
in an eternal return of the same, i.e. an allusion to the Garden of Eden.
How to address such a Romantic idea nowadays?
When Jean Baptiste Point DuSable settled on this land in 1772, the promised world was not already there, it was not an objet trouve -- he had to actively build it. The project does not propose a local monument or a statue, since only the entire park can act as a site of remembrance for a man, whose idea was inseparable from the ground he engaged with.
Thus, our
project comments on building and putting technology to use as a way of
staging this promise. A Romantic topography generated from the allegorical
image of the pregnant ground has to be revealed in its artificiality,
as it were, by showing that the 'ground' is supported by manmade structure,
and it is not a found, 'natural' paradise. The topography therefore has
cracks, so as to allow for 'insights' 'backstage' onto its technological
support; it becomes a thin carpet supported by iron trusses.
The
classical Follies of a park get replaced by what we call the Ironies.
Ironies comment on the Follies by following their logic of being ‘surprise
objects’ in the landscape; at the same time, Ironies question the
Romantic, quasi-natural and sublime status of the Follies. They initiate
a self-reflexive questioning of the citizens of Chicago: “Who are
we?" The Ironies relate to the Follies through inverting their logic.
But whereas the Follies act as the grafts of psychological desires in
the park, the Ironies provoke the Chicago inhabitants' self-reflection.
The Ironies are allegorical images held up by iron trusses, which are 'coincidentally' exhuberant in constructions belonging to the theatre backstage .
As an Irony, the Primitive Hut is the Orangerie for the park, where statues - ‘Adams' and 'Eves' - are lining up in a regular grid pattern. Like orange trees, they are taken out of the Orangerie -- just for the warm season. Then, the Sable is an allusion to the name of the settler, where he was able to plant a flag in a new land. Conveniently, a flag is quite useful in marking a golf drive; and golf is the preferred recreational activity in our cities. The Grotto and the Belvedere allow peeks into the downstage construction, i.e. insights into the artificiality of the staged park. Finally, the Arcades suggest the morphology of ruins, but allude to present shopping arcades, not unfamiliar to Chicago.
DuSable park
engages with the Romantic idea of a ‘discoverer’ of a landscape.
Today, and especially in the context of metropolitan Chicago, such a romantic
allusion can only be made with an ironic twist. This irony, however, optimistically
embraces the tradition and history of this site, without nostalgically
freezing them in a static monument. Instead, it revisions a set of images
of the origins of Chicago, allowing for an 'original' intellectual and
physical visit: "I know that you know that I know..."...".'.."..."".
Ralitza
Boteva, M.Arch Princeton
Emmanuel J.Petit, dipl.arch ETH Zurich, cand. Ph.D Princeton