CONVERSATIONS WITH THE RUINS

Modern ruins demystified through the lens of humanity

2 Project context mapping

Drawing, Xueyan Li, Landscape Architecture Design Exploration Part 2, 2022

My research project is based in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, along River Clyde. Glasgow is a city with an intense industrial atmosphere. The Industrial Revolution led to the development of industry, particularly shipbuilding. The thriving shipbuilding and heavy industry were extremely damaged after World War I. Factories were demolished extensively, while modern ruins and pollution were left behind. The two most notable ruins are Govan Graving Docks (GGD) and King George V Dock (KGVD). Modern Glasgow has been transforming the economy, introducing commerce, manufacturing and technology. The ruins are like fragments of history as evidence of the city's pollution, becoming out of place in the constantly renewed city. Ruins are regarded as confusing, unsettling and destined to be contradictory. If viewed negatively, they are ghosts that produced pollution; if look with appreciation, the ruins have an air of serenity and solitude. These post-industrial sites have the potential to become places of cultural production, revived in the modern urban fabrics (Lorimer and Murray, 2015).

Previously famous and vital things become irrelevant as new objects are constantly being created, and the fragments of industrial culture reveal the fragility of the social order. When the forgotten things of the past come back to view, it evokes our memories of that time in an outdated style (Edensor, 2005). I believe that respecting, re-examining and preserving modern ruins is valuable for society and the environment. Landscape architects can guide and optimise how people communicate with ruins.

Sonya Atalay is an Indigenous archaeologist, and she introduced the concept of 'Braiding Knowledge' to community archaeology.

Atalay (2012) recognizes how knowledge is inherently multi-sited and that sites hold multiple narratives. ‘Only as these narratives and places are read as braided together can we begin to build upon the deep complexities of place, place-making and culture.’

In landscape architecture, some designers rush into zoning and designing before they have dissected and understood the full complexity of the site. The phenomenon goes against the principle of respecting the landscape, and although the design outcome could be effective and skilful, the sense of place is missing. It is why I advocate it is vital to interpret the site before the design begins.