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