Exploring Anthropocenic New Geology
Year: 2023 Spring
Columbia GSAPP Advanced Studio IV
Type: Sanctuaries Studio
Location: Ravena Village, Albany County, Hudson Valley
Instructor: Nahyun Hwang
Individual Work
This project started with a desire to contest the notion of Hudson Valley as perfect nature, a getaway retreat, and question the idea of what wilderness really is. What does it really mean when we say “natural” landscape after the extensive history of human intervention? Instead of thinking of quarries as destroyed land, quarries represent production of new sublime and new unique ecologies. The investigation started in Ravena Village. The Ravena quarry, the chosen site, is one of many quarries in the hudson valley, is in fact the last active cement quarry site in New York State by the end of this year, as Glens Falls Quarry will be closing. Ravena is a small village of 3,240 people in Albany County. This quarry produced materials for the World Trade Center Memorial and the new Giants Stadium.
Ravena Quarry Section
Human Intervention History of the Hudson River Valley
The research aimed to understand how the Hudson River Valley came to be and the commodification of the land. In this drawing, the logging industry, ice harvesting, brick making, reservoirs, cement industry, resort industries are highlighted and illustrates the extraction and transportation process for the benefit of New York City. There are at least 15 quarry sites along the Hudson River and they are all in different conditions. More than half of the 35 million tons of natural cement produced in the United States at the height of the industry originated with cement rock mined in Hudson Valley. Material excavated in these mines went straight to NYC to build some of the most famous landmarks, including the Brooklyn Bridge, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, Federal Hall National memorial, and the west wing of the United States Capitol building. Quarries are notable in a way that it
is a sharp contrast to the types of landscape and geologies that we usually associate with the Hudson Valley, the ones that Hudson River School painted, such as Catskills Mountains. Quarries are new Anthropocenic geology that emerged through human intervention with the land. The perspective I took is that the extraction is a production process of a new anthropocenic geology.
Exploitation History of Hudson River Valley, photo collage
Different Conditions of Quarries in the Hudson River Valley
this drawing in collaboration with Chris Deegan
Constructive Wilderness & Artificial Landscape
Right above the quarry, there is Deer Mountain Nature Preserve. It was originally a part of a large farm owned by the Hotaling family and was acquired by the Blue Circle Industries when they bought the quarry land. What was interesting about this preserve is that it’s a mirrored condition of the quarry, conceptually and quite literally with its size and the location. It’s more of a promotional preserve. Blue Circle Industries turned what was originally a farm into a nature preserve and advertised it with its certifications from the Wildlife Habitat Council. Wildlife Habitat Council is a non-profit organization, founded by five companies, Anheuser Busch, a brewing company, BP, DuPont, multinational chemical company, Exxon, oil and gas company and US Steel. So these private industrial corporations created an environmentally friendly institution to credit themselves.
There have been these handful of huge cement companies that created quarry landscapes across continents, something that doesn’t exist naturally because it’s entirely man-made. Deer Mountain Nature Preserve is a shadow of their actions that makes their actions look less harmful. In result, creating constructed wilderness.
Social Tensions and Dynamics Between the Ravena Quarry and the Local Community
Timeline of Deer Mountain Park and the Cement Comapnies at the Ravena Quarry
Timeline of Deer Mountain Park and the Cement Comapnies at the Ravena Quarry
Analysis of the Current Quarry’s Conditions
Abandoned Quarry is the Barren Land at the Start of the Ecological Succession Cycle
This drawing illustrates ecological successions, especially into soil through the molecular and chemical lens. Ecological succession is a fundamental concept in ecology. It’s a process by which the structure of a biological community evolves over time. There are two major types of ecological succession: primary succession and secondary succession. Primary succession happens in a lifeless area. The primary succession starts with the Hudson Valley Ice age era in the drawing. Secondary succession happens when a climax community is impacted by a disturbance. This restarts the cycle of succession. The project initially identified limestone quarry as the barren land, a start of the secondary ecological succession, but quarries harbor all stages of ecology successions in the one site at the same time frame
Abandoned Quarry as the Start of Ecological Succession Cycle
Proposal: Ravena Quarry as the National MonumentThe project’s goal is to propose this particular quarry site as a new typology of national monuments, such as Yellowstone and Yosemite. However, unlike them, Ravena quarry is an artificial landscape, a result of human exploitation of earth, that has never been talked about before. By illustrating the quarry site in the format of national monument maps, the project aims to depict this new landscape, new nature legible to the public and challenge what really is the notion of traditional glorification
of American Wilderness. The frame of the map shows the life cycle and history of the Ravena Quarry.
This park will be open to the public and the architecture and mineral interventions are designed to accentuate the quarry micro-geologies and make it reachable to human scale. By visiting the Ravena Quarry Monument, people will experience the surreal subliminal quality of the quarry landscape, as if they are on a different planet and notice the vast gradient of ecological successions that happen in a very condensed site.