Victoria Gallagher
About
Victoria has spent several years working on large-scale cultural projects in both the public and private sectors. Most recently, with David Chipperfield Architects in London; previously with CorneliusVöge Atelier for Arkitektur in Copenhagen, and as part of the Mayor of London’s design team delivering Olympic Legacy projects in London’s East End. These experiences have developed her interest in the role that civic architecture and public space play in upholding a truly democratic society. Victoria explored this theme further in her thesis project ‘Making Tracks’, which reveals how the simple practice of walking, repeated by millions of people, is radically remaking the landscape of the Lake District. Her work considers how this demonstration of the power of our collective will can be used to destructive or constructive ends.
Statement
Making Tracks
William Wordsworth proposed in 1810 that the Lake District should be ‘a sort of national property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy’. In these words, the seed of the National Park movement was sown.
By 1844, however, the poet was decrying the impact of mass tourism upon the landscape. ‘Is there no nook of English ground secure from rash assault?’
Today, ‘rash assault’ can be seen in deep fissures cutting across the fells from countless people treading the same paths. Wordsworth’s anxiety, about the degradation of landscape by mass tourism, is shared by many people today. National Parks in the UK have two aims: to conserve and enhance these landscapes, and to promote their accessibility. But with 19 million people now visiting the Lake District each year, and paths eroding up to 4m deep and 35m wide, this project questions whether those aims, of conservation and access, are in fact a contradiction in terms.
The project is a series of resting places along walking routes, within a 500m x 500m square of landscape on the northern edge of Lake Windermere, which has been walked relentlessly by tourists for the past 250 years. The project’s main accommodation building is designed to record and express the impact of fell-walkers who pass through - an allegory for our impact on the landscape, and the landscape’s accommodation of us.
The primary method of construction is the inverse of fell erosion. Here, fell-walking is employed as a constructive rather than a destructive process. A rammed-earth technique traditional to Cumbria, known as ‘clay dabbin’, is a communal practice, which requires ‘treading’ or ‘walking’ the dabbin (earth) to compress it into a wall. The architecture necessitates people walking along a path, for a path to become a wall, which becomes a building.
Picturesque paintings have perpetuated the myth of ‘nature untouched by man’ - but the reality is that the Lake District has been made and re-made by human practices over thousands of years (agriculture, grazing, forestry, canalising, quarrying, mining). While watching our feet continuously re-form the surface of the earth can be traumatic, this project suggests it can also be a symbol of hope. A demonstration of the power of our individual agency and our collective will.
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With thanks to Fix the Fells for their generous support of this project, and their hard work constructing and maintaining upland paths in the Lake District National Park.
The Picturesque View
Paintings and texts from the late 18th century, when the Lake District was being discovered by tourists, perpetuated the myth of ‘nature untouched by man’. Picturesque staging of these landscapes exaggerated the scale and the wildness of the fells, while human intervention was limited to a folly (ideally reclaimed by nature as a ruin).
Today, lengthsmen (path builders) in the high fells experience resistance from tourists, who are concerned that to build or repair a path in these landscapes isn’t "natural". But the Lake District has been made and re-made by human practices (agriculture, grazing, forestry, canalising, quarrying, mining) over thousands of years. Paths in particular have been constructed in these passes since at least Roman times.
To have an honest reckoning with the impact of mass tourism on the Lake District, it is first necessary to analyse how the Picturesque has conditioned what its visitors look for in a view.
The Practice of Walking
The combination of millions of people, weather and gradient means that erosion scars can quickly form on upland paths. A path might be used by 100 000 people in a year. Scars have been known to extend 35m wide and 4m deep. Erosion results in loss of vegetation, soil, stone, habitats, and species. The sediment washes off the mountains into rivers, lakes, disrupting their ecosystems. There is increased flood-risk to the valleys below.
The Process of Repair
Most people don’t consider who made the path that they are walking on. Perhaps they imagine that it has always been there. But 20 rangers and 130 volunteers repair and maintain upland paths in the Lake District all year round.
The Site
These are extracts of walking routes through the site, along which the project is designed. The full scrolling/walking experience can be found on the project website.
https://victoriagallagher.cargo.site/
The Walking Routes
These are extracts of walking routes through the site, along which the project is designed. The full scrolling/walking experience can be found on the project website.
https://victoriagallagher.cargo.site/
The Resting Place
