Nature versus nurture : the irony of intervention, despoliation, and remediation

Abstract

The out-scaled processes of strip-mining appear incredible, absurd, and even ironic. In fact, the notion of irony, in which explicit meaning is different from intended meaning, is itself a useful critical tool for extending concepts which otherwise guide conventional discussion about design for the environment. We read about, for instance, the “vernacular” landscape. But how can the word “vernacular” – which denotes characteristics unintended, unselfconscious, yet entirely artificial – be applied to landscape? Are there circumstances in which understanding the transition from a natural to man-made landscape can be moderated by “ironic” sensibilities? Acts of despoliation afford us with useful examples. One can perceive, in their engagement with pre-existing natural environments, a kind of visual vernacular established by the landscape’s precedent at an existing place and time. Perception of this vernacular, on the other hand, depends upon the subtle, ironic chiasm between site specificity and its opposite: the general concept of landscape itself. The relevance of the anthropologist relationship in bipolar space-time.