transmissionURBAN

UTLITY

AESTHETIC

tyson

schmidt

1

transmission

3

Subsist Press

31 Fairview Ave

Feilding

http://urbanutilityaesthetic.wordpress.com/

First published 2012

© 2012 Subsist Press

ISBN 978-0-473-20562-1

All rights reserved. No part

of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted,

in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording

or otherwise, without the

written permission of

Subsist Press.

A catalogue record for

this book is available from

the National Library.

When Stephen Gray first demonstrated thatelectrical impulses could be transferred overextended distances there was no anticipation thatpower lines would criss-cross the globe some 250years later. His damp hemp cords suspended bysilk threads must have seemed magical in 1729,but quaint alongside the 138 metre high pylonsbuilt to cross the Rhine in 1926.

New Zealand’s first power lines were built in1886 to service a mining company some sixkilometres away from Skippers Canyon. Two yearslater Reefton would domesticate the power line tobe the first Southern Hemisphere town to have apublic electricity supply, followed by Wellingtonone year later as the first city.

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InTRODUCTION

The hunger of cities and towns in modernsocieties has proved fertile ground for thespread of overhead power lines. Their reach isimpressive – across large rivers, deep gullies,mountain ranges, deserts and forests, highways,CBDs, and suburbs. Densest in urban areas, theirrelentless march across rural areas is less sobut arguably more imposing.

Power lines proliferated, providing the juice tofire up all manner of commerce and residentialappliance. No-one questioned their rise, but asthey became part of the landscape people came toquestion their aesthetic appeal. Interruptions.Incursions. A scapegoat in the hunt for thecause of urban ugliness.

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Peter and Dianne Harris spent more than a 1/4million to bury the power lines that crossed theview from their 140 year-old, 67 room homestead.These eyesores were obviously at odds with thewedding venue, B&B and cafe business ventures theHarris’ had planned as part of their $4 milliondollar refurbishment. Now people can gaze fromthe second floor windows or from the coveredfirst floor balcony across the fields to thelandscape beyond.

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The residents of Papatoetoe have been able toenjoy similar, though urban, uninterrupted viewsafter Telecom and Manukau City Council’s‘Papatoetoe Undergrounding Initiative’ in 2003.Putting 37 kilometres of power lines, 28kilometres of phone lines and 80 kilometres ofservice lines underground created an enhancedneighbourhood. Now people can gaze across theurban sprawl unimpeded by the visual pollution ofpower lines.

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Views are an expensive habit. Burying powerlines can cost up to ten times as much asstringing them from power poles. The lure ofdramatically improving the aesthetics of acommunity drove the Marlborough District Councilto consider a loan for four times the amount offunding available in order to put existing powerlines underground. Overseas jurisdictions havefound that it much more cost effective to lumberdevelopers with the cost of such beauty.

Aesthetics are not the only reason for powerlines to come under attack. Relatives of 21-year-old Bruce Wing called for power poles to beremoved on safety grounds following Bruce’s deathfrom driving into one. The Council trafficengineer tended to agree with them, but theCouncil baulked and quoted the $1 million akilometre cost as prohibitive. The local linescompany upped the price to $1 billion tounderground the whole city of Christchurch.Bruce was only one of 36 people throughout NewZealand that year to die as a result of hittinga power pole.

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The ability to save lives and make the outsideworld look better by simply burying the lines isa goal of almost all communities. You even gotthe bonus of avoiding power cuts as a result oftrees falling onto the lines, or winds blowingthe lines over (though you do introduce floodinginto the equation). But for all their ugliness,it was ironic that as technology advanced evenfurther, there were some communities that wishedthey never got rid of their power lines.

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Mayor Tim Shadbolt called the undergrounding ofInvercargill’s power lines the worst thing thathad been done for economic development. Lookingto hook into the fibre optic cable movement,delivering broadband at the speed of light, thecost of integrating it with the underground powercables was astronomical – again some three tofour times the cost of hanging them from powerlines above ground (if they still existed).Meanwhile, Whangarei was being praised forquietly and cheaply putting its fibre opticcables up onto the power lines, gracing localbusinesses with up to 1GB broadband speeds.

There must be some element of wanting to emptythe landscape behind the aesthetic challengeagainst power lines. It is as though we’ve foundthe landscape too full, and despite theirfunctionality it is the power lines that are theeasiest targets. Removal will clarify our views,remove obstructions from the gaze we want toachieve.

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Power lines also remind us how basic our relianceis. No matter how Starck-like our appliances,how well detailed and furnished our homes, oreco-friendly our cars, most of our modern lifeexistence is reliant on an 18th centurydevelopment transmitting power generated from amultiple of sources. Burying them makes it seemas though it all happens by magic, or at leastmakes it as sleek as the houses seem in themagazines (do you ever see ower lines in thosemagazines?).

But there is a beauty to power lines. When youraise your perspective, lifting it from the spaceimmediately in front of your face, you see thepower lines dancing across the sky. Clouds movebehind them providing motion to contrast thestatic nature of the lines. Focus tightly andyou can abstract them from their surroundings andappreciate them for the curve they create in thesky, how they frame and divide, bend and bow.

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The poles themselves point to crucifixion. Theirelongation leads to the patibulum where it is nothard to picture arms of the accused being splayedacross. Pole after pole marches down the roadawaiting the slave rebellion of Spartacus. Butthere is no veneration here. Perhaps if theimages of Christ’s crucifixion over the centurieshappened to have lines strung between his and theother crosses we may feel differently about powerlines today.

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10

11

TEN ImAGES

of POwER

POLES and

their LINES

12

Khandallah [January 2010]

13

Feilding [December 2009]

14

Levin [July 2010]

15

Wadestown [January 2010]

16

Napier [April 2010]

17

Flaxmere [July 2010]

18

Gisborne [February 2010]

19

Bunnythorpe [August 2010]

20

Tokomaru [May 2010]

21

Johsonville [February 2010]

ISBN 978-0-473-20562-1