Built between 1930s and finally finished in 1970s. The designer, landscape designer involved in addition to a whole series of architects and engineers of someone given credit for much of the design, stanley abbott, a well known landscape park ark sect in the service. He had begun his work in the 1930s in the westchesters park system. During the depression, moved into the park service as a career. He did much of the committee sign work. The Blue Ridge Parkway, in addition to its great length is known for some of its heroic engineering. One of the major elements is a giant via duct which crosses a particularly steep area of mountainouser terrain. Youre able to see a beautiful road winding through the slopes of app la sha, the blue ridge mountains. Much of it was built during the depression. These kind of handmade walls, again, reflected National Park service rustic architecture and natch listic landscape design. Plantings were planted to heal roadside scars. Great care was taken in designing views and view sheds. The road was known also for its Cultural Resource preservation. There was a desire along the roadside to capture some of the craft of the landscape. The project was also notable for its attempted public relations. Okay. So cutting across 500 miles gaining property, you know, buying property from individual farmers proved to be rather difficult. In many of these communities, people did not want to interact with the gmen or the men from the government. So one of the things they ended up doing is they pioneered the use of the conservation easement where they couldnt purchase land on either way widen that rightofway. They would purchase an easement to the land that would allow them to preserve the view shed. Today this is a practice widely known for protection of things like wetlands, natural areas as well as view sheds. At the time it was on of the revolutionary practices created by the Blue Ridge Parkway. Norman newton describes it completely in his text. Okay. So parkway, Blue Ridge Parkway finished in 1970 is one of the last major parkways constructed by the natural park service. Parkway in mississippi lingers on also 500 mile road along a former indian trail, also extensive. By the 1970s, people werent building parkways anymore. I said as the 1930s was a hay day of the parkway and Blue Ridge Parkway was finished in the 1970s. Long road. Why did it take so long . Why do parkways fall off after the 1930s . For a couple of reasons. After world war ii, theres an increasing emphasis in the country on on transportation. And as people begin to use roads less for scenic travel and more for getting from point a to point b, peoples priorities in roadway design change. In the 1940s and 50s, there was an Engineering Movement away from the parkway to something called the deplecomplete highwa i love the phrase on the tag line for the complete highway movement, which was safety, utility, economy, and beauty. All parts in harmony. Which sounds really great except for the fact that theres three quarters of this pragmatic function and one quarter is devoted to beauty. All right. So the idea of an esthetic experience of roadside driving really begins to fall off in the more rapid pace of the post world war ii era. Engineering begins to become the name of the game for roadway design. Were concerned with traffic speeds, with safety, all of those trees in the roadside, those are fixed hazard objects. Thats not a tree. Thats a fixed hazardous object. When you run into a fixed hardo hardous object, you are likely to die. If we can choose between a Beautiful Tree and a dead person, were going to take out the tree and not have a dead person. We begin to move toward this idea also promoted by architects where form follows function. If the roadway follows its function to get from point a to point b, it will by nature be beautiful. Right . This is how you end up with the word parkway. Freeway, through way, you can see that change in the way we talk about roads. Freeway, through way, the roads get increasingly flatter and increasingly longer. At the same time, in the post world war ii era, under the eisenhower administration, people begin to say, you know what, we do need better roads. We need roads that we can connect our cities with in case of moments of Great National emergencies. Right . And thus the federal aide highway act, also known as the National Interstate and defense highway act occurs in the 1950s and we have the first project in the United States and interstates 94 little view shed of that road being open. Here is what the freeway through way expressway looks like in contrast to the park way. What is it . Its the curves begin to be so flat as to be nonexistent. They become increasingly straight. Straight is better, you now begin to design curves just to keep it interesting enough to make sure that you dont fall asleep on the roadway when youre driving back home after a long week at school. Right. Youre kmucommuting back on higy 80 or curved primarily to manag not a viewship, but you as a driver and waking up. We eliminate the planting along the roadside. Right. Its going to collect snow and hide viewships. In other places particularly in other cities. This is highway 94 in saint paul. Minneapolis is over here. We eliminate the planting. We sink the road so that cross traffic can conveniently move over. Bridges are no longer archways constructed for an esthetic experience, but rather to be as convenient as possible. We have a very different change in our rae design. Social attitudes are changing as well. You think about the River Parkway and that experienced a joy and excitement in driving a car for the first time as a Recreational Activity. How many of us think about driving a car as a Recreational Activity anymore. We dont. Its not fun. I think my father was the last person i knew who liked to go for a sunday drive. Right . Pile the kids in the car and torture us. Car trips were not recreational for me. So driving is no long earning a gee whiz activity. So for me as i teach you as a landscape architect, i think the less slesson is with the loss o esthetic goals for the roadway comes the loss of the goal for the architect. Not something our profession does a lot of anymore. Engineers are the profession of choice, the profession of function and they are not too concerned about the esthetics experience shl concern, right . I think this is a loss. Many people spend hours and hours of their lives on freeways and commuting. Right . We can sort of think about that bubble in the car that were sitting in. Or we can think about the nature of the roadside along it. Theres a lost opportunity here for taking back these environments and thinking about them as possibly an environment thats not a sterile environment where youre in your bubble, but perhaps it can change the way that you think about driving that road as a designer and as a driver. What if, what if we took just a tiny little bit more, maybe not 31. Safety, economy, utility and beauty, but what if we start to think about changing these environments so that they too could be productive and green. What if they generate ed solar energy. What if they became places for prairies which have habitat. How can we as a Landscape Architecture profession begin to change this environment that we all spend a lot of time in into something that is more productive for the environment and more beneficial to the human beings who move through them. I say looking back to the hay day of the parkway is one way to think about that. Cool. And we are done. Five minutes early. You just got five minutes of your life back. This week during American History prime time, we feature across the country. Each night debut a new lecture. Tonight a look at how the transportation developed. We quinn at 8 eastern with the development of parkwayings and freeways from an Iowa State University lecture. Then from the university of virginia a look at the impact of cars on u. S. Cities. The development of the electric rail system taken from a university lecture. American history tv. Prime time tonight. Saturday night, bakers Field College professor shares his personal family his and other oral histories about the National Farm workers association. People at the bottom of society were suddenly becoming engaging rkt fighting for rights. And also mobilizing for politicians. Well talk about this later. Some of your mentioned this in oral history. One of the best friends of the chavez family is the kennedy family, right . Starting with john and then rob skpert their children. Sunday at six, american art facts, visit the National Security archive at George Washington university. For the 50th anniversary of freedom of information act. John moss lonely crusader all this time. Picked up donald rumsfeld. His statement on the floor is a good explanation of why the bill became a rule majority bill. He said government has gotten so big. Its involved in so many different pieces of or life and commercial life, industrial life, personal lives. Medicare, past, social security. We need the right to get the records out of agencies to be able to uphold our own standard of living, our own liberty. Freedom and restrain on government. Monday morning at 11 eastern, the National Park Service Marking its 100 anniversary at arlington house. Robert e lee memorial. Oversee a year long restoration of the mansion, slave quarters and grounds. We were incredibly fortunate that we were able to really taylor our specific needs for all kinds of things for the museum objects, for telling a story the interpretation and the physical fixes and construction that needed to happen. Not just to the buildings, but to the historic grounds and gardens and we were able to present that to mr. Ruben stein and he very generously donated to make it happen. Now on histories of technology. This class looks at what is called americas love affair with the automobile. Exploring the impact of cars on American Cities in the second half of the 20th century. This includes the destruction of niebz for new highways and a significant change in the character and structural density of downtowns to accommodate parking decks and surface lots. This class is an hour and ten minutes. Id like to start with a question. I want a clear answer
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