Carving Complicated Ground

CARVING COMPLICATED GROUND

Excavation is a profane act. It requires the removal of soil. What was once pure and untouched, is now forever altered.

Can excavation ever be justified?

Is the land truly sacred?

The Southern ground, specifically the grounds of Rosewood and Newberry have witnessed profane acts; it is a complex ground. The soil was steeped in blood, it trees were used as weapons; natural scaffolding for an evil deed.

The profanity has already occurred, the landscape is sacred no more.

The most profane act would be to forget what happened in these places.

So, can we carve?

On a site visit in February, I wanted to get a sense of the scale of Lynching Hammock in Newberry. Not owning a tape measure long enough to measure the site, I used the only thing I always had with me: my body. I started at the northeast corner of the site and paced from one landmark to another, marking the journey and the measurement on a sheet of watercolor I brought with me (see figure 6). In the end, I had a complete map. Whatever I was to do, at least I knew how big it would need to be.

The Newberry site called from shelter. Unwilling to compete with the canopy provided by the oak trees, the ground begged for digging. The ground provoked wonder. One began to imagine the roots of the lost hanging tree that was removed from the site decades ago.

Using the measurements from the site visit, the landscape of the Lynching Hammock was reconstructed in studio. In the way that the actual site begged to be carved, so did the model (see figure 7). The land demanded a violent act.

Seductive as it is, something felt wrong about this exercise. Perhaps it was too profane. The land felt tortured again, just as it was one hundred years ago.

The land had become sacred again. Nature always recovers, it repairs. It is the responsibility of architecture to bring awareness to that fact, rather than replace it.

Humanity must not carve the land.

Humanity must allow itself to be carved by it.

Figure 7, soil collection held at the former property of the Carter family. It is now an empty lot adjacent to a Dollar General and a seafood restaurant. Rosewood, FL.