A Look at Nature As Artifact and the Displacement of Place
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No Place, Like Home: A Look at Nature as Artifact and the Displacement of Place Gaius F. Gilbert Department of Art History and Communication Studies McGill University Montreal, Quebec, Canada August 2009 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Ph.D. Copyright. All rights reserved. Gaius F. Gilbert 2009 Library and Archives Bibliothèque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l’édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-61888-2 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-61888-2 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non- L’auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l’Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L’auteur conserve la propriété du droit d’auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author’s permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n’y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. ii DEDICATION With thanks to my Mother(s) iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to recognise the thesis supervision and advice given by Dr. Will Straw. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ………………………………………………………………………….ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………………..iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………………iv LIST OF FIGURES ………………………………………………………………….v-vi ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………..vii-ix Chapter 1 Introduction: Production, Re-production and Consumption of Place … 1 Chapter 2 Where is Guelph? ………………………………………………………… 62 Chapter 3 Nature as Construct/ion ………………………………………………… 118 Chapter 4 Fetishization of the Authentic Surface ………………………………… 170 Chapter 5 Profanation of Place …………………………………………………… 222 Chapter 6 Totemic Structures ……………………………………………………… 274 Chapter 7 Conclusion/Coda: Geography Matters ……………….………………… 323 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………355 APPENDIX ………………………………………………………………………… 380 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1-1 Map: Guelph City Centre …………………………………………………. 8 Figure 1-2 Downtown Guelph: Lower Wyndham St. from St. George’s Square. … 9 Figure 1-3 Upper Wyndham Street ………………………………………………….. 10 Figure 1-4 Downtown Guelph circa 1830 …………………………………………….11 Figure 1-5 Upper Wyndham St. at Woolwich and Speedvale ……………………….. 14 Figure 1-6 Guelph: Church of Our Lady Immaculate ………………………………..27 Figure 2-1 Upper Canada Map/Guelph Aerial View …………………………………63 Figure 2-2 Downtown Guelph: Infrastructure Map ………………………………….. 66 Figure 2-3 Southern Ontario ‘Greenbelt’ …………………………………………….. 68 Figure 2-4 Places to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe (Cover) ..69 Figure 2-5 Places to Grow: A Guide to the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe (Cover) …………………………………………………………………… 69 Figure 2-6 Growth Plan: Intensification Targets ……………………………………. 87 Figure 2-7 Speed River at Gordon and Wellington Street …………………………… 90 Figure 3-1 Church of Our Lady: Exterior Renovations …………………………….. 122 Figure 3-2 Grand River Watershed …………………………………………………. 124 Figure 3-3 Wet-Dry+ Logo …………………………………………………………. 129 Figure 3-4 Guelph Waste Collection ……………………………………………….. 132 Figure 3-5 Royal City/Silvercreek Park Map ………………………………………. 145 Figure 3-6 Speed River-Royal City Park from the Gow Bridge …………………… 146 Figure 3-7 Riverside Park: Clock ………………………………………………… . 148 Figure 4-1 Guelph City Hall from Carden Street. ……………………………………172 Figure 4-2 GCAC: Frontal aspect from Carden Street. …………………………….. 175 Figure 4-3 Guelph Civic Administration Centre Project: Fire Hall in foreground. … 178 Figure 4-4 Guelph River Run Centre ………………………………………………. 183 Figure 4-5 River Run Centre Site ………………………………………………… 186 Figure 4-6 River Run Centre: ‘Passages’/Canada Company Hall ………………… 188 vi Figure 4-7 Interior ‘Old Quebec Street’ Mall ……………………………………… 192 Figure 4-8 ‘Old Quebec Street’ shopping mall: facade from St. George’s Square. …197 Figure 4-9 The ‘Gummer Building’: From Douglas St. looking towards St. George’s Square. ……………………………………………………………………………… 199 Figure 4-10 Gummer Building Site …………………………………………………201 Figure 5-1 Viewpoint: Looking westward from Loyola House. ……………………. 224 Figure 5-2 ‘Living Wall’: Wal-Mart Site Boundary. ……………………………….. 226 Figure 5-3 Guelph Wal-Mart Site/Map …………………………………………… 231 Figure 5-4 Guelph Wal-Mart: Big-box Façade ……………………………………. 234 Figure 5-5 1855 Map of the Baker Street Burying Ground ………………………… 239 Figure 5-6 Baker Street Parking Lot: Resurfaced section post-exhumation. ………. 241 Figure 5-7 Statue of St. Ignatius Loyola: Guelph Jesuit Centre ……………………. 250 Figure 5-8 City of Guelph ‘Welcome’ Sign ……………………………………… 255 Figure 6-1 Catholic Hill: Loretto Convent in foreground ………………………… 275 Figure 6-2 Sisters of Loretto Convent School …………………………………….. 278 Figure 6-3 Guelph Civic Museum/Site Plan ……………………………………….. 280 Figure 6-4 The Mitchell Farmhouse ……………………………………………… 286 Figure 6-5 Heritage Park: Remains of Allan Mill adjacent to Speed River. ………. 296 Figure 6-6 Map of the ‘Heritage Park’ Property. …………………………………… 299 Figure 6-7 Heritage Park and W.C. Wood Factory ………………………………… 301 vii ABSTRACT The city of Guelph, an element within one of the largest conurbations in North America, the Greater Toronto Area/Greater Golden Horseshoe, is utilized as a metonym of a more general problematic. Certain narratives, logics and instrumental rationalities inform the production of this sprawling polycentric agglomeration forming an almost continuous urban and industrially developed area. Spaces and things within the built landscape, iconic, tropic forms and definitions, recurring presences or absences and ‘symptomatic’ silences within media and public debate provide a means for addressing discursive productions of Nature and identity in a mapping of the present. This materialist analysis addresses the exchanges and relationships occurring beneath and behind the city’s surfaces; the nature and dynamics of the socio-ecological inter-play made manifest by urbanized landscapes and the city’s metabolism. Artefacts that involve an engineering of material provide rubrics for considering questions attending spaces, representations, and practices related to urbanization. The basis and topographic implications of meta-schemes created to plan and organize the city, from those of the Canada Company to current Ontario Provincial legislation, is examined. Topography is considered as a material organization within a strategic system employing cybernetic apparatuses and reproductions, consisting of texts/artefacts enrolled into structures of political economy. Intertwining natural, cultural and technological systems, Guelph reveals a practiced urban geography that is a condition and translation of relations effected by global capitalism. The built environment involves conflations of object, image and symbolic space, their practices and principles. Institutional practices and historical relations here shape and impinge upon the biophysical ground. Boundaries and the presences and absences entailed are structured, organized and translated-coded. Adopting a phenomenological approach, my interest is ontological, a study of Being and ecology in relation to the city. What factors shape relationships to surrounding networks, systems and objects, and the manner in which urban space is organized? What are the strategies deployed for delineating, preserving and defining a locale, in establishing a domain of value and meaning? Approached as semiotic systems, built environments and landscapes provide the terrain for a contextual analysis, a spatial viii hermeneutic engaging place, time, space and identity/meaning in relation to socio- natural systems. ABSTRACT La ville de Guelph, un élément dans une des plus grandes agglomérations en Amérique du Nord, la plus grande région de Toronto/une plus grande région du Golden Horseshoe, est utilisé comme un metonym d'un plus général problématique. Les certains récits, les logiques et les rationalités instrumentales informe la production de cette agglomération de polycentric tentaculaire formant un secteur presque continu urbain et industriellement développé. Les espaces et les choses dans le paysage construit, idole, les formes de tropique et les définitions, reproduisant des présences ou des absences et les silences ‘symptomatiques’ dans les médias et dans le débat public