mro's blog

One of my first posts was about the small table area that my roommates and I consider a living room. It doesn’t function well and it isn’t aesthetically pleasing, but somehow we imbued meaning into the place. Thinking back on my college experience, it is incredible to consider the types of places I’ve learned to love. Out of all my past apartments, the one that was most comfortable basically had no functioning doors. The inside doors (to the rooms, bathroom, closets) were all open permanently or off of their hinges. The front door didn’t have a doorknob, so it was always an event trying to get in. It was, by far, the grimiest apartment, but the significant events and memories we created over the months made it home. 
 
I lived in the East Village for the majority of my college experience. My lease ends this June, and I will be moving to Brooklyn. Although I am excited to explore my new neighborhood in Brooklyn, I’m also sad to say goodbye to the East Village. Many young people in NY move from apartment to apartment, and it is easy to feel displaced. For me, the six months to one year leases are teases when it comes to a sense of place. I often feel I’m just getting to know a street or neighborhood before I have to pick up and move on. This process makes the symbols and meanings I give/find in places seem that much more important. I recently revisited a West Village area that I lived in during my freshman year. I was immediately a bit disoriented, and I clearly felt that I had been removed from the neighborhood for quite a while. Several of the stores and restaurants had changed, and many of the people I interacted with daily had moved on. Even so, I did feel a level of nostalgia at certain points of my trip. I reminisced on the personal importance of a certain street, trash can or café. Although I definitely don’t feel the same level of ease in the West Village, I still look back on my experience with it fondly.
 
As I part ways with the East Village, I can’t imagine what a couple years will do to its sense of place. That is not to say it will get better or worse because these ideas can be extremely subjective (as we’ve seen in our readings). Rather, I am interested to see the new group of people who call the neighborhood home. This flow of people throughout NY can seem disorienting at times, but it also possesses a really beautiful quality. Knowing that someone else a week, a month or year before me had loved or hated my apartment, my street or my neighborhood makes me feel connected to the city. I’ll definitely miss my home in the East Village, but I look forward to exploring Williamsburg.

Thank you for a great semester, Professor Hutkins!

Manhattan’s Koreatown encompasses the area bordered by 31st Street and 36th Street, and Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. The densest area is along 32nd Street. Unlike other ethnic enclaves in the city, Koreatown is a commercial business area with very few Koreans living in the district. Residential Koreatown is considered to be in Flushing. My experience with Manhattan’s Ktown is mainly as a consumer of the Korean business district. 

Once you’ve reached 32nd street, you are greeted with pungent aromas and bright Korean signs. The mix-usage buildings boast neon signage outside of each floor (pictured to the right). The street looks like it was removed from Seoul, Korea, and placed in midtown Manhattan. The sense of place of Koreatown is exhilarating, and it functions as a one-stop shop for a good Korean fix. Within one block you can eat, drink, dance, go to the spa, go to a bookstore, go grocery shopping, visit a doctor and visit a museum. Through commodification, Ktown promotes social interaction, cultural exploration, and community bonding which are all vital to its sense of place. Although it mainly caters to Korean-Americans, increasing amounts of non-Koreans enjoy the space as well. The local character of the space informs and is informed by the people who use it.

My experience with Ktown has always been from my Korean-American perspective. Thus, I measure the “authenticity” of the place differently than Sorkin’s view of Tribeca’s lost authenticity. Sorkin argues that areas such as Tribeca are losing their authenticity and becoming “scenographic recreations” that ignore locality and “evade authentic invention” (Sorkin, 176). He equates this loss with the commercialism and commodification of Tribeca into theme park. He gives examples of the Tribeca SUV and the multiple crafted movie sets.

In Ktown, the visual similarities of a street in Seoul with 32nd street are a part of what makes Ktown authentic for me (street in Seoul pictured below). The scenographic recreations, to use Sorkin’s words, are a part of Ktown’s sense of place. Ktown is one of the only areas in New York that has businesses from the first floor all the way to the top floors. This type of building usage is common in the city of Seoul. The bright signs adorning every level, and the usage of buildings can be considered “scenographic rereations”. When looking at a picture of Manhattan’s Ktown and a street in Seoul, the similarities are apparent. Sorkin sees this sort of recreation as negative giving the example of a suburb in Beverly Hills versus a visually similar one in Kuala Lumpur (Sorkin, 175). In Ktown’s case, this visual recreation is a part of the authentic Korean feel of Ktown. The authenticity is related to the usage of the space as a haven for Korean community, not whether it came before or after a certain more authentic time. 

Ktown is an ethnic enclave that can be considered a transnational social space. As Foner explains in “In a New Land”, “In the transnational perspective, the focus is on how contemporary immigrants maintain familial, economic, cultural, as well as political ties across international borders, in effect making the home and host society a single arena of social action” (Foner, 63). These elements of maintaining connections with Korea are crucial to the sense of place of Koreatown. It serves as a space for maintaining cultural connections and forming new social bonds. The space isn’t automatically inauthentic because it mirrors the look and feel of another place. The intent is an important factor. Yes, Ktown can be considered a recreation of Seoul, but it remains a genuine place of community interaction.

The authenticity of Ktown derives from the community’s usage of the space. For Korean-Americans, Ktown functions as a way to maintain connections with their homeland while forming new connections in their current society. Sorkin says, “We’re creating a unitary global culture and we risk abandoning the local invention of strategies of the particular in favor of a set of generic interchangeabilities” (Sorkin, 175). I don’t believe this applies to Ktown because the space is a mediation of both home and host, here and there. Pollan describes “here” to be the local landscape and “there” to be the wider world. When incorporating elements of “here” a community can consider the local culture. These are juxtaposed to the elements of “there”, which are broader cultural influences. Visually, Ktown may look like it was removed from Seoul, but the distinct usage of the space considers the local community. The community that thrives in Ktown uses the space as mediation between here (New York) and there (Korea).  

What makes the street interesting is its history and usage by local Korean-Americans. It began with a bookstore (that still remains at the heart of Ktown) and several Korean owned businesses. With the influx of Korean immigrants, the businesses thrived and continued to grow. Now, Ktown provides a variety of services to support the incorporation of Korean-Americans into New York society. It also serves as a space for political and economic progress for the Korean community. Ktown based organizations are effective inroads to larger New York social, cultural and political institutions. The Korean community uses Ktown as a space to inspire and promote a strong network of institutions to develop politically, culturally, and economically in the New York market. Further, Ktown functions as a site of cultural exploration. Non-Koreans are encouraged to experience the culture through various campaigns, museum events and community initiatives. With the media attention and commercialization of Ktown, more funding and cultural exploration is encouraged. In turn, the benefits of commercialism are used to fuel life and capital back into the Korean community of NY. Ktown has maintained a balance between inviting outsiders and remaining an authentic haven for the Korean community. 

The enticing aspect of Ktown’s sense of place is its ability to form a community beyond its geographical limitations. The focus on Korean culture and multitude of social venues allows the space to be a site of social interaction. Its unique in that the area isn’t residential. Ktown connects people together to form networks and cultivate the space. The community that uses the space cares about it because it is a reflection of their pride and culture. When I enter Koreatown, I love the fact that I feel as if I’ve been transported to Korea. All the elements of the busy Korean street also apply to Manhattan’s 32nd street. Ktown is more than just a commercialized recreation of Seoul. It serves to support a community of Korean-Americans to connect with American society while maintaining ties with Korea. The space remains authentic due to its commitment to that cause. The true gem of Ktown is its ability to connect and build community across geographical boundaries. Koreans may not live in the actual space, but Koreans all throughout NY come to participate in Koreatown's community. The overwhelming sense of community and culture is vital to Koreatown’s sense of place.
 

In the late 1990s, the NV Homes and Winchester Homes were completed. Everyone debated over which homebuilding company was better. West Ox Road divided the two new neighborhoods. The houses in the two neighborhoods looked like replicas of the model homes. The NV model house and Winchester model house looked the same. Both neighborhoods looked the same. We chose a Winchester Home.
 
My home is called The Randall. It is part of the Winchester Luxury Collection. The design of the home focuses on the role of natural light. As a result, The Randall’s prized features are the two solariums and the double-story windowed living area. The warmth of the abundant natural light balances the otherwise imposingly large house. 
 
The cherry blossoms are the most beautiful part of the neighborhood. They line the yards as property markers. We planted one in front of our garage.
 
Kids from neighboring communities always trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. We are infamous for only giving king size candy bars.
 
The local newspaper once described the neighborhood as “dazzling”. The Winchester Home catalogue also described the neighborhood as “dazzling”. Perhaps they are referring to the cherry blossoms.
 
The neighborhood looks best during the Christmas season. The monotonous houses are decorated, and there is a delightful display of personality. I am reminded there are actual people living behind the lifeless uniform houses.
 
One day, we received a letter from the homeowners association. The letter urged each family to upgrade their mailboxes. The new mailboxes were to be a dark metal instead of the previous green metal. The neighborhood initiative hoped to serve as a facelift for the community. Several months later, everyone had new mailboxes except for the Raul family.  The homeowners association chastised them. Now, the Raul’s have a dark metal mailbox.
 
I remember the day I forgot to wave at my neighbors as I was driving out of my neighborhood. When I returned home that evening, my concerned neighbor approached me to ask if everything was ok. After that incident, I make sure to always wave and smile. Sometimes, I give a light honk; they really like that. 

Sorkin’s discussion of “authenticity”, as it related to the development of Tribeca, seemed mostly nostalgic. This nostalgia ignores the development of societies and cultures for a more static approach. He relates Tribeca to a set, with its inhabitants acting out roles. He argues that “scenographic recreations” ignore locality and “evade authentic invention” (Sorkin, 176). He continues, “The inauthenticity is galling but so is the inescapability of performing in a drama of somebody else’s devising…” (Sorkin, 176). Sorkin relates downfalls of gentrification with arguments of authenticity versus inauthenticity.  
 
In his musings on gentrification, he states, “…citizens are forced ever deeper inside the system in order to participate in public life, which ceases to be a matter of right or election and becomes simply another commodity” (Sorkin, 146). Beyond the erasure of agency this implies, it also doesn’t consider that culture is ever-changing and always shifting. Therefore, an “authentic” SoHo or Tribeca may not even exist. Many of Sorkin’s arguments depend on certain characteristics of neighborhoods at particular moments. Before his ideals of “authentic”, there probably was someone who came before him with a different view of authentic. The word in itself causes confusion, and Sorkin uses it loosely without solid support.  
 
Perhaps the local character of neighborhoods, such as Tribeca, hasn’t been lost as Sorkin suggests. Just as people change and evolve, neighborhood dynamics shift as well. I think Tribeca, to this day, has local flavor and specificity. Gentrification has its downfalls, but gentrification reflects the evolving state of New York City. It is easy to get caught up on nostalgia and ignore the evolution of culture. The qualities I see in Tribeca might not align with Sorkin’s ideas of “authentic” Tribeca, but to claim one stage of a neighborhood as more authentic than another stage seems problematic. Five or ten years from now, another academic might reflect on Tribeca’s current state as authentic compared to its future state. Film sets and famous people don't directly equate to a loss of local authenticity. The inhabitants of Tribeca would probably disagree with the notion that they are mere actors of a drama. Rather, their lived reality is just as authentic as any previous or future inhabitant of Tribeca, and that lived reality is the changing character of the neighborhood. This constant change, evolution, and reimagining of different neighborhoods and their inhabitants is part of the beauty and progress of New York. 

Sorkin’s discussion of his stoop allowed me to reflect on my own stoop. He cites the stoop as a place for community, social interaction, and a middle ground between private and public life. Annabel Lee’s Jane reminded me of Helga who is the overseer of my building’s stoop. She is an elderly woman who has been living in the same apartment since she was in her twenties. Everyone in the neighborhood knows her and her hairball dog. Skippy is a unique looking dog with the face of a Husky and the body of a tiny Pomeranian. Helga and Skippy sit on the stoop everyday surveying the street. When a passerby stops to ask what kind of dog Skippy is, Helga says, “Pitbull”, with her thick German accent. Everyone who has the pleasure of sharing the stoop with her hears grand stories of her drunken husband, food stamps, ongoing battles with Time Warner and general neighborhood history. The best nights are when the stoop area is filled with the building’s residents and the local delivery guys surrounding Helga as she tells stories.
 
Sorkin’s continues the chapter by describing a “deeply moving” scene he watched from his stoop (Sorkin, 71). His story, of the guy who picked up a piece of trash from a nearby tree, led to a consideration of a shared sense of responsibility when it comes to special places. When a community or neighborhood is well maintained, people feel more compelled to keep it that way. He uses Disney as an example of an immaculately maintained pleasurable escape. Sorkin explains, “It’s further noted that his high level of cleanliness is largely the result of visitor restraint, not of extraordinary efforts on the part of the staff” (Sorkin, 74).
 
Unlike Disney, my block isn’t the type of environment that makes people want to behave properly nor is it considered, by most, to be special. My street has two bars, a pizza place and a burger joint. The buildings, on my side of the street, are extremely old and worn. Every night, when the drunken crowds come out to play, there is a high level of littering and general misconduct. What I find to be deeply moving is the local effort to keep the area clean. I haven’t seen much civic effort at maintaining the street, but there is definitely a visible local effort. Helga climbs the fire escapes to clean the windows, the delivery guys always collect trash to throw out with their end of the day trash, building residents take turns cleaning the door/stoop, and even Skippy has curbside manners. Sorkin closes the chapter discussing preferential zoning by the government, but it is encouraging to at least see an effort at my streets local level. The camaraderie of our street keeps us actively working to maintain the sense of place.  

As I read through the battle over Washington Square Park, I was reminded of my freshman year at NYU. In chapter three, Flint details the battle between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses over Moses’ intended redesign plans for the park. Flint says, “The Moses proposal was to extend Fifth Avenue straight through the park … It would punch through to the south side and continue on into lower Manhattan as Fifth Avenue South” (Flint, 62). This was one phase of Moses larger Greenwich Village plan, which included razing ten city blocks in the area. Neighborhood citizens opposed Moses’ plan because they saw the part as a place of sanity amidst the city streets. The redesign plans, many would argue, took away from the character and history of the beloved park.
 
Flint continues the chapter by detailing the history of the park from its start as natural land to the 2005 proposal for redesign.  In between, we find stories of protests, burials, students, monuments, artists, writers, politicians and more. Reading through the rich history of Washington Square Park brought me back to my first encounters with the park. Before I moved into a dorm right on the border of the park, I had heard so much about it. The park was iconic for so many people throughout history. It was inevitable that I would constantly come across literature, films or music that would reference the park. My parents threw me a party when I was accepted into NYU. I remember, even at my party, people had stories of the park. My uncle, upon finding out I would be living on the park’s edge, fondly reminisced about his memories. He said, “Man, I remember I had just turned twenty when I first walked through Washington Square. I gotta tell ya, that was when I learned shrooms weren’t regular mushrooms”.

I was lucky enough to enjoy the park, for a semester, before construction began in December of 2007. I was eager to get to know the park like so many before me had.  It quickly became a hangout for many of the freshman. By December, I too, had my adventures in the park. Sadly, my first semester ended with the park being closed for construction. We all had to reorient ourselves when we returned to a closed park second semester. A place for our social interactions had been lost, but to this day I encounter fond stories of the park at parties. As Jane said, “Parks Are For People”, and it’s quite unfortunate that Washington Square Park was mainly closed for the remainder of my college experience. 

In Pollan’s chapter titled Footings, he discusses creating buildings that take “here” and “there” into consideration. He describes “here” to be the local landscape and “there” to be the wider world. When incorporating elements of “here” the builder can consider the nature, landscape and local culture. These are juxtaposed to the elements of “there”, which are broader cultural influences and the economy. Charlie’s thoughts on the building were rooted in finding a happy medium between the aspects of the place and the outside materials and influences.
 
The colliding worlds of “here” and “there” are apparent in the recent debate over Korean traditional homes. The traditional hanoks were crafted to seamlessly blend with the local natural environment. Everything from the strength of the wind, the layout of the land, the available materials and the direction of the sunlight was considered when each hanok was built. For example, in southern regions, the layout of the hanok was in a straight line to ensure wind circulation. In the northern regions, the weather is cooler so the hanoks were built in a square shape to block the wind. Consideration of the “there” elements, in this case, was overlooked for the emphasis on local landscape. The traditional hanoks have not kept up with modern times, and many are being renovated or destroyed. The clay and dirt insulation, for example, are no longer practical.
 
People now consider the traditional hanok to be endangered. Hanok preservationists have argued that recent renovations and destruction of hanok villages will lead to a loss of history. Many recently renovated hanoks mimic the traditional homes, but beyond the outward façade they are modern buildings. The consideration of nature and landscape that went into the initial hanoks is being replaced with the desire for fancier buildings. Others believe the renovations are the best way to preserve traditional elements while keeping up with modern times. In an NYTimes article addressing the debate over hanoks, one hanok resident says, “I have an immense love and respect for our Korean things, yet I’m also a contemporary person” (McDonald, 1). Charlie’s give and take explanation of local landscape and broader culture and economy is the heart of the hanok debate. He says, about Pollan’s building, “This is obviously not a primitive or vernacular building, but that doesn’t mean it can’t meet its place halfway, that there can’t be some give and take” (Pollan, 104). The question is how many of the “here” elements can be preserved while also considering the implications of “there”. The give and take is essential, but where can the line be drawn?
 
 

I never had a tree house. In lieu of a tree house, my parents gave me another room. It was empty, except for an old towering office printer, and I was given freedom to make the room my own. People have referred to it as the playroom, the computer room, the den, the dark room, the Tekken room and the dungeon. The basement room, like Pollan’s tree house, found it’s own interior amidst the embrace of my parent’s house (Pollan 19). He brings up an important aspect of our own places that make them so desirable. These spaces are “a more comprehensible frontier of inside and out, private and public, self and world, that we children could control” (Pollan 19).

The basement room was indeed a safe haven for my adventurous mind. I’ve always been a daydreamer, and my basement room was my muse. Pollan reflects on our ability to find ourselves in our daydreams by cultivating a sense of who we are. Remembering the times I spent in my basement room, I realized his ideas mirrored my reality.  In that room I decided I would be a teacher. In that same room I decided I would be a TV anchor instead, and then a small business owner, and then a Disney Channel star, and then back to a teacher, and then a baker- so on and so forth. More importantly, in my basement room, I felt safe to allow my mind to wander. I had created a place that only I controlled. There is a mystical effect a place of our own has that allows it to be so alluring.

Pollan continues with what he calls American sense of space. Whereas, he argues, a European sense of space may search for center; the American sense of place pushes us toward the landscape (Pollan 19). He gives a detailed description of the process he took in locating his new building. My parents let me choose which room I would take over- the basement room or the red room. In a much less poetic and time-consuming way, I also chose my room based on some of the characteristics Pollan was considering. I chose the basement room because it extended into our backyard. The backyard is a beautiful lightly wooded area with a small lake at its end. I could enter and exit the basement room directly from my backyard. The room has many windows, and each window allowed my eye to wander the landscape following the elements that attracted my gaze. Beyond the technical and topographic elements, the empty room allowed me to infuse it with my own symbols and meanings. When I go back and climb onto the huge abandoned printer in the basement room, I see a place of my own making. Pollan says, “The testimony of our senses seems adamant that space is full of interruptions and breaks and places qualitatively different from another- places that seem to us special, if not magical” (Pollan 52). 
 
 

The Tysons Corner area of Fairfax, Virginia is a commercial district that boasts more parking spaces than jobs or residents. It is a classic example of an edge city, as it borders the Washington Metropolitan area. Tysons Corner has many of the qualities of urban sprawl including dependency on cars, low housing diversity, un-walkability, congestion, and inefficiency. A mere fifty years ago, the area was marked with two small dirt roads. Now, the country roads have been replaced by a two-tiered ten-lane interchange. The area is anchored by two large mega-malls, and the district swarms with strip malls, car-dealerships, highways, toll roads, parking lots and yes, curb cuts. In short, Tysons Corner is Kunstler’s worst nightmare.
 
As I look back on growing up in Fairfax, I am fondly reminded of all the aforementioned qualities of Tysons Corner. The way I experienced the area constructed what it meant to me. As Tuan states, “Experience is the overcoming of perils. The word ‘experience’ shares a common root (per) with ‘experiment,’ ‘expert,’ and ‘perilous.’ To experience in the active sense requires that one venture forth into the unfamiliar and experiment with the elusive and uncertain” (Tuan, 9). This is the process I went through, growing up, as I formed an intimate connection with Tysons Corner. In middle school, I often ventured across one of the perilous nine-lane mega highways by foot. I was too young to drive, and god forbid Tysons Corner has real pedestrian walking lanes. The light to cross the massive nine lanes allows you just under 40 seconds before the onslaught of perpetual traffic. If you were wearing heels or had a walking impediment, you had no chance. Once I had my driver’s license, in high school, the real experimenting began. I learned every road, side road, alley, sidewalk, curb cut and corner as I tried to make my commute as short as possible. Within months, I knew which shortcuts, at any given five minute interval, would allow me the few extra minutes before class to get a coffee. If I was at the Pike stoplight at 7:30, I would continue straight, turn left at the Booz Allen Hamilton building, cut through the parking lot and then take the side road. If I were at the Pike stoplight at 7:35, I would make a right at the mall, drive through the small Exxon road, reach the stop sign and then u-turn so I would have the right of way.
 
My fond nostalgia of Tysons Corner is rooted in a spiritual connection that is both emotional and intangible. Tuan explains, “Place can acquire deep meaning for the adult through the steady accretion of sentiment over the years” (Tuan, 33). The sense of place I feel when I’m in Tysons Corner is supported by the story each landmark, street, and store has come to stand for over the years. For a tourist or a passerby, the Route 7 7-11 may blend in with the other half dozen 7-11s in the area. To me, that particular 7-11 has become familiar over the years, and is a symbolic part of my youth. I know that the Route 7 7-11 is the only one in the area that carried Aqua Life Swedish Fish. This was particularly important, at the time, because they were an inside joke between Danny (my crush) and I. The same area that can make an outsider feel alienated, congested and unimpressed can mean something totally different for another. The mega-highways, mega-malls, McMansions and traffic, of Tysons Corner, all tell stories and fond memories of my childhood.
 
Soon after I moved to NY for college, a proposal for a radical makeover of Tysons Corner was implemented. The U.S. Department of Transportation agreed to a 23-mile extension of the Metro line from Washington DC. This decision led to a new urbanism inspired transformation of Tysons Corner. This TIME article explains, “…and to encourage the use of mass transit, the plan envisions a Tysons Corner where 95% of its land will be within half a mile of a train station or within 600 ft. of shuttle routes designed to ferry passengers to Metro stops and neighboring suburbs. […] Funds for bicycle paths, schools, police stations and storm-water management systems will likely come from the county, property owners and developers” (Davis, 1). The idea is to create a green walkable urban center for mixed usage. This includes making the area pedestrian friendly, intelligently planned, completely walkable, and incorporating parks and other community areas. The proposal pushes Tysons Corner towards the “America” Kunstler sees in Portland, Oregon. He describes Portland fondly, “A vibrant downtown, the sidewalks full of purposeful- looking citizens, clean well-cared-for buildings, electric trolleys, shop fronts with nice things on display, water fountains that work, cops on bikes, greenery everywhere […] The important thing is that they all live together in proximity, not as though their worlds were separate, dirty secrets. The texture of life is mixed, complex, and dense, as a city ought to be, the way all cities used to be before the automobile and curse of modernist planning” (Kunstler, 200).
 
Even with the step towards progress proposed by the makeover of Tysons Corner, there are still factors that Kunstler wouldn’t agree with. For one, the proposal calls for expanding upward instead of horizontally. This would create the “dehumanizing towers” that he also dislikes (Kunstler, 202). Overall, beyond it’s limitations the plan seems to be heading in the right direction towards a sustainable environmentally friendly future. Even so, the reaction to the renovation of Tysons Corner has met some hesitation from current residents. Mayor Jane Seeman of the neighboring town, Vienna, says, “I'm so used to Tysons being what it is now that it's a new idea that we've got to get our minds wrapped around" (NPR, 1). Such radical changes are hard to imagine for long-time residents, myself included. As I reflect on my experiences of Tysons Corner, I question what the change will mean for people like myself. Tysons Corner’s sense of place, for many, is rooted in the intimate knowledge and connection with the area. My sense of place in Tysons Corner is crafted from my experience of the place, which includes the traffic congestion, un-walkability etc. The disagreeable aspects of the area turned out to be symbolic and meaningful for me. The charm, that Kunstler searches for, is perhaps (for me at least) the lack of charm in Tysons Corner. Place becomes reality when you experience it, and that experience can be charming in itself. If I ever return to Tysons Corner, once the plan is completed, I doubt I will make the same connection. The landmarks, stories and memories will be replaced by new ones from a more progressive place. Future generations will grow up in the same geographical location with a completely different sense of place. Perhaps I will nostalgically long for the Tysons Corner that I experienced growing up, good and bad, as people long for what used to be. 

Cottage Residences is a result of the collaboration between Alexander Jackson Davis and Andrew Jackson Downing. The book was largely successful, and, as Kuntsler puts it, “formed a schematic basis for the orgy of styles that followed, which came to be bundled under the rubric ‘Victorian’” (p. 159). Downing was considered a pioneer at the time due to his influential house pattern book that promoted unity with landscape and efficient cottage residences for all. Following the “Greek craze”, Downing’s architectural ideas were more practical and fulfilled peoples’ desire to connect with nature.
 
Cottage Residences begins with Downing explaining his philosophy on home architecture. “As the first object of a dwelling is to afford a shelter to man, the first principle belonging to architecture grows out of this primary necessity and it is called the principle of Fitness or usefulness. After this man naturally desires to give some distinctive character to his own habitation to mark its superiority to those devoted to animals. This gives rise to the principle of Expression of Purpose. Finally the love of the beautiful inherent in all finer natures and its exhibition in certain acknowledged forms has created the principle of the expression of Style. In other words all these principles may be regarded as sources of beauty in domestic architecture. Fitness being the beauty of utility. Expression of purpose the beauty of propriety and Expression of Style the beauty of form and sentiment which is the highest in the scale” (Downing, 10). Kuntsler would agree to some of the benefits of Downing’s architectural philosophies (i.e. utility, practicality). But, beyond that, the outcome of the influential Cottage Residences ironically led to mass-produced cookie cutter houses.
 
In the rush to buy home, the “product”, the beauty and style Downing described merely became a template for mass selling of similar houses. Kuntsler argues that this, in turn, led to a lack of community. “The most influential model for the new postwar suburbia remained Downing’s ideal of the villa in the country, which had no pretenses of being part of a ‘city’ of any kind” (p. 165). Thus, Downing too, falls into the category of aiding the creation of what Kuntsler considers evil suburbia. Kuntsler continues, “The places they stand are just different versions of no-where, because these houses exist in no specific relation to anything except the road and the power cable” (p. 166). What Downing created as a pioneer in the architectural scene at the time ironically became contradictory to his intentions in the homes he crafted. As he describes in his book, unity with nature and beauty of form were highly important in the housing patterns he and Davis created. With the growing industrial middle class and the mass production of the housing market, Downing’s homes were used as rubrics for the production of cookie-cutter suburbia. 

 
“Like any lie, modernism was eventually found out, but it didn’t skulk ashamedly away into the thickets of history. Corporate America still needed large cheap buildings, and the architectural profession still needed corporate America. And intellectually bankrupt or not, modernism still wore its moral armor: It was still the architecture that had stood up to Hitler, whatever its other failures” (p. 81).
 
In chapter 5, Kuntsler humorously describes his disdain for modernist skyscrapers. Architects such as Mies van der Rohe are at the top of his naughty list for creating “inhuman, corporate glass boxes” (p. 81). Kuntsler seems to advocate emphasis on civic art in order to craft grand public spaces. Thus, the more ornate skyscrapers of the twenties didn’t fit into the post World War II modernist building style that he denounces. Of the “exuberant” skyscrapers he listed, the Chrysler Building stuck out to me because of it’s visibility from my apartment.

William Van Alen was the architect commissioned by the Chrysler Corporation to build its new headquarters. Alen had recently dissolved his long standing partnership with now archrival, architect H. Craig Severance (Burns, 369). Eighty blocks below the site of the Chrysler Building, Severance had announced that his Bank of the Manhattan Company’s new headquarters would be two feet higher than Alen’s building. The two competed to build the highest building, and eventually Alen’s Chrysler Building won by 117 ft. The Chrysler building was the tallest building in the world, at the time.

I see the Chrysler Building almost everyday, and the only thing that stuck out to me, from afar, was its height. It is a landmark that easily catches my eye because of its location and lighting. Prior to reading Kuntsler’s chapter, I hadn’t considered the Chrysler Building to be ornate. It’s one of those buildings I see regularly from afar, yet somehow I seem to have missed the intricacy. The Art Deco style building is ornate with “gleaming Gothic eaves, hubcap friezes, and stainless-steel gargoyles- some shaped like the radiator caps of a 1928 Chrysler” (Burns, 372). Upon closer examination, the building does seem to embody the exuberant ornate feel of the twenties’ skyscrapers.

With that said, I also think there is something to be said about the modernist skyscrapers. If the comparison is on the outward appeal of modernist versus more ornate structures, it becomes a question of aesthetic preference. If the comparison is, as Kuntsler seems to imply, on the meaning of the structures, I am still a bit confused. Where is the point of differentiation between the “inhuman corporate boxes” and the ornate corporate Chrysler building? Kuntsler describes Mies’ Seagram Building  as “a gigantic sculpture, a totem, a monument to an ego” (p. 81). After my research on the Chrysler Building, it seemed as though it was similarly a product of William Van Alen’s ego. 

I found reading through “The Movable Dwelling” an interesting perspective on the moveable home. As Jackson says, it is very “tempting to analyze the dwelling entirely in socioeconomic terms” (p. 100).  I grew up in a suburb that emphasized spacious homes and a strong community. The little thought I gave to moveable homes was bounded in socioeconomic restraints. Permanence and stability were the qualities I related to a home. I’ve never considered that the alternative to a permanent home could be a positive experience as well. The benefits of temporary dwellings, as Jackson states are, “a kind of freedom we often undervalue: the freedom from burdensome emotional ties with the environment, freedom from communal responsibilities, freedom from the tyranny of the traditional home and its possessions; the freedom from belonging to a tight knit social order; and above all, the freedom to move on to somewhere else” (p. 100).
 
With that in mind, I did some research on the tiny house movement (more info here). Beyond the freedoms Jackson lists, advocates of the tiny house movement believe the environmental factors are also of importance. A New York Times article says, “ the small house movement, […] adherents believe in minimizing one’s footprint — structural as well as carbon — by living in spaces that are smaller than 1,000 square feet and, in some cases, smaller than 100”. Many of the small houses are fashioned with eco-conscious designs that include solar panels and efficient methods of heating and cooling. Smaller homes also mean less waste of natural resources and overall general energy efficiency. When the environment strikes back, in the form of emergency natural disasters, the home can be salvaged as it is moved out of the effected area.
 
Nowadays, all sorts of projects on small, efficient, moveable homes are underway. Scientists, architects and artists alike are honing in on the potential benefits of moveable dwellings. The Danish artist collective N55 experimented with the moveable home The Walking House “as a prototype for a real solution to overcrowding in cities, or anti-flood measures as sea levels rise” (pictured above). The Walking House is “solar-powered, collects its own water, has a compost toilet and a wood-burning stove for carbon neutral heating comes as an optional extra”. Although I believe moveable dwellings will be a hard sell for those accustomed to spacious permanent homes, the environmental benefits could prove highly beneficial in the future.

In chapter 11, Tuan describes attachment to homeland to be “intense” and “oriented to the cardinal points” (p. 149). He gives several examples of past societies that had strong emotional and spiritual ties to the tangible aspects of their homelands. For example, the citizen of Carthage’s plea to kill him but spare his city, the Indian chief’s memory of every hillside, valley, plain and grove, or the Lakota’s love for the soil and nurturing power of the ground. The examples he uses focuses on the actual land and landmarks within the land as a driving force in attachment to homeland. His last examples, regarding the Tasaday and Tao Te Ching, imply an attachment to homeland so deeply rooted in the actual land that neighboring lands are of no desire. Tuan continues, “attachment of a deep though subconscious sort may come simply with familiarity and ease, with the assurance of nurture and security, with the memory of sounds and smells, of communal activities and homely pleasures accumulated over time" (p. 159). 
 
Although I agree that this type of love for the land exists, I think there are much less tangible and local-centric aspects of homeland that also form intense bonds. While reading through the chapter, countless groups of people who are not geographically centered or located in their homeland or not attached to the actual soil, hills, forests etc. of what they consider “homeland” came to mind. In America, there are immigrant groups who never consider America their home after years of living on the land. An Italian immigrant, for example, might always consider Italy home. Not because, as Tuan describes, they have a deep connection to the nature or because they are familiar and at ease in Italy. In fact, after decades of separation from their homelands it’s quite possible that they are more familiar with America. Even so, countless immigrants and children of immigrants describe intense loyalty and pride for a home nation that they are removed from or haven’t even seen.
 
This sense of nationalism is rooted, in what Benedict Anderson, would consider an “imagined political community” (Anderson 6). Attachment to homeland, here, isn’t as related to the land itself but to the connection with the community the land represents. Anderson continues, “it is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members… yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion […] ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings” (Anderson 7). Going back to the hypothetical Italian immigrant, his emotional legitimacy is rooted in the fraternity of his homeland. He has ventured beyond the geographical borders of his homeland and centered his world in a different space yet his loyalty remains in the comradeship of his nation. Many second-generation immigrants, born in America, will still pledge allegiance to the homeland of their parents. It is beneficial to look beyond property, land and familiarity when considering the forces that create such emotional bonds between man and homeland. Intense attachment can arise from a variety of scenarios not mentioned in this chapter.