The Hidden Landscape of the Cold War

Survival city’s picture. From  southeasternarchitecture.blogspot.com

Fort Mc' Arthur in San Pedro, California. Picture by Myriam Mahiques

After the World War II, the foreign policies of the US and the Soviet Union interacted with the chaotic and fluid state of international relations to produce the Cold War. WWII accelerated fundamental changes in the global distribution of power, in weapons technology, in the balance of political forces among and within nations, in the international economy and in relations between the industrial nations and the Third World. (From The Cold War: an international history)

The cold war was an imaginary war that gave birth to shelters in underground bunkers. Some constructions are metaphors of the Cold war: the Berlin Wall –a barrier to keep people in-; the Iron Curtain that symbolized the ideological and physical boundary dividing Europe in two separate areas, from the end of World War II in 1945 to the end of the cold war in 1991 (dates from Wikipedia.org); the DEW line Distant Early Warning line which was a series of radar stations built above the Arctic Circle with an electronic trip wire signaled by Soviet planes during the early years of the Cold War. The Pentagon is another related monument, but it’s clearly visible. But the Cold war landscape was also defined by what could not be seen, in the subterranean command facilities and emergency relocation centers connected with unseen communication networks. The phrase “Cold War architecture” has nothing to do with buildings but to security arrangements.

Fort Mc' Arthur in San Pedro, California. Picture by Myriam Mahiques

Fort Mc' Arthur in San Pedro, California. Picture by Myriam Mahiques

The scale of the structures built is impressive, and usually the human scale was disregarded to follow the proportions of speed and space requirements for war technology. An example of a project of big scale is the “atom bomb city” of Oak Ridge in Tennessee, 1949, that brought Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) to be considered one of USA largest architectural firms. In a smaller scale, there are thousands of forgotten basements in home shelters, and approximately 1600 of three people bunkers abandoned on hilltops and remote locations. Another kind of “simulated construction” is the nuclear weapon storage area, for the first generation of weapons. A few of them still remain obsolete or maybe for other munitions; they are even shown on more recent maps. The next generation of storage bunkers –called igloos- were made under American standards. I can see these models for naval weapons driving in Bolsa Chica and Edinger av, pretty close to the sea in Huntington Beach. As they are covered with grass, making them part of the green landscape, I suppose they are not visible from the air.

Atom bomb city, by SOM. From http://www.som.com

US igloos. From http://www.century20war.co.uk/page9.html

DEW line from http://www.ehargreaves.com/yk-photos/dew-line_900.jpg

3 man bunker. They had only a chemical toilet and basic instruments to measure size and location of nuclear explosions. there would have been radio or telephone contact with a larger unit to pass this information on. From http://www.century20war.co.uk/page9.html

If the “ building” was destined to launch a missile, two different spaces are qualified as “hard space” that covers those functions essential to launching and the “soft space”, whatever is outside the doors reached by catwalks and staircases. Another classification is “black space”, which cannot be seen and the “white space”, the visible one. The presence of one presupposes the other and one is affected by the other. The city and landscapes were not protective enclaves any more, they were considered targets. As aerial views tools advanced, an emerging field of urban planning supported by aerial imagery emerged; cities and landscapes were scientific units of observation with aggregation of data that could be edited and represented in formulas.

Now, the atomic bunkers are used as storage facilities and local casinos, and the abandoned places are becoming part of archaeological  history. There are some salvages of structures developed into new sculptural forms as “recontextualized” objects. In the words of Tom Vanderbilt the desert ”had become modern, functional”, and in this situation there is a kind of satisfaction. In Germany, since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the country, the remains of constructions that once divided West from East have become relics.

For those who are interested in the Cold War there is a Museum with an impressive gallery that can be visited on line

 http://www.coldwar.org/museum/museum_features.html

In December 11, 2009, Francis Gary Powers, Jr., the Founder of The Cold War Museum (www.coldwar.org), announced that the museum had found a physical home. The Cold War Museum leased a modest size two story building and secure storage facility at Vint Hill, located in Fauquier County, Virginia,  less than 30 miles from Washington Dulles International Airport.

REFERENCES

http://www.century20war.co.uk/page9.html

Painter, David S. The Cold War: an international history. Routledge, London. 1999

Vanderbilt, Tom. Survival City. Adventures among the ruins of atomic America. Princeton Architectural Press. New York. 2002

El Santo urbano y su imaginario en SoCal y Mexico

Este altar fue realizado en un estacionamiento de un condominio. Foto de Myriam Mahiques

Este post es la traducción al castellano del post anterior, adaptado.

Hace unos días, encontré en mi biblioteca un libro que compré para mi hijo, las fábulas de Esopo. A decir verdad, este no es el tipo de libro que él leería...Pasé sus páginas cuidadosamente porque es una bella edición antigua de tapas duras, con dibujos muy bonitos, al principio, una nota dice que el libro es un facsímil de la edición de 1912. A pesar de haberlo leído en castellano en mi adolescencia, me tenté a leerlo nuevamente, pienso que muchos libros debieran ser leídos en distintas etapas de nuestras vidas, para apreciarlos desde distintos puntos de vista.

Una de las fábulas, ¨El vendedor de imágenes¨, me recordó la comercialización de imágenes religiosas en el Sur de California y México. La fábula trata de un hombre que hizo una imagen de madera de Mercurio y la ofreció a la venta en el mercado. Como nadie la compraba, pensó que podría atraer a los compradores proclamando las virtudes de la misma. ¨Un dios en venta!¨, ¨Un dios en venta! Que les traerá suerte y los mantendrá con suerte!¨. Un transeúnte se paró y le dijo que si su dios tenía esas virtudes, porqué no se lo quedaba y lo aprovechaba, a lo que el hombre respondió que  sí, era cierto que traía ganancias, pero esto llevaba tiempo y él necesitaba el dinero de inmediato.

En tiempos coloniales, los indios se convencieron que las imágenes cristianas podrían efectivamente llenar sus expectativas. De otro modo, amenazas de crueldad física se dirigían a la imagen religiosa; romperlas, era una reacción natural de una sociedad que les atribuía importancia. Otros castigos serían insultos, latigazos, rasgados, quema con velas, punzado y hasta se registraron casos de actividad sexual. Esta receptividad era una especie de estrategia de apropiación de la imagen.

De pronto, las imágenes y objetos de uso diario se superpusieron y fue difícil distinguir unos de otros. Cajas de pañuelos, ventiladores, relojes, medias, botones, bordados, etc, eran adornados con imágenes de la Pasión de Cristo, la Virgen, los santos......El pan, masitas, dulces, proliferaron con el símbolo de la cruz y hasta las caras de los santos. La moda se volvió tan popular en la colonia, que la iglesia trató de buscar una solución, y así se prohibió la réplica de imágenes en algunos elementos que no eran considerados dignos.

Al día de hoy, vemos una cierta evolución de estas costumbres, pero no en su espíritu, sino en la modalidad. Las imágenes impuestas en elementos cotidianos son vendidas por doquier, ¨on line¨, en los supermercados, los kioskos, reproducidas incluso en los elementos más pequeños para atraer modestos compradores.

No debemos olvidarnos de la difusión televisiva de eventos en forma masiva, como los festejos de la Virgen de Guadalupe, evento muy famoso en Los Angeles. La Virgen es la imagen favorita, y la vemos en velas, tazas, ropa, llaveros....

En el aspecto urbano, las imágenes son infaltables en las fachadas de los comercios de dueños mexicanos, pero no creo que con el sentido de atraer compradores, sino como exposición de pura fe y devoción, para solicitar la protección divina. De las fachadas se pasa a los espacios públicos y privados, cualquier rincón insólito está bien para armar rápidamente un pesebre improvisado, o colocar la estatua de un santo, al que se le ofrendarán flores con todo respeto.

The Urban Santo and His Imaginaire

The Virgin of Guadalupe in a market´s facade. Picture by Myriam Mahiques

A few days ago, I came across with a book I bought for my son, Aesop´s Fables. To tell you the truth, this is not the type of book he has the habit to read, but I looked at it carefully, it is a nice hard cover edition, it says ¨a facsimile of the 1912 edition. Avenel books, New York¨. It contains old beautiful drawings, and I was tempted to read it again, though I´d read it in Spanish when I was a teenager. I think many books must be read again in our life, as long as we change our points of view along the years. One of the fables, reminded me of the commercialization of religious images in California and Mexico. Here it is “The Image Seller” by Aesop:

“A certain man made a wooden Image of Mercury, and exposed it for sale in the market. As no one offered to buy it, however, he thought he would try to attract a purchaser by proclaiming the virtues of the Image. So he cried up and down in the market, “A god for sale! A god for sale! One who’ll bring you luck and keep you lucky!” . Presently, one of the bystanders stopped him and said, “If your god is all you make him out to be, how is it you don’t keep him and make the most of him yourself?” “ I’ll tell you why”, replied he; he brings gain, it is true, but he takes his time about it; whereas I want money at once.” (p. 88)

A Saint statue in a public set back. Picture by Myriam Mahiques

A simple ¨pesebre¨ in the front yard of a house, in Los Angeles. Picture by Myriam Mahiques

In the colonial times, Indians convinced themselves that the Christian images could be effective to fulfill their expectations. Otherwise, threats of physical cruelty were directed to the image; to break them was a natural reaction of a society that attributed importance to them. Other punishments would be insults, whipping, scratching, burning with candles, piercing and even worst. This receptivity was a kind of strategy of appropriation.

“Images and objects for everyday use became superimposed and indistinguishable: a Spanish soldier from New Mexico sported a painting of the Virgin on his horse’s saddle blanket (1962). Snuffboxes, fans, watches decorated with scenes of the Passion of Christ; stockings, slips with St. Anthony’s effigy; buttons featuring Christ on the Crucifix, the Virgin and St. John; embroidery with the image of the Virgin; all these objects proliferated throughout colonial society. Bread, cookies, and countless sweets were decorated with the sign of the cross or a saint’s face. The fashion became so popular that the Church tried to curb it. Ordinary uses of the image mixed commercial and religious registers, just as they already blended decoration, elegance, greed and piety. We have seen how merchants used to offer their clients a little pious image, something to attract or keep the more modest buyers”. (Serge Gruzinski. Images at War. Mexico from Columbus to Blade Runner. (1492-2019). Page 163. Duke University Press. 2001)

Children clothes with the Virgin image. Internet download

Jesuschrist´s cruxifiction bracelet. Internet download.

Now we see an evolution of the relationship to the image that involves commerce and urban manifestations. As before, images are displayed in all kind of objects and are sold in markets but they are also sold on line and TV gains momentum with religious massive events. The Virgin image –the favorite one- is seen on candles, on lamps, on cups, on bracelets, etc. But also on the buildings facades, small statues are exposed on gardens, together with saints’. Though there’s an evolution in the manifestation, the spirit is always the same.

Conception Series. Digital Paintings

This is my artistic expression about conception, represented in floor plan, transversal and longitudinal cross sections, views.......Digital painting by Myriam Mahiques

Excerpts from Starting from scratch in Haiti's Port-au-Prince ruins

A woman walks down a devastated street in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. From Seattle Times.com

The excerpts below are a clear update for the talks and possible plans for Haiti reconstruction.  Below, you'll find the link to read the complete article.

By Andres Viglucci and Scott Hiasen

In The Seattle Times. Nation and World

January 24^th 2010

 Speaking to an American audience on C-SPAN, the Haitian ambassador to the United States recently sketched an optimistic future for the island nation's capital city Port-au-Prince — a smaller, well-built city to replace the teeming, chaotic and shoddily built sprawl of almost 3 million people that was virtually wiped away by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

 Not only did the earthquake take untold lives, it destroyed the core of authority: the National Palace, the parliament, the police headquarters and 13 of the government's 15 ministries. And the two surviving ministries have been declared unsafe. Entire neighborhoods may have to be razed and rebuilt.

 With so many obstacles, and no ready blueprint, the reconstruction of Port-au-Prince will be a minefield of hard questions with no clear answer, experts say.

"The first question is, whose Port-au-Prince is being rebuilt?" said Lawrence Vale, an urban-planning professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in disaster recovery. "Who is really empowered here? And where will the resources that come from outside be targeted?"

The scale and strategy of the reconstruction are so far unknown. The United Nations will convene a meeting of foreign ministers this week in Montreal to begin discussing long-term plans.

 Experts warn, however, that such mass-relocation schemes in other catastrophes have usually failed, because they isolate people from the jobs and economic opportunity that drew them to the city in the first place.

The head of the International Monetary Fund has called for a Haiti "Marshall Plan," invoking the reconstruction efforts in Germany and Japan after World War II. But development experts caution that any long-term plans must not be imposed on Haiti by outsiders.

 The ultimate cost is anyone's guess, although at a weekend discussion of architects, academics and government officials under a tree in Petionville, the number $3 billion was offered by Patrick Delatour, an architect and Haiti's minister of tourism charged with evaluating the destruction.

 Virtually everyone agrees that any recovery will take decades.

Ben Ramalingam, who studies disasters around the world and the effectiveness of the responses, argues that Haiti is worse off than the dozen countries swamped by the tsunami, because they at least still had working governments that could help citizens and channel aid.

Given the circumstances, experts say the best scenario for Haiti would have massive amounts of foreign aid channeled through nongovernmental organizations, both large and small, financing grass-roots programs to rebuild neighborhoods, with technical assistance supplied by the United States — while the government focuses on infrastructure and rebuilding important civic structures.

Reconstruction — informal and unregulated — will probably begin long before any long-range plan takes hold. Residents accustomed to scavenging and desperate for shelter may simply rebuild shantytowns rather than wait months or years for government action. Families with remittances from relatives abroad may also get a head start on rebuilding.

NGOs also will likely begin tackling small-scale projects, like homes and schools, just as many did before the earthquake — though perhaps with help from outside architects and engineers, with stronger quake resistance.

Architecture for Humanity's Sinclair said he already is talking to groups in Haiti about providing designs for simple schools and homes like those it developed in response to the Indian Ocean tsunami.

To be successful, any Port-au-Prince reconstruction plan must incorporate strong building standards and better planning, to minimize the effects of future earthquakes or storms, said Richard Stuart Olson, a Florida International University political-science professor who studies the political effects of disasters.

"Who is going to enforce plan review, engineering, design and construction? This will fall to the international community, or the U.N. or U.S.," Olson said.

In an effort to move homeless victims out of Port-au-Prince, a Brazilian team already has started bulldozing Croix-des-Bouquets, eight miles outside the city, to make way for temporary housing for 10,000 people. A second location in Tabarre near the U.S. embassy also has been identified for 4,000 people and many other areas inside the city may end up also getting cleared to bare ground.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2010882865_haitirebuild25.html

Gardens of Remembrance (Poppies for young men)

Poppies field. From http://witchdoctor.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/poppiesfied2.jpg

The flowers that better represent the battles and dead soldiers are  forget-me-not, roses and poppies.

The Flanders poppy is known to be the emblem of two world wars, and long before this, the field of the battle of Neerwinden or Landen (1693) was covered the following year by a scarlet stream of poppies: the soil  had been fertilized with the 20,000 soldiers’ corps.

“ In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields” .

(Author Colonel John McCrae 1872-1918)

Poppies field. From http://witchdoctor.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/poppiesfied2.jpg

In the Autumn of 1919, Newman Flower went out to the battlefields to gather seeds from the wild flowers that were already growing on the stricken fields. He collected poppy seeds from Fricourt and of blue chicory among others, labeled them and brought them home. He sowed his war seeds in his garden, in the spring of 1920. Eventually, an article in a national newspaper appeared telling the story of the garden of remembrance, and since then, he received letters from relatives of men who had died in the war, and to these he sent small packets of seeds, so that Gardens of Remembrance might be started in many parts of the world.

Croisade des enfantes. http://pages.usherbrooke.ca/croisades/big_images/c_croisade_des_enfants1.jpg

Children’s crusade. https://trcs.wikispaces.com/file/view/CHILDRENS_CRUSADA.jpg/30277249/CHILDRENS_CRUSADA.jpg

In 1985 Sting wrote a beautiful song, dedicated to the two groups of children –one from France, the other from Germany- who set off on a crusade to the Holy Land. The event took place after the fourth crusade, in 1212.

In an interview disc from 1985, Sting said: "'Children's Crusade' is a fairly bitter song. The original children's crusade took place in the 11th century and two monks had the great idea of recruiting children from the streets of Europe and telling them that they were going to be an army to fight for Christ in Palestine, and to fight the Saracens. The intention all along was to sell them as slaves in Africa. And that's what they did; they recruited thousands of children and sold them as slaves. It seemed a very wonderful symbol of cynicism and the perversion of youthful idealism. Having thought about this for awhile, I realized this wasn't the only children's crusade in history - there have been many. So I look for examples. And the examples in the song I used are the first World War, where millions of young men, Germans, French, English, were killed for reasons that even today we don't understand. A whole generation was wiped out in a very foolish and cynical manner. And then I looked around today for an example of a children's crusade and I think the heroin industry is a good example, where businessmen are making vast fortunes by selling drugs to people who can't deal with them. …..This too is a children's crusade, and the same people who sold slaves in the 11th century, and the same people who sent young men to their deaths in the first World War are the same people selling these drugs. The song is really wishing them to hell." (from http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=8203)

The Flower of England is a metaphor for England's youth, and it is represented with the poppies, which also are the source of Opium.

"Children's Crusade" by Sting
Young men, soldiers, Nineteen Fourteen
Marching through countries they'd never seen
Virgins with rifles, a game of charades
All for a Children's Crusade

Pawns in the game are not victims of chance
Strewn on the fields of Belgium and France
Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed

The children of England would never be slaves
They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves
The flower of England face down in the mud
And stained in the blood of a whole generation

Corpulent generals safe behind lines
History's lessons drowned in red wine
Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed
All for a Children's Crusade

The children of England would never be slaves
They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves
The flower of England face down in the mud
And stained in the blood of a whole generation

Midnight in Soho, Nineteen Eighty-four
Fixing in doorways, opium slaves
Poppies for young men, such bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed
All for a Children's Crusade 

Enjoy the video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6pQ8qKg-Ag&feature=related

Reference.

Lesley Gordon. Green Magic. Flowers Plants and Herbs in Lore and Legend.

Blacks Massive Migration as Shown in the New York Times, june 1879

Jacob Lawrence, The Migration of the Negro

Massive migrations produce changes in the city. Most ghost towns are the result of people leaving, due to different issues, as nuclear plants damages, lack of jobs, civil wars, etc. In years, the urban morphology is highly affected.

A few days ago, my post showed some similarities between migrations of black people from Haiti with a fiction story by Ray Bradbury.

http://myriammahiques.blogspot.com/2010/01/black-massive-migration-in-words-of-ray.html

Lynchings graph. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lynchings-graph.png

Cotton picking in Mississippi. http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/haley/encyc253.jpg

The Great Migration was the movement of 4.1 million African Americans  out of the Southern United States to the North, Midwest,and West from 1910 to 1930. Precise estimates of the number of migrants depend on the time frame. African Americans migrated to escape racism and seek employment  opportunities in industrial cities. Some historians differentiate between the First Great Migration (1910–40), numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and the Second Great Migration, from 1940–70. In the Second Migration, 5 million or more people relocated, with the migrants moving to more new destinations. Many moved from Texas and Lousiana to California  where there were jobs in the defense industry.(From Wikipedia.org).

What I´ve found today is an astonishing description of the current events in Southern USA at the end of SXIX. It is a real publication dated June 9, 1879 in the New York Times, a transcription from the Philadelphia Record May 31, 1879; 31 years before the Great Migration.

The link is below for them who want to read it all, be prepared, it is full of racists hard words. Ray Bradbury wrote his story in 1950. It seems that this is a never ending story. Words are changed in 2010, but they have the same essence.

It seems this particular migration was related to politicians, apparently Republicans were encouraging Black workers against the Democratic representations. The loss of workers was considered worst than having a plague of yellow fever. The paradox, if rebels were killed, they would be heroes.

These are some excerpts from the New York Times publication. The article is ¨Loss of labor to the South. Enumerating some of the serious results to be feared in the southern states. White Planters in danger of ruin.

¨A Philadelphian who has vast interests in Louisiana, and who will therefore be affected by the loss of labor should the negro exodus continue, returned yesterday from an extended trip through the Mississippi Valley. He started from St. Louis and proceeded as far down the Mississippi as NewOrleans, stopping off at many places where there were camps of the colored people.

We in the south, he says, are at a loss to fix exactly where and how this idea of emigrating first came into the colored folks´heads.¨

¨I tell you candidly they could not have struck a more powerful blow at the prosperity of the South¨………If it keeps on it will impoverish the white men.

¨These poor ignorant Negroes have been played upon in the most shameful manner by the men who devised this scheme. They have filled their heads with four things, which the colored people regard as the truth and will not think otherwise: first that they are to be transported free to Kansas or wherever they are to settle; second that the government will give each colored man 160 acres of land; third that the government will give each man two mules; fourth that the government will give them provisions enough to last for one year, or until their crops are harvested next year¨…..¨Even the colored clergymen are imbued with the idea…..the unfortunate people imagine that God has at last named their day of deliverance¨………………

¨Suddenly a planter finds that 30 or 40 of his people ………..have dropped their work and have joined the crowd who expect to go to Kansas¨.

¨If a steamer comes there offering free transportation to the Negroes, she will be fired upon as sure as there is powder and ball in Louisiana and Mississippi ¨.

That´s scary and sad enough to keep on copying………

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E05EEDB1431E53ABC4153DFB0668382669FDE

Caption: The burning of Will Brown's body, Omaha, Nebraska, Sept. 18, 1919

Source: NSHS, RG2281-69 This material is taken from a series of pages on the history of racial tensions in Omaha at the following address-

http:/www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/frameset.html.

From  blackandbluespeople.blogspot.com/

Fractal Dimension and Colors

This is the binary file of the picture below. D=1.6869

Maritza's Fashion. Picture by Camilo J. Vergara

I have selected this picture to show the results of the fractal dimension based on the selection of color channels. Most researchers do not pay attention to the color issue. The original picture is converted into a binary file to apply the box counting method, regardless the colors. In this example, the file is the first picture. D=1.6869 is the result for the fractal dimension.

Let's go further. Maybe I want to emphasize a specific color or disregard any of them. Color is really important in this facade. Now, we'll see how the fractal dimension is affected by the color channel selection:

Maritza. Blue channel D=1.7344

Maritza. Green channel. D=1.6645

Maritza. Red channel. D=1.5947

Needless to say I found a big difference. So, the researcher has to take a decision about which elements of the facade will be considered or not. For instance, see that in the red channel, the sign above the door dissappears. In the blue channel binary file, the white circle on the left is taken as full, maybe this is not convenient. The opening is not correctly shown, while this is an important element for the composition. Both door and letters "Maritza" are taken as empty, it should be reversed. In my opinion, the green channel is the best selection and the result is pretty close to the original one. But more accurate.