The Things We’ve Done for a Table Leg: A Landscape Narrative Approach to the Colonial Mahogany Trade
Loading...
Date
2018-08-25
Authors
Maxson, John
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The troubling material history of the colonial mahogany trade’s ties to slave labor and
environmental degradation is often obscured by the reverence we place on the craftsmanship
and pedigree of its products. Although historians have explored this complex past, the story
has not been told through landscape, which can engage people differently than text, film,
or images. This project uses designed landscape narratives to tell the story of the colonial
mahogany trade and to reveal the social and environmental entanglements that developed
with this system of commerce.
This research through designing project is structured by the two branches of a narrative:
story and telling. The story of the colonial mahogany trade is uncovered through literature
reviews and visualization methods like drawing and modeling, and distilled into the elemental
pieces of a story: characters, events, and settings. Similarly, the project explores the elements
of a landscape narrative: spaces, components, and sequences, and uses them to analyze
designed landscape narratives to find ways to tell a story.
‘Story’ and ‘Telling’ are synthesized together into final design proposals at Easton’s
Point in Newport, Rhode Island and at Seville Heritage Park in St. Ann, Jamaica. The final
proposals offer a new way to design multiple landscape narratives to tell a story of the
colonial mahogany trade, and further explore landscape architecture’s potential to engage
with complex material and social histories.
Description
Examining committee chair: Jacques Abelman
Keywords
Landscape narrative, Research through designing, Colonial mahogany trade, Landscape architecture