Communal Art
In 1903 one of the earliest American city planners and proponents of The City Beautiful Movement, Charles Mulford Robinson, remarked that individual property rights along rivers remain a difficult if not impossible deterrent to the development of our rivers as a communal asset. A century later his observation remains true.
By the mid 19th century coal and railroad barons owned much of the land along many rivers including the river where the Kosciuska Healing Garden is located. Once a vital source of drinking water and food, rivers became an industrial and urban waste disposal system. As Robinson noted - we turned our backs to our rivers. The wooden houses of the coal miners faced the river.
"At the water's edge the town began and pressing inward and climbing higher the beginning is forgotten or ignored"
from The City Beautiful by Chales Mulford Robinson p.43
Space along rivers has frequently been carved out for different classes. Flood plain areas to the poor and lower middle class, high bank areas to the wealthy. Robinson believed space along rivers "should be reserved for the public enjoyment of the community's chief asset - not relinquished to individual exclusiveness." Ibid. p.45
In the 20th century, the dirt levee along the river, constructed in part from the coal ash and excavations for the cellars of the coal miners, began to be transformed by the families of the miners into a public garden. Unbeknown to them, and without any local, state or federal governmental support, they were practitioners of the City Beautiful philosophy engendered by early city planners such as Robinson (city plans for Los Angeles, Columbus), Frederick Law Olmstead (plan for New York City's Central Park), Mira Lloyd Dock (city plan for Harrisburg) and others. They were practitioners of communal art. Until the construction of the new levee system the riverbank garden had been tended by the miners and their descendants without any corporate or governmental support, without any financial compensation for nearly a century. Their garden flourished longer than the local coal industry that had originally brought the miners here.
After their homes were razed their steadfastness and devotion to communal art inspired the replanting of their plants into a new garden on land now owned by a local nonprofit conservation organization.
In 1903 one of the earliest American city planners and proponents of The City Beautiful Movement, Charles Mulford Robinson, remarked that individual property rights along rivers remain a difficult if not impossible deterrent to the development of our rivers as a communal asset. A century later his observation remains true.
By the mid 19th century coal and railroad barons owned much of the land along many rivers including the river where the Kosciuska Healing Garden is located. Once a vital source of drinking water and food, rivers became an industrial and urban waste disposal system. As Robinson noted - we turned our backs to our rivers. The wooden houses of the coal miners faced the river.
"At the water's edge the town began and pressing inward and climbing higher the beginning is forgotten or ignored"
from The City Beautiful by Chales Mulford Robinson p.43
Space along rivers has frequently been carved out for different classes. Flood plain areas to the poor and lower middle class, high bank areas to the wealthy. Robinson believed space along rivers "should be reserved for the public enjoyment of the community's chief asset - not relinquished to individual exclusiveness." Ibid. p.45
In the 20th century, the dirt levee along the river, constructed in part from the coal ash and excavations for the cellars of the coal miners, began to be transformed by the families of the miners into a public garden. Unbeknown to them, and without any local, state or federal governmental support, they were practitioners of the City Beautiful philosophy engendered by early city planners such as Robinson (city plans for Los Angeles, Columbus), Frederick Law Olmstead (plan for New York City's Central Park), Mira Lloyd Dock (city plan for Harrisburg) and others. They were practitioners of communal art. Until the construction of the new levee system the riverbank garden had been tended by the miners and their descendants without any corporate or governmental support, without any financial compensation for nearly a century. Their garden flourished longer than the local coal industry that had originally brought the miners here.
After their homes were razed their steadfastness and devotion to communal art inspired the replanting of their plants into a new garden on land now owned by a local nonprofit conservation organization.
Mira Lloyd Dock with her dog along a creek
http://www.depweb.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_6_2_97208_13867_588346_43/http%3B/pubcontent.state.pa.us/publishedcontent/publish/cop_environment/dep/dep_external_website/dep_content/environmental_education/environmental_heritage/images/lib/heritage/dock_dog.gif
http://www.depweb.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_6_2_97208_13867_588346_43/http%3B/pubcontent.state.pa.us/publishedcontent/publish/cop_environment/dep/dep_external_website/dep_content/environmental_education/environmental_heritage/images/lib/heritage/dock_dog.gif
"For most art, it may be noted, serves a useful purpose incidentally, finding in its own perfection, in its own beauty, such justification that often men seek art for art's sake alone; while with municipal art the utilitarian advantages and social benefits become so paramount that they are not forgotten, are not overlooked, in straining for sensual pleasure and for that full rounding of a positive attainment which in itself may be the artist's goal. Here, then, in this distinction, comes a suggestion for the first qualifying clause in the definition of municipal art. And how natural this first step of definition is! This art, which serves so many social ends, is municipal, in the sense of communal.
It is municipal art first of all, If men seek it they seek it not for art's sake, but for the city's; they are first citizens and then, in their own way, artists, and artists in this way only because they are citizens.......They are not asking the town to help art, but art to help the town; the artists, not to glorify their art, but by their art to glorify the city."
from The City Made Beautiful, Charles Mulford Robinson p.25-6
"I do not want art for a few," said William Morris, "any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few" -- and civic art is essentially public art. It has been likened to a fire built upon the market place, where everyone might light his torch; where private art is a fire built upon a hearthstone, which will blaze and die out with the rise and fall of fortunes."
from Ibid. p.36
It is municipal art first of all, If men seek it they seek it not for art's sake, but for the city's; they are first citizens and then, in their own way, artists, and artists in this way only because they are citizens.......They are not asking the town to help art, but art to help the town; the artists, not to glorify their art, but by their art to glorify the city."
from The City Made Beautiful, Charles Mulford Robinson p.25-6
"I do not want art for a few," said William Morris, "any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few" -- and civic art is essentially public art. It has been likened to a fire built upon the market place, where everyone might light his torch; where private art is a fire built upon a hearthstone, which will blaze and die out with the rise and fall of fortunes."
from Ibid. p.36