Material Remnants: Design Archaeology on Ithaca Falls and the Ithaca Gun Brownfi eld Site

Abstract

Landscapes carry layered material remnants of history embedded in the surface and underground. Phenomenologically, spaces contain a compression of time; the present is the moment between past and future. Archaeology uncovers material traces from past activities, revealing a site’s history as layers of time. Brownfields bear material traces in the form of contaminants in the soil and / or water, and become clues for understanding past activities. Brownfields where industrial activities once occurred leave larger structures as material ruins, revealing an industrial past and a deindustrializing future.These types of sites have the potential to recast landscape architects as both archaeologists uncovering the past, and designers reimagining a new future for a site’s legacy. This article explores the impact of trace and remnant physical materials on the future terrain of landscape architecture operating within deindustrializing sites. Ithaca Falls and former Ithaca Gun Factory, a culturally and historically significant landscape in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, is used as a case study for approaching a historically layered, complex landscape with material remnants.

Keywords

Material / Traces / Brownfields / Landscape Archaeology / Industrial Ruin / Ithaca

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Higher Education Press