FACSIMILES OF A GREEN MODERNISM
LEVEES THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
ORIGINS OF THE VERTICAL GARDEN
INVENTING RIVERS AND COASTS
Geographies of innovation vanguard landscape technology and infrastrcutre from the United states patent and trademark office
EXHIBITION & RESEARCH RICHARD L. HINDLE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECUTRE. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY ASSISTED BY: STEPHANIE
BUGLIONE
EXHIBITION CATALOG SPRING 2015 RICHARD L. HINDLE - UC BERKELEY
THE EXHIBITION Geographies of Innovation reveals a history o infrastructure, and ecology as represented by patents granted by through the mid 20th century. The exhibit explores new perspectives a and green infrastructure across a range of scales, from the invent prewar era, to early designs for living and dynamic levees patented p
Technological innovation weaves a complex narrative through Americ More than 9 million design and utility patents have been granted in deterministic role in the creation of cities, buildings, landscape, infrast origins of U.S. patent law give innovation a uniquely democratic tw eventual transition of all inventions to the public domain, creating an 1, section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution empowers Co securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive R innovation chronicled by the US patent archive provides a rich histo heuristic for designers in our own era of environmental degradation
Richard L. Hindle - Assistant Professor - University of C
of design innovation at the intersection of landscape, technology, the United States Patent and Trademark Office from the late 19th and historical research on ecological technology, landscape systems, tion of the vertical garden in the American Middle West during the prior to notions of bioengineering and holistic views of river systems.
can history, disclosing relations among man, environment, and society. the US since the signing of the US Patent Act in 1790,playing an ofttructure, and environmental design more broadly. The Constitutional wist, promoting not only the disclosure of invention but also the n ever-expanding repository of shared intellectual property. Article ongress to “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries�. The 224 years of ory of innovative responses to environmental imperatives, offering a and change.
California Berkeley
ORigins of the vertical garden
Several key factors contributed to the invention of the vertical garden in the American Middle West during the 1930’s including advances in steel construction, the development of a new soil-less agricultural technology know as hydroponics, and the emergence of ‘Modernism’ as a dominant force in design, arts, and culture more broadly. Stanley Hart White, a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign, patented the first known vertical garden in 1938 as a ‘thesis’ on modern garden design, combining advances building science, agricultural technology, and design theory, into a new synthetic whole.
levees that might have been
Levees are sites of innovation and invention with a fascinating, and often surprising, history of technological evolution represented in the patent archive. The dragline excavators and clamshell dredges used to construct large extents of America’s levee systems in the Mississippi River watershed and deltas of the Sacramento - San Joaquin were, in their time, new inventions described, disclosed, and protected by patent legalese. Among the patents for well known and widely utilized levee construction methods and machinery lay a latent history of lesser-known, forgotten, and highly speculative technologies – itself an unrealized history of innovation. These patents provide, in hindsight, a view of levees that might have been.
inventing rivers and coasts
Innovation in patented riverine an coastal technology reveals a dynamic history of environmental design, instrumentality, and human manipulation of large scale ecological and landscape systems. More than 9 million patents have been granted in the U.S. since the establishment of the American patent system in 1790 and more than 80 million patents exist globally. A unique subset of these patents relate to riverine and coastal systems. They range in scale and complexity from sediment models and artificial seaweeds to polypods for coastal armoring and methods to redirect and clean entire rivers. Each patent describes the unique function and configuration of a specific technology, yet in aggregate the patented technologies of riverine and coastal systems portray a complex narrative of environmental design while explicating the deterministic role of technology in the formation of large scale hydrological and ecological systems.
facsimiles of a green modernism
The history of modernity is in part the history of technological progress. New materials and processes developed in the late 19th and early 20th century radically transformed the environments we build and inhabit, altering architecture and the built landscape forever. This experimentation, fueled by industrial and military expansion, paved a path for the wholesale reconfiguration of building processes and material economies, leading to further mechanization and modularity in architectural and landscape praxis. Among the patented technologies that revolutionized the built environment exists a latent facsimile of green modernism dating back to the late 19th century.
CONTACT: Richard L HIndle RLHINDLE@BERKELEY.EDU