richardwhitby.net
Resources to accompany an exhibition with Paradise Lost, 17th and 18th
April 2010
19th century engraving of London Zoo's bear pits
Polar bears on the Mappin Terraces, London Zoo 1930s
The Mappin Terraces (present day) as the Australian outback
London's bear pit, with eye level
bear post
Polar bear at London Zoo
Ruins of Berlin Zoo after Allied bombing in 1943
London Zoo, 2009
Sculpture at London Zoo, previously titled 'Stealing the Cubs',
now untitled
Mappin Pavilion, which overlooks the terrace
Mappin Terraces, present day
The Aquarium, part of the Mappin Terraces
The Mappin Terraces 1990
Diagram of original design for Mappin Terraces
Constructing Mappin Terraces
Ruin of Berlin's osterich house, 1943
Traditional German bear castle
Crocodiles on a painted backdrop, London
Seven dead elephants at Berlin zoo, 1943
Ex-elephant house at London Zoo
'Exotic
animal territories are compressed both semantically
and syntactically in confinement. Ecosystems are jumbled
together in the zoo, producing odd conjunctions of incompatible terms.
Syntactically, ecosystems are compressed to mere fractions of their
former scale. At the zoo, animal territories are condensed and overlapped
within necessarily diminutive confines. We can argue concisely that
the latter condensation is inevitable in nearly any landscape, given
the gradual loss of non-managed ecosystems in the wild. Whether animal
territory is condensed by the ‘external’ walls of development
or the internal walls of the zoo is not a qualitative difference.
Bears are another classic though pedantic example to approach the
alteration of behaviour under domestication. The rocking induced by
captivity, similar to the familiar pacing of confined great cats,
is in no way simply a matter of superseded failure in zoo architecture.
Rather than culpable design, this is a genera problem in the reduction
of animal territory. Even at London Zoo, in a highly sensitive recent
renovation of the Mappin Terraces, we have the sad example
of a female sloth bear who rocks incessantly at any closed
door. Therapeutic measures which induce play can only divert and entertain
the animal, but they do not seem to eliminate the perceived problem
completely. Acclimatization is a traumatic process which takes time
and provides no guarantees.
The connections of the zoo and the picturesque are familiar but critically
unexplored. While oriental architecture and motifs
are commonly appropriated in the zoo, this is normally ascribed to
stylistic preference or the reaffirmation of political domination.
There is more to it than that, however. While the maintenance of an
exotic atmosphere, either naturalistic or cultural, has connotations,
these are imbued throughout with an aesthetic preference of expansion
in the face of disgust and danger.'
A Zoo Allegory
Gates to Carl
Hagenbach's Animal Park, Hamburg
The
buildings of a zoo bare the forms and designs from its previous incarnations,
perhaps all the more apparent in this architectural purpose as the
buildings are designed to house the specific forms and behaviours
of a particular species and are often now used to house another.
Zoos not only bare the remains of older forms of entertainment (the
formal garden, the freak-show) – they also bare those of past
political situations and attitudes. In times of empire the zoological
park was, like the museum, a demonstration of dominion; a collection
of living spoils from war and conquest.
View of Mappin
Terraces and Pavillion
'The Mappin Terraces
are London Zoo’s largest and most prominent feature.
They were built as ‘an installation for the panoramic display
of wild animals’ in the form of artificial mountains. This ‘naturalistic’
approach to animal display, which derived from the work of Carl Hagenbeck
in Hamburg, was intended to improve the living conditions for the
animals and viewing conditions for the visitors.
The terraces are highly unconventional, in both constructional and
architectural terms. Mitchell devised the basic arrangement, a three-tiered
quadrant with hills, after being impressed by Continental panoramas,
particularly one at Antwerp. Joass worked out the details and introduced
Mappin, who did not live to see the completion of the project. Joass
claimed the inspiration of a classical hillside amphitheatre, but
this invocation has the ring of retrospective rationalisation.
Simulation of nature was also applied t the indoor display of smaller
animals. The Aquarium tanks of 1923-4 were given elaborate rockwork
and the Reptile House cages of 1926-7 were fastidiously landscaped,
their back walls illusionistically painted by a theatrical scene artist
as continuations of rockwork and planting. Such attempts to create
an impression of nature clearly benefit the viewer more than the animal…The
escape to an unfamiliar world that is part of the experience of any
zoo was made more complete and, to the extent that it was ever troubled,
the conscience was eased.'
The Buildings of London Zoo
A keeper, London Zoo, 19th century
'The most amusing bears on the Terraces are
three elderly females, Gypsy, Hector and Nell, known generally as
‘The Three Bears’. They look like giant Teddy bears, and
wear a placid and benevolent expression, but woe betide anyone who
ventures into their home, for their good-natured appearance is nothing
but a mask. They receive more buns than any other animals in the menagerie,
because their appeal is irresistible as they sit in a row holding
their toes and swaying from side to side in order
to catch gifts in their mouths; and although nearly blind, not one
of the trio ever misses a catch. In common with all bears, they have
a very sweet tooth and iced cake is received with grunts of pleasure,
while a tin of syrup or honey makes them frantic with joy. On sunless
winter days Nell and Hector indulge their instinct to hibernate and
only appear for a drink, but Gypsy is too confirmed a mendicant, and
all the year round, wet or fine, she goes out to beg.
Susie was presented to the Zoo in 1927 by a party
of Cambridge students who had lassoed her in Greenland, and Susie
was then thought to be four years old. Captivity did not distress
this Polar bear, and as soon as she was settled in her new home she
sat up and asked the public to subsidise her rations, yet at heart
she evidently cherished a longing to exterminate the human
race, for the keepers find her as dangerous as any of the
older specimens. That Susie is awaiting an opportunity to attack is
obvious, because, no matter how much food is offered, as an inducement,
she will never retire to her sleeping den when the keepers want to
clean her outdoor cage, and therefore one man has always to remain
on guard while the other sweeps.'
Around London's Zoo
Reptile cage being refurbished, London 2009
'The designer should not be
too concerned about clearly understanding the distinction between
reality and illusion that involves the blurred interface
of the conscious and subconscious regions of the mind. Illusions are
closely linked to emotions and to he lower levels of the psyche that
harbour imagination, intuition, and dreams. Illusions can be catalysts
for the creation of superb designs. We should admit
to the existence of illusions, enjoy the visual puns that the mind
and the eye create, understand their value, and consider their role
and application in the design of a zoological exhibit.
The exclamation of dismay, “you have destroyed my illusion,”
suggests that we may not only cherish an illusion but we may hope
to gain important enlightenment from being its victim. Illusions,
sometimes called errors of the senses and/or errors of the intellect,
aid in the discovery of reality, understanding the normal and natural.
They not only create a sense of enjoyment and attraction, but they
can help sustain our search for knowledge and the key to reality.
Knowledge of the types of illusions may help create imaginative exhibits
and also help the designer avoid the creation of illusions that cancel
out each other’s effects...
Example of 'Desolation' style from 'Zoo Design'
Desolation
Step 1: Landscape Attributions
stark eternal boring uninteresting lonely drab uninspiring bleak destroyed
dull
Step 2: Physical Descriptors
Vast hard wide hard open barren still monotonous sparse
Step 3: Habitat Site Factors
1. The base plane contains a few coarse textured objects in primarily a bare and neutral area (bare earth and scanty leaf litter).
2. Many medium-sized tree trunks with dense foliage in uniformly distributed pattern create a vertical plane that offers limited short views. Small patches of sunlight create an exhibit space with low light intensity.
3. The overhead plane is of medium height; 8-20 m, with a dense canopy containing many branches and/or coarse leaves in overlapping tree crowns. The sounds of the space are soft and with abrupt contrasts (light breezes, distant stream/waterfall sounds).'
Zoo Design: The Reality of Wild Illusions
Unconvincing false tree in monkey enclosure, London
Zoo
If we consider the architecture and planning of the zoo to be primary, then the animals themselves are relegated to living decorations. With captive animals the idea of ‘living’ is somewhat altered, as although their entire reason for being present is to do with their life, their vitality, this life (i.e. animal behaviour, mobility etc.) is often lack-lustre or made impossible in confinement. As Stephen Spotte writes, they are like badly trained actors, who do nothing but stare back at the spectator.
'Today’s zoo can’t
escape certain connotations, notably restricted space, unpleasant
odours, and the uneasy truth of mankind’s dominance over wild
creatures. But in a culture where reality and image have become synonyms,
captivity merges easily with consumerism and the ensuing metamorphosis
loses many of its harsh trappings. The frailties and stress associated
with zoo life then disappear along with our sympathy, and the animals
are transformed into their own images.
Future zoos might exhibit only animals bred in captivity for many
generations, perhaps remnants of species that were once endangered
and finally extinct in the wild...The results should please those
who show the proper historicist reverance for fragments and a romanticised
belief that the past can be reconstituted.'
Stephen Spotte
'Removal
from the dangers of living in the rarely “wild”, often
“war-torn,” typically “horribly impoverished”
areas of the world to which they are indigenous, animals in today’s
enlightened zoos, with their veterinarians and antibiotics, can now
look forward to long lives; indeed, they can look forward to genetic
immortality as cryogenically preserved gametes and tissue
samples.'
Savages and Beasts - the Birth of the Modern Zoo
Works near Lion enclosure, London Zoo 2009
Reptile
House at London Zoo
Tunnel
at London Zoo
'Today’s
zoo occupies a nether world between real nature, which can never be
known, and a leaky bucket of cinematic ‘realism’ that
retains no secrets atall. Zoos claim to represent the first while
competing actively with the second. Grasping at both, they fail to
be either.
Zoo exhibits also resemble theatre stages in their use of backdrops
and stage lighting. That the décor is devised and arranged
largely to benefit the spectators is undeniable. It is ‘part
of the ensemble of props needed for this theatre of illusion.’
It is, in fact, theatrical furniture.
The moat separating the spectators has its theatrical counterpart
in the orchestra pit. To extend these associations, what lovers of
theatre like best is the actor’s presence – in this case
live bears.'
Stephen Spotte
Inside Mappin Terraces
Vachel Lindsay
was an early film theorist and wrote in 1915 wrote:
‘Mankind
in his childhood has always wanted his furniture to do things
(to move on their own accord)’
For Lindsay, wouldn’t the zoo be the ultimate proto-cinematic
form, where the furniture actually is living?
As Spotte says, zoos are for people. Any function they might have now as
centres for pure conservation can be considered an attempt to update an
idea that is ostensibly outmoded.
Tigers, Richard Whitby,
2008
I
first started to think about zoos in this context after a flippant comparison
I made to zoo animals and looped video; that in a gallery the video work
is like a captive animal, endlessly looping around its enclosure.
The precursors to zoos were royal menageries, where the prime purpose of
the animals was to be at some point killed by other animals, to die a spectacular
death. Animal life is essentially ‘other’ to our own, this is
the fascinating thing about them; wondering what, or whether they might
be thinking and why they act in a certain way. It is also the grounds of
the justification for their captivity – they cannot appreciate their
predicament, so therefore cannot suffer (or any suffering can be easily
placated). At the same time, they are easy to empathise with (or at least,
some species are). Their simple victimhood – apolitical, innocent
– is easy to mourn. In war time, this empathy with animals is perhaps
akin to the sadness for destroyed buildings and works of art. Animals are
‘other’ enough to project onto them so that they illustrate
whatever we want, be that fear, admiration, economic power or altruistic
environmentalism.
Animals in War memorial, London
Zoos are the bastardised offspring of many forms; entertainment mongrels, neither museum, school, folly, circus or wildlife film. They are neither entirely historical relic, nor contemporary ark, and in this ambivalence they falter.
Sources:
The Buildings of London Zoo - Peter
Guillery 1996
London Zoo from Old Photographs 1852 - 1914 - John Edwards 1996
Round London's Zoo - Helen M.Sidebotham 1928
A Zoo Allegory - James Karl Fischer 2001
Zoo Design: The Reality of Wild Illusions - Kenneth J.Polakowski
1987
Zoos in Postmodernism - Stephen Spotte 2006
Savages and Beasts - The Birth of the Modern Zoo - Nigel Rothfels
2006