Hardline:
The Spatial Paradox of Infrastructure To set up this contemporary, post-industrial condition of abandonments, and their integration into the urban realm, an examination of the word infrastructure, in a general sense, is required. Infrastructure, like many terms today, has become a buzzword. The Oxford Dictionary defines infrastructure as "the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise."[1] In other words, it is a quintessential sign of signs. And like a sign, its signification is highly dependent on the specific concept and sound-image being described. Now, while the ambiguity of signs and their signification is an important distinction, let us simplify the pairing of a concept and sound-image to context. So then, what is the context of this specific kind of infrastructure? Are they of a particular type or scale? Maybe they are located in geographically similar locations? In more ways than this paper has space, it is unironically all of the above. Nonetheless, these questions will serve as markers demarcating and revealing the depthful guise of infrastructure, while leading towards a paradox.
Let us start by first looking at infrastructure, briefly, from a historical perspective. Before the industrial revolution, and without getting too specific with dates, infrastructure, or rather one of the most important infrastructures, would have been that of the defensive wall. Before the industrial revolution, these walls framed a denser urban center compared to the surrounding rural sprawl (fig 2). It is this contrast, between what is contained and what is left out, that I would like to draw our attention to. When abstracted, this hardlined shape, say a circle to keep things simple, has but one thing at its center, a dot. Now, while this dot simultaneously orients both the center of the circle (or wall) and the abstracted city, it is important to note that it has no dimension. That is to say that up until now, the only tool with any dimension or taking up any space is that of the hardline, despite being one-dimensional.
The true purpose of this illustration is to demonstrate the power of an abstracted hardline in revealing space. Now, with the circle, its center, and space in mind, the insurgent effects of the Industrial Revolution can be introduced into the model. This means is that the space inside the circle, compromised only by the non-dimensional dot at the center, begins to be bifurcated. One way to visualize this phenomenon is to think of it as a pie being divided. In addition to being a metaphor for capital, the pie is also space or land, and the cuts are lines or rail lines (fig 3). This land being divided is real space, and the specific type of infrastructure this paper is interested in is rail lines. It is important to point out that due to the rampant growth of the economy during the industrial revolution, not all cities, walled or not, responded to the overwhelming demand for production in the same way. This is an abstraction, a diagram of space using one-dimensional hardlines to corral, link and define interior and exterior space.
So then, what is the point of visualizing space in such a way? According to Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his book Phenomenology of Perception, it is akin to:
“...the same power of marking out borders and directions in the given world, of establishing lines of force, of arranging perspectives, of organizing the given world according to the projects of the moment, and of constructing upon the geographical surroundings a milieu of behavior and a system of significations that express, on the outside, the internal activity of the subject.”[2]
Merleau-Ponty is, of course, describing an individual and how one would struggle to recognize themselves in space without any means to measure, or at the very least, push against. This observation is at the scale of the individual and is not the national scale at which infrastructure is operating. However, visualizing space in this way and marking out borders and directions in the given world allows for a deeper investigation of the space infrastructure takes up while simultaneously revealing missed opportunities in these hardlines.
Additionally, thanks to Merleau-Ponty, the question of geographical localities can now be addressed. Consider now the updated model. It is no longer a simple circle with a dot at its center but a divided space corralled by a single hardline. If we were to zoom in, looking more intently at one of these new hardlines segregating the interior space, there would be another recognizable urban condition within the first one. This condition is the figuring, shaping, or, more appropriately, carving up of space found in contemporary industrial cities caused by rail lines. At least in the United States, a geographical hodgepodge of such urbanisms is known as The Rust Belt Cities (fig 4). However, there is one key difference between the hardline defining this interiority and the other. Unlike the hardline that defines an urban center against the rural exterior, this more interior hardline has the added characteristic of crossing multiple locations unbound by an exterior shape. Simply put, like any rail line, it has a beginning and an end that crosses borders.
In many ways, rail lines, to a certain extent, behaved like bridges, whether elevated or on the ground, transporting people, and goods, from one location to another. Martin Heidegger in Poetry, Language, Thought dwells, unironically, on bridges stating that:
“bridges lead in many ways. The city bridge leads from the precincts of the castle to the cathedral square; the river bridge near the country town brings wagons and horse teams to the surrounding villages. The old stone bridge's humble brook crossing gives to the harvest wagon its passage from the fields into the village and carries the lumber cart from the field path to the road. The highway bridge is tied into the network of long-distance traffic, paced as calculated for maximum yield. Always and ever differently the bridge escorts the lingering and hastening ways of men to and fro, so that they may get to other banks and in the end, as mortals, to the other side.”[3]
From this point, I argue that bridges and their characteristics, according to Heidegger, are synonymous with rail lines. This poetic gesture of bodies moving through space, from one location to another, is an interesting condition. If one can recall ever being on a train, it is a sort of wormhole. You enter and exit at different locations while never truly engaging with any real space in between. Why is that? Is it truly a portal at which people are able to transmit their being from one side to another? According to Heidegger, this is the consequence of the bridge, or in this instance, the rail line, being a thing. In his words, “gathering or assembly, by an ancient word of our language is called a ‘thing’ [and a rail line] is a thing.”[4] Additionally, it should be stated that
“the location is not already there before the [rail line] is. Before the [rail line] stands, there are of course many spots along the stream that can be occupied by something. One of them proves to be a location and does so because of the [rail line]. Thus, the [rail line] does not first come to a location to stand in it; rather, a location comes into existence only by virtue of the [rail line].”[5]
Heidegger makes this important distinction because
“only things that are locations in this manner allow for spaces…A space is something that has been made room for, something that is cleared and free, namely within a boundary, Greek peras. A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing. That is why the concept is that of horismos, that is, the horizon, the boundary. Space is in essence that for which room has been made, that which is let into its bounds. That for which room is made is always granted and hence is joined, that is, gathered, by virtue of a location, that is, by such a thing as [rail lines]. Accordingly, spaces receive their being from locations and not from 'space.'[6]
Therefore, is the space between two locations of a rail line even space at all? Until now, only the term infrastructure, its type, scale, and location have been addressed. But, with the introduction of things as a gathering or assembly and locations, as Heidegger illustrates, space (real space) and the built environment can be question.
Looking back to the zoomed-in diagram, the idiosyncratic hardline is, again, just one-dimensional. This is an abstraction of rail lines and, more importantly, a representation of their conception in and onto the urban schema. These hardlines are drawn, literally, across real space, a territory of topological differences. If “the spaces through which we go through daily [is] provided for by locations; [then] their nature is grounded in things of the type of buildings. [Therefore,] if we pay heed to these relations between locations and spaces, between spaces and space, we get a clue to help us thinking of the relation of man and space.”[7] This relation allows for this one-dimensional line, drawn across the landscape, to be what Eyal Weizman describes as a “three-dimensional border.”[8] As hardlines in the environment, they are not one-dimensional liniments but, in fact, three-dimensional zones of inaccessible impassibility and markers of urbanistic, social, and cultural differences. In short, these hardlines are linear zones that separate physical and metaphysical space and people.
Consider, again, the diagram. It is a line with a beginning and end surrounded by space. If this space is to be considered real space, then it must contain people and, with it, buildings. This makes the abstracted diagram and subsequent hardline a misrepresentation of the real. Thankfully, as it has already been stated, Merleau-Ponty's introduction of the self and its dramatic scaler shift from the individual to national allowed this essay's site to be any of The Rust Belt Cities. For the remainder of this essay, the specific site will be Lawrence, Massachusetts, and as a result, a new diagram can be introduced.
Here, this new diagram represents the hardline as a thick red line defining two sides of the same area. The two sides, figure-ground reflections of one another, represent the effect this three-dimensional border or zone incurs on the urban environment (fig 5). Additionally, the hardline is now situated in real space within the boundary of a post-industrial city. This means that the rail line is no longer active and abandoned. This is a critical characteristic for two reasons. First, as a rail line located in, or at the very least, near, an urban center, it is historically similar to the industrial cities previously mentioned. Second, because of its abandoned use, it further emphasizes the negative spatial effects despite the visible, or rather physical, adornment of activity. Simply put, this abandoned zone, wedged between lots, radiates the spatial effects of a real barrier despite there being nothing but space. This is the paradox of abandoned infrastructure.
Interestingly, this spatial paradox is supported by Heidegger’s spatial thinking. According to Heidegger, spaces through which we go through daily are provided for by locations, but this zone, this hardline, is an inaccessible zone without a location despite going through many areas and locations. Additionally, despite its abandonment and the reality of its metaphysical qualities, this rail line maintains its perception, and spatial consequences, as a physical wall.
Therefore, to reverse this paradox while simultaneously challenging the hardlines paradigm as a wall, I argue to fill this non-space with a physical linear building. However, this urbanistic and architectural tectonic is not a reaction to the contemporary context but, in fact, an architectural example of the Greek word “techne.”[9] Heidegger explains that,
“to the Greeks techne means neither art nor handicraft but rather: to make something appear, within what is present, as this or that, in this way or that way. The Greeks conceive of techne producing, in terms of letting appear. Techne thus conceived has been concealed in the tectonics of architecture since ancient time.”[10]
Understood in this way, this new linear architectural type, within the zone of the hardline, can be leveraged as an instrument to reestablish lost space by giving it locations already present in the urban schema. To Heidegger, “this is why building, by virtue of constructing locations, is a founding and joining of spaces. Because building produces locations, the joining of the spaces of these locations necessarily being with it space, as spatium and as extension, into the thingly structure of buildings.”[11] Conversely, Jean-Paul Sartre, in his Critique of Dialectical Reason, vol. 1 would argue that “at present we are not equipped to think [of] these moving, indefinite relations [and] their intangibilities, [because] we have not yet mastered all [of] our instruments.”[12]
Now, this may be true; however, if we were to master this one new instrument, it would have the agency to remediate some 114 thousand miles of abandoned rail lines across the United States. Notwithstanding the more practical questions of funding, rights, and ownership, the true architectural challenge is the lateral and longitudinal crossing of this new line (fig 6). If this hardline zone is to ever truly change its metaphysical qualities and overcome its negative spatial effects, it must embody true physicality through architecture.
[1] “Infrastructure.” infrastructure noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation, and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com. Accessed May 18, 2023.
[2] Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. “The Spatiality of One’s Own Body and Motricity .” Essay. In Phenomenology of Perception. p.115. London: Routledge, 2011.
[3] Heidegger, M. “Building Dwelling Thinking .” Essay. In Poetry, Language, Thought. p.150. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics, 2001.
[4] Heidegger, M. “Building Dwelling Thinking .” Essay. In Poetry, Language, Thought. p.151. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics, 2001.
[5] Heidegger, M. “Building Dwelling Thinking .” Essay. In Poetry, Language, Thought. p.151-52. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics, 2001.
[6] Heidegger, M. “Building Dwelling Thinking .” Essay. In Poetry, Language, Thought. p.152. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics, 2001.
[7] Heidegger, M. “Building Dwelling Thinking .” Essay. In Poetry, Language, Thought. p.154. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics, 2001.
[8] Weizman, Eyal. “The Politics of Verticality .” Essay. In Hollow Land, 13–14. New York , NY: VERSO Books, 2017.
[9] Heidegger, M. “Building Dwelling Thinking .” Essay. In Poetry, Language, Thought. p.157. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics, 2001.
[10] Heidegger, M. “Building Dwelling Thinking .” Essay. In Poetry, Language, Thought. p.157. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics, 2001.
[11] Heidegger, M. “Building Dwelling Thinking .” Essay. In Poetry, Language, Thought. p.156. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics, 2001.
[12] Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Reciprocity, Exploitation and Repression .” Essay. In Critique of Dialectical Reason, Vol. 1 Theory of Practical Ensembles, 120. Verso UK, 2004.