| Dana
Hogstedt • Mapping |
In mapping Boston I explored the process that created the
Back Bay and the Fenway areas that occurred through the filling of the former
Great Bay. The making of land for the city in this area was facilitated
by the construction of large industrial and transportation infrastructures
such as mill dams and causeways from which these future neighborhoods of
Boston would grow. These elements resulted in large tracts of stagnant marsh-land
which were further divided by causeways for the streets of the newly planned
neighborhoods that sprung forth in quick succession following the infill
of these cells with displaced land. The development of the Fens ParkĖs neighborhood
was induced (stimulated) by the act of many large institutions choosing
to locate in this then remote area of Boston, giving them the role of land
makers and city builders by influencing the design of the Fens Park and
perhaps more importantly, serving as magnets for other institutions and
businesses which led to the eventual creation of residential neighborhoods
in this area.
I attempted to manifest this idea of Boston constructing itself both physically
and socially thorough intentional acts in my model in which the fixed elements
represent the institutions and the physical infrastructures (built as door
pulls and pine slats) and the material in between represents the fluctuating
social and cultural matter that flows around and between these borders,
which is all "floating" above the pre-construction image of the equally
fluctuating ambiguous marshland of Boston primordial. |
