No
idea, no plan, no action is taken without connection to the past. Sometimes
subliminal, sometimes a acknowledged, and sometimes a parody, the past
informs and deeps our appreciation for the time ahead. TiWalkMe arose
from two decades of thinking about the limits of human imagination and
experience. These links, while not originally connected to those years,
are shared to provide context for a visitor new to "deep"
time.
Art
and the Landscape
-
Perhaps
the most creative and empowering reinvention of an abandoned industrial
site is the Park Duisburg
Nord in Duisburg, Germany by Latz
+ Partner. Blast furnaces into fjords, slag heaps into wildflower
nurseries, roads into brooks- see this article in Metropolis
Magazine.
- Andy
Goldsworthy brilliantly incorporates natural materials into stunning,
but ephemeral, sculpture. Treasure his book Time (Harry N Abrams,
2000 ISBN 0-8109-4482-0)
-
-
A
500 acre park at Storm
King, dotted with paths, vistas and post-WWII sculpture emerging
from the soil.
-
The
Fresh Kills sanitary landfill in New York is slated for an artistic
conversion from landfill to landscape.
-
-
- The Eco-cathedral in the Netherlands
Ancient
Gardens and Parks
-
The
Persian
Paradise Garden places heaven at its center, with paths and water
running North, South, East and West. Generally walled, highly symmetrical,
filled with trees and plants and truly a heaven on earth.
- The Generalife
palace and gardens in the Alhambra- a Moorish interpretation of the
Paradise Garden.
- The Chinese
Garden is a marvel of perspective and introspection, weaving a miniature
and idealized representation of the world into the smallest courtyard.
A wonderful
mixture of stone, yin and yang..
- Central
Park, New York - a vibrant example of a "naturalized"
setting in an urban environment designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and
Calvert Vaux.
Other
Deep Time and Ancient Clocks
- The
National Institute of Standards- home of the most accurate clock in
the world, maintains a fine site on the history of time keeping- curiously
(and coincidentally) call a
"Walk in Time"
- The
September 2002 issue of Scientific American has a wonderful article
by William Andrews on mechanical clocks through the ages- but
there is a fee. Try the library or ask a friend for a copy of
the magazine.
- The
Shrine
at Ise in Japan is rebuilt every 20 years, counting out the decades
since 692 CE. The building, while neither tree nor forest, is a representation
of a sacred plant. The Shrine is living proof that communities can
nurture such deep time clocks.
- The horologium florae, or clock garden. Originally suggested by Linnaeus, the clock face is planted by different species of flowers that bloom at sequential hours throught the day.
- The
"Long Now Foundation"
is building a mechanical clock to span the millennia. An example of
mankind confusing the measurement of time with internalizing time
scales, but the foundation is motivated by some important goals and
backers.
- In
addition to other speculative uses, Stonehenge
may be a clock.
- Other
than marking time slowly with the heavens, intra-day clocks are a
recent invention- probably only five millennia old. A wonderful water
clock, operated only by gravity, surface tension and pendulum is the
work of Bernard
Gitton. See one of his clocks installed at the Children's
Museum of Indianapolis.
- TiWalkMe
turns distance into time. Yet others turn time into distance. For
example, both the Sternberg
Museum of Natural History in Kansas, and the University
of Maine have stretched the solar system out along a major highway
for hundreds of miles, in a multi-county scale model of the solar
system. A drive between planets might take an hour, yet each planet
could fit easily within a summer gazebo.
- The million generation foundation, advocating a stone pavement street clock to focus residents to think about a persistent and productive earth.
Suggestions
for other related links? Our email address is on the volunteer page.
We'll add new links where space and relevancy permits.
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