Big Parcels: Modernist Planning in Washington State History

In anthropology’s spatial turn, cultural anthropologists directed portions of their attention to the spaces in which human habitation takes shape. This article concerns the large planned spaces configured in the Modernist era of the twentieth century. Utilizing a fieldwork-based methodology that draws on the ethnographic toolkit, analysis compares and contrasts three large planned spaces located in Washington State: the former site of the Northern State Mental Hospital in Sedro-Woolley, the location in central Spokane at which Expo 74 was hosted, and the rural location of the never-completed Satsop Nuclear Facility near Elma, Washington. Our analysis suggests the singular use for which these sites were once constructed poses challenges for reconfiguring them to contemporary use. Notably, those sites with interconnections to nearby communities, and those that conjure or draw upon a broader social memory of place, have fared better in their path to the present

Retrofitting Washington\u27s Past: An Ethnographic Analysis on Modernist Parcels through Urban Spatial. Discourse

For my 2022 summer research project, I collaborated with Professor Gardner of the Sociology and Anthropology department to study, investigate, and analyze Modernist-era units of development in Washington state. Dominating the urban construction of the twentieth century, Modernist architects and planners often relied on large parcels of land for a designated, niche, purpose, yet as society both politically and socially evolved and shifted away from this type of planning, these parcels fit awkwardly into contemporary urban landscape – today, some are bordering on useless, others simply abandoned. My research focused on three Modernist-era parcels found here in Washington state: the former Satsop Nuclear Plant, the now-defunct Northern State Hospital campus, and the grounds of Expo ‘74 in downtown Spokane. Through studying these parcels’ original histories and engaging in ethnographic fieldwork and observation of their current states and uses, I sought to understand how these spaces of the past have been incorporated into the contemporary urban landscapes of our state, what factors led to the most successful retrofittings, and how these parcels have persevered in the postmodernist era