Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...

34
Fig.3
as their destination. The ready-made farms strove to
replicate telling details from the prototypical ivy-covered
cottage. Contrasting shingles and wood siding distinguished
the ground and loft levels of houses and barns, while
considered schemes employed complementary trim, wall,
and shingle colors. An articulated roof profile on both
the houses and barns gave additional detail and variety
to the structures. Each house featured a central hearth
and an enclosed verandah – a feature that suggested a
sheltered, aesthetically pleasing place for both vines and
visitors.
Photographs of the farms for a promotional album show
newly inhabited houses, captured using picturesque conventions
of foreground, middle ground, and background,
and employing the elements at hand to maximize variety.
Photos are either taken from a low angle that minimizes
views of the flat Prairie expanse beyond, or with farm
families, horses, and wire fences that add interest and
depth to the photos. [Fig. 3]
In the Shelter of the Trees
Although absent from the actual ready-made farms,
promotional illustrations of the farms inevitably include
established trees; CPR nurseries distributed young trees
and cuttings to settlers at no cost [8]. A crucial component
of the ideal farm, trees created picturesque variation
in the endless grassland, while serving as protective
windbreaks and in theory, a future source of fuel and
fencing. The CPR-issued Settler’s Guide to homesteading
in the irrigation district proposes a farm layout
demarcated by rectilinear treed enclosures. Trees are to
be deployed in sheltering lines, as well as distributed in
picturesque groupings. In the ideal farmstead, “clumps of
various shrubbery have been scattered about the lawn, a
neat little dairy house has been tucked in the shade and
shelter of the trees and shrubs convenient to the well,
and beautiful flower beds add to the effect” (CPR 1911:
14). The arrangement of vegetal clumps alongside follylike
outbuildings on a neat lawn recalls the landscapes
popularized by English landscape designer and theorist
Humphrey Repton. Only later in the manual is the practical
importance of the trees as windbreaks discussed,
along with recommendations for planting density and
species choice. “It will be found a splendid plan to plant
a double row of white or blue spruce in the wind break,”
reads the guide, noting the sheltering advantages of their
dense needles - all while being unable to resist another
aesthetic note: “There is nothing prettier than a substantial
wind break of such evergreens” (CPR 1911: 15). The
presence of trees extended into the broader landscape.
“Town and villages, with streets lined with trees and attractive
homes with beautiful gardens, have also sprung
up,” describes a 1929 brochure, “these tree-lined streets
are a remarkable testimony to the magic effect of water
applied to the fertile soil.” (CPR 1929: 3). Beyond their
practical uses, a vision of treed homesteads and villages
served to assert the fertility of the land and contributed
to a picturesque visual effect familiar to potential British
settlers.
Despite the paternalistic oversight of company officials,
the ready-made farm program suffered from a high turnover
rate that ultimately made it unprofitable, reflecting the
economic and agricultural challenges of farming in the
semi-arid Prairies [9]. In 1919, the program was discontinued.
Conclusion
The vast scale of the Prairies dominated early accounts
of these landscapes as a hostile, lonely wilderness.
Against the prevailing force of the terrifying sublime,
a new aesthetic with picturesque features was key to
developing and promoting this area as an agricultural
heartland, as was exemplified in the CPR’s ready-made
farm colonies. In contrast to the pastoral ideals evoked
by ready-made farm imagery, these farm colonies can
also be read as the product of large-scale industrial infrastructures.
The railway network enmeshed the Prairies in
a global economy of production and exchange, massive
irrigation works enabled a semi-arid area to be farmed,
standardized production facilitated the construction of the
farms.
As global development accelerates today, rural utopian
ideals continue to play a strong role in promoting built
settlements. New types of ready-made environments
abound, promising a relief from increasingly urbanized
surroundings: whether it is the private sanctuary of an
inner-city condominium, the self-sufficient agricultural
commune on an urban periphery, or the isolated vacation
villa on a desert island. One must remain aware of both
the possibilities and dangers of this imagery. As Raymond
Williams observed, “The most abstract and illusory
ideas of a natural rural way of life tempt or at least charm