THE IRONY OF INTERVENTION: DESPOLIATION AND REMEDIATION

Abstract

The out-scaled processes of strip-mining appear incredible, absurd, and even ironic. In
fact, the notion of irony, in which explicit meaning is different from intended meaning, is itself a useful
critical tool for extending concepts which otherwise guide conventional discussion about design for the
environment. J. B. Jackson, for instance, wrote about the “vernacular” landscape. But how can the word –
which denotes characteristics unintended, unselfconscious, yet entirely artificial – be applied to
landscape? Are there circumstances in which understanding the transition from a natural to man-made
landscape can be moderated by “ironic” sensibilities? Shlomo Aronson‟s design for the Negev Phosphate
Works, among other examples of extensive site intervention, provides a useful lesson. One can perceive,
in Aronson‟s work, a kind of visual vernacular, established by the natural landscape‟s own precedent at an
existing place and time. Perception of this vernacular, on the other hand, depends upon the subtle, ironic
chiasm between site specificity and its opposite: the general concept of landscape itself.