Infrastructural Logic in Building and Operating Systems in Hamilton, Ontario
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THE CITY AS MEDIUM: Infrastructural Logic in Building and Operating Systems in Hamilton, Ontario Dana Whitney Sherwood Department of Art History and Communication Studies McGill University, Montreal May, 2019 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Dana Whitney Sherwood, 2019 ABSTRACT This thesis develops a media studies approach to the city through a historical and contemporary analysis of Hamilton, Ontario, beginning with Friedrich Kittler’s assertion that “the city is a medium” and developing a broader city-as-medium framework through the built environment as hardware, before introducing a software element I call ‘the city-as-operating-system.’ These frameworks support the exploration of urban technologies of storage, transmission and processing, via both hard and soft infrastructures, from surveying the grid and early building materials through to their obsolescence, ruination, demolition, or renovation decades later. The logics of these systems and networks are traced through sources such as maps, lithographs, written accounts, film, painting and case studies of particular buildings in Hamilton, revealing different communicative practices and potentials, from the technical, to the social, to the affective. The study covers three broad phases in Hamilton’s history, beginning with the site’s geophysical foundation and the city’s initial growth into the early twentieth century. Next, it explores the mid-century urban renewal years and their decades-long legacy as a period of delay, obsolescence and failure, before a final phase of rebranding and renaissance takes hold in the early twenty-first century. Over time, changes in the built environment reveal the physical city as an important medium for the storage, transmission and processing of shifting social and cultural values. The approach developed here not only challenges narratives of progress in their different historical manifestations, but also facilitates an original critique of contemporary assumptions about how to build and inhabit our cities. RÉSUMÉ La présente thèse propose une étude de la ville à travers le prisme des études des médias, en développant une analyse historique et contemporaine de la ville d'Hamilton, en Ontario. Inspirée du constat posé par Friedrich Kittler, qui affirme que «la ville est un médium», cette étude propose un cadre élargi de la ville en tant que médium à travers l'environnement bâti envisagé comme élément matériel, auquel elle ajoute par la suite un élément logiciel, que je nommerai «ville en tant que système d'exploitation». Ces cadres soutiennent l'exploration de technologies urbaines de stockage, de transmission et de traitement, processus qui s'incarnent dans les infrastructures matérielles et les infrastructures souples, de l'étude du quadrillage et des matériaux de construction anciens au fil de leur obsolescence, de leur tombée en ruine, de leur démolition ou de leur restauration des décennies plus tard. La logique de ces systèmes et réseaux est mise au jour par l'analyse de sources diverses, notamment des cartes, des lithographies, des comptes-rendus écrits, des films, des peintures et des études de cas portant sur certains immeubles à Hamilton, qui révèlent diverses pratiques communicatives et potentialités qui relèvent tout autant du technique que du social et de l'affectif. Cette étude porte sur trois grandes phases de l'histoire de la ville d'Hamilton, s'attardant d'abord aux fondements géophysiques de l'endroit et à la croissance initiale de la ville jusqu'au début du 20e siècle. Elle explore ensuite les années de revitalisation urbaine de la moitié du 20e siècle en tant que période d'obsolescence et d'échec, dont l'héritage s'est étalé sur plusieurs décennies, et s'attarde enfin à la phase finale de renaissance et de création d'une nouvelle image au début du 21e siècle. Avec le temps, les changements dans l'environnement bâti mettent en lumière le caractère physique de la ville, qui agit comme médium de stockage, de transmission et de traitement de valeurs sociales et culturelles changeantes. L'approche proposée dans cette thèse remet non seulement en question ii les récits du progrès à travers leurs différentes manifestations historiques, mais elle ouvre également la voie au développement d'une critique originale des présupposés contemporains sur la façon dont nous construisons et habitons nos villes. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express the deepest gratitude towards my supervisor, Dr. Will Straw. From the very first time I pitched an idea about a project on Hamilton to the final draft of this thesis, you have provided unwavering support. You always gave me the freedom to pursue and develop this project in my own way, while at the same time offering scholarly guidance, timely feedback, insightful critique, and the kind of positive encouragement that motivated me to move forward after each stage and draft. I also extend a special thanks to Dr. Darin Barney, who provided an invaluable level of support during a particularly challenging time not long after I began at McGill. The thoughtful guidance that you offered as Graduate Program Director established the early foundation that enabled me to continue pursuing this degree. I am also grateful to the various academic support staff, but particularly Maureen Coote and Matt Dupuis, who assisted in countless ways throughout the years. This thesis was made possible through the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship. I would also like to acknowledge financial support received from Media@McGill, the Faculty of Arts, the Department of Art History & Communication Studies, and the McCall MacBain Foundation. Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation for the family and friends who have been by my side throughout this journey. Thank you to my parents and my brothers who have provided every kind of support imaginable; your contributions are too numerous to list. And to Manny, thank you for your endless belief in me, your uniquely effective motivational techniques, and for being there (and then leaving!) during so many early morning research and writing sessions while the kids slept and you got ready for work. Lastly, to my daughters Barbara and Helen, I could not have asked for cuter or sweeter writing companions. Over these last few years, you may not have always make it easier, but you most definitely always made it more worthwhile. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v List of Figures vi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: Theory and Methodology 11 CHAPTER 2: The City Is a Medium 45 CHAPTER 3: Rising into Ruin 103 CHAPTER 4: Art Is the New Steel 146 CHAPTER 5: Fates of the old in the Renovation City 180 CONCLUSION 215 Appendix A 228 Bibliography 233 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Plan of the Town of Hamilton, District of Gore, Canada 50 Figure 2: Township No. 8 (Barton) 1791 56 Figure 3: Town of Hamilton, District of Gore, circa 1816 57 Figure 4: Hamilton, Canada West, 1854 70 Figure 5: Bird’s Eye View of the City of Hamilton, Province Ontario, Canada, 1876 78 Figure 6: City of Hamilton, Canada, 1894 86 Figure 7: Pigott Building stained glass windows, set 1 113 Figure 8: Pigott Building stained glass windows, set 2 113 Figure 9: Original TH&B Station 120 Figure 10: The new TH&B station circa 1940s 121 Figure 11: 1886 Post Office at King and John Streets 123 Figure 12: Dominion Public Building 124 Figure 13: Murray V. Jones and Associates plans from October 1965 132 Figure 14: City of Hamilton, A.J. Casson, 1951 149 Figure 15: Lister Building 2008 183 Figure 16: Lister Building 2016 188 vi INTRODUCTION: Hamilton, Ontario, a city of roughly 500 000 people situated on the southwestern edge of Lake Ontario, has long been a symbolic city in the Canadian urban imaginary. Most famously, it has been known as the Steel City, but it also has a history as the Ambitious City, the Telephone City, the Birmingham of Canada, the Electric City, and less proudly, as Canada’s Rust Belt city. Hamilton has done some big things for a medium-sized city, from extending its own territory by many square kilometers through infilling the wetlands and bay at its northern limits—creating a truly immense manufacturing cluster—to undertaking the largest single urban renewal project in Canadian history by demolishing some 260 building covering 43 acres across 12 blocks of the downtown core in 1969. Hamilton is a city long associated with both ambition and failure, often living in the shadow of the nearby metropolis Toronto, but always, for better or worse, with its own unique identity. The project that I will present here is about media theory, urban cultural studies, and communication, but it is also about Hamilton itself. Part of my interest in the city is rooted in its more recent history, as a city in transition from its predominantly industrial past, struggling to forge a new identity in the twenty-first century. I have witnessed this transition from both within and outside the city over the last sixteen or so years, while at the same time pursuing an education in history, cultural studies, and communication studies. My fascination with Hamilton also stems from its past, particularly as it is revealed through the built environment, how one can go from a tight Victorian back alley to a vast, open, minimalist urban renewal-era elevated concrete plaza within a city block, from the 1870s to the 1970s in an instant. During the early 2000s, one could go downtown and not see any truly contemporary construction, everything was varying degrees of old and dated. To a teenager attentive to history, this made the city unlike 1 most others; the different colours and textures of the city’s brick, the variously aged and stained concretes in oddly juxtaposed historical and outmoded styles seemed to be communicating.