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[APPLAUSE] MARTIN HOGUE: Thank you very much. That was great. It's such an honor to be here today. I want to present the book, but I also want to try to make some connections to this wonderful institution and trying to frame the book in terms of my experience here at Cornell over the last five years.
I've been working on camping for a fairly long time, about 15 years now. And this project is the latest installment in this body of work. I first became interested in camping as a result of my own first camping experience all the way back in June of 2000 at the edge of the Badlands.
I came to a KOA Campground, and I really had no idea what to expect. I was-- so I come into the-- into the front office, and immediately I'm met by the attendant who gives me a map of the campground and with a highlighter, as you can see here, highlights the location of where I should go camping.
And as an architect, this caught me by surprise, to say the least. I think-- I'm not sure what I expected exactly, but I think I was-- I thought I might be pointed in a general direction of a meadow or a field or at the edge of a forest and say, just go find a spot and go camp there for the night. Instead, I was given a map that was extremely prescriptive in the location of where this activity should take place.
And this event really kind of shaped-- you know, as a kind of question, it kept coming back over the next few years. And I really didn't understand what about that had intrigued me so much. And I think what I came to understand, it was a kind of disconnect between what I thought I was going-- what I thought was going to happen. I'm not claiming this is as rustic as I was going to get.
But certainly, had been shaped by images I had seen in the past of backwood adventurers in the wilds of the Adirondacks. And the kind of reality on the ground, which are the kind of field of campsites, of trailers and tents and lawn chairs with neighbors oftentimes so close to you that even to acknowledge them is to start to reveal the kind of artificiality of the whole thing.
And so to me, really what has been the kind of large goal of this camping research has been to, in a way, trying to connect these two images and understand kind of what happened in a way between these two moments, these two historical moments that are about 100 years apart here, how it is possible that we can go into the wilds of the Adirondacks at the end of the 19th century to set up camp in the middle of the woods for weeks at a time, and now the idea that you can make a reservation online months in advance of even arriving without even having set foot on the camp ground itself.
How it's possible that some campers are so desperate for a camping experience in some of the most cherished national park landscapes that we have that they'll turn to the black market on Craigslist and buy campsite usage for three, four times their original price. Or that you might end up camping in a Walmart parking lot in an RV, right? So there's a lot here that's happened, and this has been sort of shaping my own preoccupation.
And there might be a tendency to think that kind of modern comforts of camping are really associated with our modern society, with our modern times. But in fact, the rusticity of camping and comforts has always been-- or comfort has always been a kind of central preoccupation, even for early recreational campers.
This is one of the most widely circulating early commercial illustrations of recreational camp-- of recreational camping in the wilds of the Adirondacks in the few years before really camping-- camping really took off in 1869. We see here four men that are at the edge of a lake that are clearly enjoying their experience together.
But in fact, there's only one camper in this image. The camper in question is the second man from the left, and I will talk about him a little bit. He's most likely a rich banker, a wealthy businessman from New York City or Boston who essentially is affluent enough that he can afford to hire the other three men to help him to fish, to hunt, to cook, to build the camp. Essentially, what the artist is saying here, Tate, is that this individual would have very little chance of surviving by himself if he was left on his own in the wilds of the Adirondacks.
We can see, if we kind of close in a little bit, the formality of his dress is quite a tell here. He has a bow tie. He's probably holding a bottle of rum, a bottle of port. And he is not really doing anything, unlike the other three companions.
And I love to think that the kind of formal disposition that he brings to the campsite is kind of a way for him to cope with the completely disorienting nature of being in the wild of the Adirondacks. You have to maintain that level of civility in order to really kind of not be overwhelmed by your surroundings.
And I love that idea, that if we are able to think about the kind of urban, formal wear, bring it into the wilds, and nowadays what's become a kind of urban chic are often staples that we closely associate with outdoor activities like these boots and the kind of puffy vest, right? Those are pretty much kind of, you know, staples of contemporary urban chic.
And so if we think that all of the setting of the camp that nowadays we have these modern gear stores like REI and so on that are able to sell us a lot of gear that will help us to accommodate our comfort in the wilds. We have tents and sleeping bags and portable stoves, and all kinds of equipment that we will purchase to facilitate our experience in the wild. Certainly when we travel to national parks, state parks, it is really overwhelming the kind of amount of utilities that are often built into that national park experience.
And so for me, in thinking about this book, in Making Camp, I was really interested in identifying those most important utility features of the camping experience, and essentially to dedicate one chapter to each one of those elements. We have things like infrastructure like water and trash collection, individual elements like the campsite, the picnic table, and so on.
All of them-- and I'll talk about this a little bit more at length in a minute. I want to give you a brief survey of each one of those elements, but also to talk about how some of them we ourselves bring to the campsite. Some of them are there when we arrive. And it's the kind of intermingling of those-- the relationship between what we bring and what is there that really helps to shape that experience.
Certainly in the Tate illustration, we see in the background the very traditional campsite at the edge of a lake. And early illustrations of camping are always very much grounded in the proximity of a water feature, whether it's a stream or a lake. But as camping sort of grows in popularity, there start to be emerging concerns about the quality of the water that might be available at the campsites.
And it's easy to see why. I think we see here a really great illustration where the campsite is so close to the stream that people are using the stream to throw trash away. They're using it as a toilet. That is-- certainly, it could have really profound consequences downstream from that particular site.
So it's not a surprise that rather than thinking about the kind of water that we drink at a campsite or at a campground is likely not to be scooped up from with a cup from at the edge of a lake or a stream, but is likely to emerge from a water tap. And rather than thinking the kind of geographic proximity to the lake is now replaced by a network of underground pipes that is likely to resemble more a suburban subdivision than it might be likely to be really physically connected to a body of water.
But we also might find ways to begin to disguise that infrastructure, to rusticate it, to hide it inside of rocks and boulders in a way to give that illusion that water is kind of connected to that particular place. And if we've lost that connection to the stream or the lake, certainly the campfire, the kind of second element of the book, to me has always and will always probably be the kind of geographic, atmospheric, functional center of the campsite.
Back in the 19th century-- let's see-- oh. Yeah. Back in the 19th century, the ability to build a fire was actually-- under really adverse circumstances was understood to be a true test of woodsmanship, a true test of ability in the wild. And so even with the invention of the friction match in 1826, that technology displaced all kind of other methods of starting fires like the use of the bow and arrow or the flint and steel.
But even at that point, there remained a number of different considerations that entered into the building of a fire or the type of wood to be collected, how the wood could be piled up, and so on. So it remained quite a challenging task.
And nowadays, of course, you could build a fire or have a cooking flame within seconds at the push of a single button. And that flame can move around. It could be-- it's not connected to the ground. It could be moved. It could sit on a picnic table. It could sit on the ground. So it's really completely displaced the kind of ability and skill that was required in building a fire.
Some campers may not even need to cook at their campsite. I was really surprised to see this illustration from Domino's pizza a couple weeks ago that actually, they have a new pinpoint delivery system. They're clearly catering directly to campers here. The food that you consume at the campsite may not have been produced inside of the campground itself, it could come from outside.
So for some campers, the need for the fire is completely kind of eliminated. So this leaves oftentimes the kind of more symbolic social dimension of the campfire as a kind of way for individuals to meet and group or sort of-- you know, evening talks. And the National Park Service, as early as the 1920s and '30s, developed what they call the campfire circle, which was often led by a park ranger as a kind of social gathering in the evening. And they would lead the campers into a kind of lecture on some of the features of the area in which they were camping that particular evening.
And in short order, that campfire circle led to a kind of development of physical infrastructure around that could accommodate these kinds of gatherings. And certainly, when I was camping in Acadia a couple years ago, that entire experience has now been displaced by a slideshow or a PowerPoint presentation where the fire's gone, but the gathering itself does remain. And the light of the campfire is replaced by the light of a projector.
And in a landscape where water comes out of a tap and wood is available in a box, of course you need maps to navigate these really strange environments which have been described more places than I can care to note here as a kind of mini urban environment. There's a kind of urbanity to campgrounds that is quite-- certainly with some of the major national park campgrounds, we often encounter hundreds of sites that are kind of grouped around a certain area.
And for me, this is the kind of connection immediately to what got me into the research to begin with. And what I like about that particular check-in experience when you arrive at the camp-- at the campground is every single camper that arrives here will be given a copy of this map, that each map will be authenticated or personalized in its own way with the kind of strike of a marker to designate the area where the campers are going to be setting camp that particular evening. And at the same campsite that might have been vacated in the morning by a certain group will be reoccupied hours later by an entirely different group of individuals.
But maps are a kind of fairly recent innovation in the management of the flow of campers inside and outside of a campground. I think early maps are far more vague in terms of their description of the character of the campground itself. And certainly, this matches some of the photographs that I've seen of early campground enclosures in the national parks where really, it was no more than a designated area where you can just find a kind of spot and set up your tent.
And at this point, as you can see in the image, the motor vehicle is playing a really significant part as an extension of the campsite itself. And in the 1920s, there's a kind of obsession with customizing vehicles as an extension of the campsite. You can camp inside of-- you can sleep inside of your car. Special sideboards that act as cupboards that unfold into countertops where you can cook.
This is one of my favorites where you can actually cook. Like, a way to retrofit your engine so you can cook on top of the car. So there's all kinds of ways in which the car is forcing itself into the discussion of the camping experience.
Emilio Meinecke, who was a consultant for the Park Service in the 1920s and 1930s, is extremely concerned with the kind of impact-- with the negative impact of the motor vehicles are having on the landscape. He's worried about tires crushing the ground. He's worried about tires crushing shrubs. He's worried about cars sideswiping trees and tearing bark off of the trees. He's worried about cars, even parked cars with-- the oil that will drip from the immobilized vehicle may become a deadly poison to plants.
And so Meinecke is an extremely important figure in this exploration. He is the first to really formulate the kind of circulation pattern that is now so familiar when we're in a campground of these kind of one-way loop roads with these parking spurs, which you can see where the car is kind of invited to immobilize and then some of the semi-developed features that you can encounter at the campsite. So there are some permanent elements that he recommends, and I'll come back to those in a minute, the picnic table and the fire pit being some of those most important elements.
The picnic table is also a really relatively recent invention. I think the idea of-- doing this with our studio now-- of eating a meal outdoors is really a kind of idea that emerges in the Victorian era. And in short order, there's a kind of gearing up of tools and gear that can begin to facilitate that experience, especially these kind of special wicker baskets in which you can transport food, silverware and plates, all of that that can be then unpacked at the picnic site.
Again, some of those lead to some really interesting customizations. This is one of my favorites here from which kind of a table top will kind of pop up out of the wicker basket. And certainly, in the wilds of the Adirondacks, around the same time, the furniture that is set up in camp is likely to be far more rusticated. It's likely to be built out of branches. That is, found around the campsite. That will be lashed into a kind of really, really crude series of seats and table tops.
But the invention of the picnic table has difficult beginnings. This idea of combining both the seat and the table into a single unit creates, as you can see here, kind of balancing issues, shall we say. And so the development of the table as we know it today is actually not even 100 years old-- more or less 100 years old now-- and one that emerges in the Park Service and the Forest Service, that idea of widening the base of the table to balance things out a little bit.
And so these table designs are widely disseminated. And I think Meinecke in his recommendations here on the left is really starting to shape the motor campsite or the auto campsite in a way that has changed very, very little since the 1930s.
So we can see here the fundamental kind of elements, which he calls the garage spur, which is the space where the car will kind of park, and then the kind of semi-furnished site where the picnic table will already be there in place. The fire pit may also be there as well. And then of course, the kind of address or numbering system of individual plots is an idea that emerges at that time also to help to manage the kind of large influx of individuals coming in and out of these sites.
And so to me, given the kind of semi-permanent infrastructure that is in place here when we arrive, there are very few things that we ourselves can sort of introduce into the campsite that allow us to retain that sense of agency that we are making camp. To me, the tent is probably the most important of those elements, that we construct that tent every time we arrive at a new campsite. And in doing so, we can retain some agency in sort of constructing the campsite.
To be sure, the tent is not a 19th century invention, right? It's really born out of military campaigns. It's hundreds of years old. But I think it's played a significant role in the history of recreational camping. And to me, what I find the most symbolic here is using stakes to provisionally kind of set down roots for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. You are kind of installing, claiming with those stakes, immobilizing your dwelling on that particular site.
So in that sense, to me it's one of the most interesting innovations in tenting design in the 20th century that you can actually build a tent and able to detach it from the ground in such a way that it can be moved about without losing its shape. To me, that's an incredibly important idea.
And of course, the kind of new designs that allow tents to be erected often within minutes or seconds even with the pop tent. And so really, it facilitates that entire process really, really easily.
At the end of the 19th century, tourists who were going through the national parks out West who wanted a camping experience would arrive each evening at a new semi-permanent camp that had been already established before they arrived, the Wylie Permanent Camping Company being one of the major kind of operators in Yellowstone. And so they would spend the evening in completely built-up camps. You have a dining tent here at the top right.
And they would be sleeping in pretty plush accommodations. This is really glamping, what we would call glamping nowadays with tents built on sturdy wood floors, with stoves, beds, and mattresses that do not resemble at all the kind of-- when we think about the sleeping bag in a tent, this is not it. This is a much more comfortable experience.
The sleeping bag is actually a pretty recent innovation as well. It's really born out of the kind of Arctic and Antarctic expeditions of the late 19th centuries. It's actually a fairly recent innovation. And in fact, some of the early designs-- this is one of my favorites here, a sleeping bag that is to be occupied by three men at the same time, the idea being that they would all warm one another even more. But it must have been a humongous structure.
I think before this time, if you wanted to spend a night outdoors, you can either bring a blanket or maybe create piles of leaves or branches and sort of burrow into those as well, right? So there's a kind of more site-specific approach to finding a way to insulate against the cold.
So in concluding this survey, I did want to point out two things. To me, there's kind of two sets of elements here that I want to isolate from one another. There's those elements that are made when we arrive. So when I think about the title of the book, camp is already made in some ways.
But we also ourselves reserve a kind of agency with some of the elements that we bring into the campsite in making the camp as well. So the title kind of refers to two different ways in which the camp-- in which we make camp and in which the camp is also made for us.
In developing this book, really, most of the book actually has been developed since I arrived at Cornell. So for me, it's really special to be able to talk about it here, but also to think about these last five years. When I arrived in 2018, I was still deep into the research on camping. I've done a number of things. I'd published a series of articles on the history of the campsite.
When I arrived, I had just published a history of the picnic table. So I could envision a methodology that could be applied more broadly to the various elements of the campsite. So that was already-- there was a sense that this could become a book.
I had been-- just inaugurated the second edition of this residency at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, New York. It's about an hour northeast of here where I'd been managing this very small campground. So for four weekends every summer, individuals are invited to occupy one of four campsites in this amazing 100-acre site. And so they're able to really experience the art in a much more close range and over time. And they themselves in a way become part of the art as well. They are kind of living sculptures inside of the Art Park.
And I think to really designate the entire infrastructure of the project, it was all painted in the same colors. It became really kind of easy to read. But also, I started to realize that a lot of these elements in the project are those that are mirrored in the book, that in developing the language of the campground, as small as it is, I was really starting to create a kind of outline for what the book might be about.
I published this first book, Thirtyfour Campgrounds. And in this book, I was really interested in examining, or in a way, visiting virtually a series of campgrounds across the country through the information that was available on online reservation websites like recreation.gov. I was particularly intrigued by these tiny little photographs that are often available when you click on the campsite map to find out if a campsite is available.
And I found those images really kind of underwhelming. They're not very interesting. But then I had this idea that if you downloaded all of the images for any one facility, that they might start to reveal something else like a kind of texture about the place.
So the book is fairly dry in some ways. There are 6,500 campsites here that are documented in the book. And all of them are organized-- the campgrounds are organized by ZIP Code and the campsites themselves are organized numerically within the facility.
But there's something about going through this book that still a kind of texture and character of the landscape begins to emerge. And it may not be possible to read it through one image or another. But in fact, when you look at the sum total of those images, as normative as the arrangement of the grid is, you might start to get a sense of that place that is conveyed at each of the campgrounds in the book.
And so this first book is really about challenging myself to visit these places by actually not visiting the places firsthand, right? It's all about secondhand, online information. And in Making Camp, I was really interested in making an important shift here. And so what I was really interested in is, of course, consulting historical analog, like real documents and books-- and I'll talk about that in a minute-- on the history of the development of the campground.
So these were kind of primary source documents, really important planning manuals and documents that have been published over the last 100 or so years, the most important of those being kind of two editions of this really wonderful Albert Good survey of recreational infrastructure and the national parks called Parks and Recreation Structures.
I mean, I'm an architect, and I am-- there's never a moment where I don't open that book and I'm not completely amazed by the extraordinary graphic craft of these drawings. They're so beautifully executed. But they constitute a kind of survey of the infrastructure that's available. But at the same time, they start to propagate ideas and design standards into the world. So it's kind of doing both at the same time.
In this research process, I not only-- I collected-- I started to look for maps. I became an avid collector of postcards of camping, hundreds of them bought on eBay. I was looking at camping directories that have been published. Here, we can see all of the cities across the country, including Ithaca, that actually offered campgrounds to motor tourists as they moved across the country in the 1920s.
Collected a lot of directories, ephemera, little catalogs. You know, all kinds of different sources here, catalogs for Coleman. And of course, books, you know? And it is to me a real wonder to connect to the collections and the library here. We have so many of these books here, which has been such a pleasure to actually read those and sort of feel the connection in person.
Cookbooks. I was really interested in the history of the s'more. A couple weeks ago, there's a young woman who asked me a question, if I knew anything about s'mores. I had to go look and find out, and so I was able to connect to this.
But I think-- so everything that I was not able to find in the library here, I was-- I'm so grateful to the staff at Mann, the staff at Olin for all the work that they've done. Bethany Dixon must have fielded hundreds of requests for books and things I was trying to find that were not available.
And there was something really great, especially in the depths of the pandemic in 2020, 2021, to come into what we now know as the CALS Zone to connect to-- collect books. It felt like every day there was a new book, and it was such a wonderful thing. It was truly-- it made me feel connected to the world in a way that was really, really powerful.
So having said this, there are two Cornelians historically that I really wanted to recognize here because they've had a huge impact on this work, and I want to acknowledge both of them here. The first one is Horace Kephart who is largely revered as the kind of dean of American camping.
So Kephart graduated from Cornell in 1884. He worked briefly under Willard Fiske, Cornell's first librarian, for about a year. He then worked in a similar job at Yale. And then he assumed the direction of the Mercantile Library in St. Louis between 1890 and 1903, I think.
And then this is the moment where he really decides to move to the woods of Western North Carolina. He becomes a contributing writer to Field & Stream magazine and begins work on this sort of magnum opus, Camping and Woodcraft, which is the most-- I think to me the most important literary work on camping that's ever been published in the United States. It is a book that is 900 pages long. Is quite a considerable tome.
And in reading this book, not only was I struck by the extraordinary insight-- he's an amazing writer. So knowledgeable. This particular page, I'm sure you can't read this at the same time. But the insight that he demonstrates and the kind of types of wood that might go into a campfire are truly extraordinary. And the way in which he conveys it are really exemplary.
So I found myself looking through this book and really identifying almost everywhere passages or pages or moments in the book that really mirrored my own concern in my own book. So I thought that was just a wonderful connection.
I was further moved having-- reading on Kephart to realize that Janet McCue, who was a former head librarian here at Mann, actually authored-- co-authored the most comprehensive biography of Kephart, Back of Beyond. She herself presented this work four years ago in Chats in the Stacks. So it makes that connection to Kephart even more meaningful, so I really am really grateful.
And I think there's a chance encounter with her son when I was returning books at the counter here that I started to put some of the pieces together last year. So that was really great.
The second Cornelian I want to recognize is a personal hero of mine, Gordon Matta-Clark, who graduated in architecture at Cornell in 1968. Matta-Clark is present in 1969 for the landmark Earth Art show, the kind of first major survey of land artworks created by Willoughby Sharp.
Matta-Clark is with the broom here on the right, so he's assisting a number of the artists that were invited to the show. Jan Dibbets. This is Dennis Oppenheim here, working on a project called Beebe Lake Ice Cut. So he is present at that moment. He's engaging with these artists.
In 1970, he moves to New York City and begins to bring his architectural training and knowledge and interest to abandoned buildings up in the Bronx where he begins to surgically extract portions of the buildings. These are abandoned mostly. And then to reformulate spatial relationships between apartments and between rooms inside of the buildings themselves.
One of the best known projects of his very brief career-- he died very young at 35-- was a project called Splitting Four Corners in which he literally split an abandoned house that had been scheduled for demolition in New Jersey in half, and then lowered the foundation on one side of the perfectly split house to open it up to the sky, which is a really dramatic move. And I think it introduces-- it both accelerates the sense of disintegration and abandonment of the house, but also re-spatializes different ways in which we engage between inside and outside. So it's a really, really powerful work.
The project that caught my attention as a young architect almost 30 years ago now is a project called The Fake Estates, which he was involved with later at the kind of late part of his career. You can certainly-- in which he-- can back up here-- in which he essentially purchased at auction a series of lots that had been available in the borough of Queens, residual lots like the one in red there at the top. Really, really small lots for $25 a piece.
And there's clearly a kind of spatial connection here or thematic connection, an interest in really, really thin spaces that we can see a kind of parallel between the splitting and the fake estates. But as a young architect, to me I was so moved to see this. The encounter with this project completely changed my career, I think. It really kind of allowed me to think about outside of architecture.
I was really interested in the idea that, here's an architect or someone who's trained as an architect who is taking an interest in sites that have no architectural potential of any kind, like the sites are too small to accommodate a building. He has a sense of humor, right? He's calling these The Fake Estates. They're real estate. They're actually real places, but they're fake in the sense that they can't perform the traditional role of a site. And that the project is simply to document their existence, to verify the legal existence of these lots through the laws of property and real estate.
And again, I cannot underscore how impactful encounter with this work has been in my own career. It's really completely shifted my attention away from traditional architectural practice and teaching into landscape kind of over the last 20 years or so. And so I'm extremely grateful, so much so that I wanted to pay homage to the project about 15 years ago by venturing to explore the entire borough of Queens to see if I could find other sites that might be available that were similar to the ones he purchased at auction. I call these The Fake Fake Estates.
And so browsing really carefully through the entire borough of Queens, I found properties that were-- in fact, would make the original Fake Estates kind of palatial almost in nature. This is a full-scale cut-out of one of the lots that I found. This lot here is, again, my favorite. It's hard to see, but this lot is 1/8 of an inch by 110 feet long, so it's the most interesting property that I was able to find in the site.
But I think you might be able to see how The Fake Estates-- and for me, what had captivated my attention early on when I went camping, how-- start to close that circle here. Matta-Clark is interested in these little bits of land that nobody pays attention to, and I'm interested when I arrive at a campsite in these little bits of land on which we are recreating that process of the camp by creating-- making camp.
And so thank you, Kep, and thank you, Gordon, so much for all your inspiration. Thank you, Cornell. And thank you to my wonderful students. Do you want to take a photo of that?
I was really moved last week that some of my students who graduated in 2022 sent me a picture from their campsite in New Mexico. They seem confused in some way about the book. I'm not sure why. I have to talk to them about that. But it's been-- it's been a real honor to be here, to share some of this work. And I'd be happy to take any of your questions. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
OK. Oh, that's-- so that's supposed to shift. Great. OK. Excellent. Yes? Jennifer.
AUDIENCE: Wonderful presentation.
MARTIN HOGUE: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: I'm very excited. I mean, I had so many questions throughout. I think the one sort of thing looking forward from the research and from your understanding obviously as a camper and then observing obviously the history of camp, I was super interested in, of course, the infrastructure of the campsite, right? What the Department of the Interior has taken on or Parks.
And I guess my question to you is-- because obviously, you're saying these sort of large monopolies like REI and Patagonia, they have sort of created these monoliths of what one needs to make camp, and they're sort of pushing their own sort of technological production and advancement of-- you're saying the infrastructure that is brought with you versus the infrastructure that is provided.
And I guess my question to you is like, what do you think the futures are for both of those? Is one going to outpace the other, like the mobile home and the RV? Or do you feel like there's discussions within the Department of the Interior to talk about, what is the-- what is the platform that one comes into camp on? Or just like, what's being brought to it?
MARTIN HOGUE: I mean, I think that in a lot of the research, clearly when I've shared this work before, a lot of campers are much more interested in full independence. They'll go on a US forest and just essentially camp where they may want to. So I truly am not trying to suggest that this is the sum total of the available camping experiences out there. For me, it's maybe the most extreme manifestations, and that's why I became interested in that.
But I think you might see historically a sense that we are both-- you know, I've seen so many now, these sort of-- these websites are essentially like Airbnb for camping where people are putting private-- you know, or sites on their private land for a renter. Yeah. And so there's-- you know-- and in a way, that becomes an extremely small campsite.
I think there's a lot of-- I mean, there are so many diverse ways in which it's starting to proliferate. And I want to say certainly during the pandemic, it was impossible to find a reservation anywhere. So I'm excited about the fact that there's a lot. It certainly-- it has not lost its popularity and its interest.
But this development is an intriguing one to me, these kinds of camping on private land. They're often very interesting places. But I think the social dimension of the larger experience is maybe not available at that point. [INAUDIBLE]? You looked like you were going to say something. OK. Sorry. Yes?
AUDIENCE: I very much enjoyed your presentation. How peculiar is tenting to the United States? How-- is it much more prevalent to have caravan parking or "cara-von," caravan camping in European countries? Is tenting still done in other--
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah--
AUDIENCE: How peculiar is it to the US?
MARTIN HOGUE: I would imagine it's not, but it's something that I feel like a lot of the research has been focused on the US. So s would be hesitant to answer that question with a kind of-- you know, or meet it with some facts that would be able to confirm one way or the other.
In my personal experience as a camper, which is fairly limited still-- like, I'm not actually-- I don't head out on every Friday night into the wilds. It's been limited to North America in general. So that's-- I would hesitate a little bit to answer that.
But I would imagine it's fairly-- I mean, I think the one area that I-- where I was able to do a fair amount of research or mountaineering expeditions, and so the kind of infrastructure that-- in those cases, everything has to be transported up the mountain. And so a lot of the research there was on-- in the European Alps, and so on, so there was some knowledge there. But I think in terms of popular camping, I'm less sure. So sorry to not be able to answer that fully.
AUDIENCE: I would also like to add here a nuance in European versus American, because Europe is-- it's not easy to do a European way of camping because specific countries have a bigger culture of outdoors and recreation and relationship with nature. Like for example, France, RVs are the thing, right? And--
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: --whereas for example, in Spain and Portugal, you would have not that access to it or even representation. Also, the places where people camp is different. You would have in Spain, Portugal, South of France more beach-related and ocean-related, right? Whereas for example, in Germany or other countries you would have a kind of mountain relationship with camping.
So in the sense that there's a much more varied identity because of the structure of Europe. I mean, it's all different countries than this idea of America as a culture itself.
MARTIN HOGUE: Thank you. Yes?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, I have maybe more of a comment than a question, but I was struck-- your presentation of how our own-- our paraphernalia, our indoors coming to the outdoors, our camp experience indoors. But in some ways, I feel like we're seeing the other direction too, the outdoors coming to the indoors. The tiny house.
MARTIN HOGUE: Yes.
AUDIENCE: The tiny home thing where really--
MARTIN HOGUE: Or the fire pit--
AUDIENCE: Exactly. Living simply is sort of the thing, and I was wondering if you were going to look at that.
MARTIN HOGUE: No, I think that's a great observation. I totally agree. I think that was-- we had a-- having a conversation at the Art Park a few weeks ago about that very fact, that it's an interesting-- that some of that technology, if you will, is percolating the other way as well. So it's not a one-way kind of thing. So yeah.
AUDIENCE: And in some ways a more hopeful thing because it's a simplifying of our-- simplifying of our messy lives. [LAUGHS]
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a programming of the backyard. Like, I think that's similarly-- you know, may be another way that you can-- but yeah. Trying to-- and those fire pits are not really functional in a way that they meet a kind of need for-- I mean I suppose they could be for heat, but they are not necessarily understood in the same way that we would have understood the role that a fire might play at a campsite a hundred years ago. Yeah, that was-- yes. Totally agree. Yes?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] you said about camping [INAUDIBLE]. I was just thinking about how there really is such a cultural element to how you relate to the outdoors and the natural world. And I personally grew up in this area, and I grew up in a very, like-- I don't know-- rustic camping, just camping in the backyard, in the woods.
And it was very shocking to me to go to my first campground. And it's everything you pay for it, for one. And then you have to stay in this specific little area. And it's just this sort of-- Americans are very good at that, right? Like, turning everything into something you can make money off of.
MARTIN HOGUE: Yes.
AUDIENCE: I mean, more and more, I meet people who have private land and they're turning it into a campground or something because they can make money off of just having this land. So it's a really interesting thing. that gets at cultural elements of our relationship to the land, our relationship to money--
MARTIN HOGUE: To money, absolutely. That's a great, great point. That's a point I try to make at the beginning of the book. There's a kind of-- a particular intersection there that seems uniquely American in terms of its-- yeah. Yes?
AUDIENCE: Thanks for your presentation. And I'm from China. And it was during pandemic-- so the camping industry in China was growing so fast since everyone's gathering outside. And then now the time passed, and everyone was go back to their normal life again. And the industry was like the camping brands, selling the tents and sleeping bags, they earned a lot of money from this.
But actually, the person who run this campaign, they lost a lot, and then the cost was very high. And also, there are the investor. They just invest the money, and then it's like they're selling the brands. Like, the person who really patient about this industry and doing the things, they didn't earn from that. But the brands, they earn.
So from this situation, I feel like it's a-- people who really love this is has not that much patience for surviving, for supporting the-- operating this campaign. So I'm just going to ask, do you have any ideas? Or from your observation, how does the successful camping sites, how they do [INAUDIBLE]?
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah. I mean, I think that's a really great question. I do-- I talk a fair amount about KOA in the book because-- I don't know why. I think I know why, because my first camping experience was at a KOA. And I think KOAs historically-- it's really interesting-- is one of the first private camping operators in the US. But a lot of the campgrounds are actually understood as almost placeholders in waiting of another development or in waiting of a better opportunity for development of that land.
So it was really understood-- I don't think the initial operators of KOA really understood how successful their model would become. They just said, let's do a campground for a couple of years because the interstate was being built in Montana at that point. And they thought, we could do this for a while, and then it took off.
So I think on the private side, I think the motivations are very different than on the public side, right? I think the idea of access on public lands is a really important one. I think when you're doing it for profit on the private side, the motivations are quite different. Yes?
AUDIENCE: I have many questions.
[LAUGHTER]
No, it's more a reflection of these conversations that are happening in this kind of-- the cultural construct of the relationship with nature. And I was wondering, one of the things in your presentation as well as a lot of the pictures, the camping is always in this sort of green trees, mountain-- mountainous space, right?
And a lot of questions come to mind, which is, is that kind of a representation of where these national parks and where the campgrounds are? Like, is there a sort of spatial geographical concentration in this particular kind of vernacular, picturesque landscape? That would be my first question.
And the second one was-- and it has to do with my understanding as a foreigner in the US. Like, the distances of things and the dominance of the car, right? So access through a medium. This in a way to expand as well the conversation about Europe and the United States because I was wondering if this also has kind of an impact in the way both the sites are placed, right? But as well how you access those.
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah. No, I think that's a great question too. And I think-- I mean, there's about a million campsites in the US at the moment. It's quite a considerable amount. A lot of it are located on-- I mean, I'll say designated campsites, not-- you know.
And I think that question of access is really key. The proximity to cities. People that don't have cars, people that don't have tents, people that cannot purchase the equipment, people that don't have high-speed internet, web connection to be able to be at the ready six months in advance when a campsite becomes available. So those questions of access are really, really important.
I think there's a sense that that camping experience is highly democratic. In some ways, it is. In some ways, it is not. And I think that needs to be acknowledged. But I think I'm particularly interested in those environments that are very urban often, that are close enough that you might be able to bike there. You might be able to take a bus there, right? And so there are ways in which to broaden access I think that are really, really interesting.
I think at Cornell-- I was really excited to see that there's a kind of urban outdoor-- well, there's an outdoor gear-- I forget the exact name where you're able to rent gear-- or club. I think that's a fantastic thing. So I was considering trying to find a way to do a camping thing on campus next year, so that would be fun.
But to try to-- I think that idea that anybody can make it to a national park or to a state is quite presumptuous. I think it leaves out-- we are leaving out a lot of people here. So I think that's a question I start to treat a little bit in the book, but one that is an ongoing preoccupation that I have to think a little bit more about. Yeah, Jenny?
AUDIENCE: So I have a question from an online audience member.
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: She writes, I loved this amazing presentation. Question. Is there a system or camp function that you would like to see implemented as a valuable asset to the future of the lifestyle without losing some of those traditional connections to nature? Then she says, architecture question within parentheses.
MARTIN HOGUE: Is there a system--
AUDIENCE: Is there a system or camp function that you would like to see implemented as a valuable asset to the future or the lifestyle without losing some of those traditional connections to nature?
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah. I think if I had to say, it would be-- to me it would be more place-based than it would be a function probably. So it would be more kind of finding ways to bridge that gap in terms of proximity to urban environments. So I'm not sure about the functionality specifically. Like, I think a lot of the functionality has been addressed, I want to think. But it would be more place-related to where those facilities exist. Yes? Yes?
AUDIENCE: I really enjoyed [INAUDIBLE] this conversation too. And I'm thinking about the Art Park.
MARTIN HOGUE: Yes.
AUDIENCE: It's such a fascinating project. I wonder what kind of--
MARTIN HOGUE: Next summer. You come--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
MARTIN HOGUE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think so. Yeah.
AUDIENCE: I'm thinking about-- it just seems so appealing. I think there's something about the private park aspect and just something about maybe like almost intentional community, like a temporary intentional community--
MARTIN HOGUE: For like a weekend, just a--
AUDIENCE: Yeah. So I don't really know the details of how long it goes or if somebody could stay for the whole time and take that one thing, or just--
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: What's been your experience with that related to your work?
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah, I think-- I mean, I'm really-- it's really interesting that this project and this book really emerged all at the same time and they've been developing in parallel. One has informed the other. So the way we've modeled it in the past-- this is the fifth edition that just concluded this summer-- is usually it's four weekends. So Friday night to Sunday. And when you reserve, you reserve for that weekend, so you have one of four sites. And so it's a fairly limited experience.
So in May, the park looks the way it is. In June, there's a bunch of blue stuff around. And then in July, it's gone. So it's quite a simple, very, very easy project to install and take down.
But I think at most, I'd say we've accommodated maybe 30 people on any given weekend. You know, groups of people trying to move in and get all of the sites and hang out. And other weekends it would be five people, right? So it varies a lot, but you're right that it's a community that's created sort of instantly that exists for a very brief period of time. For two nights, essentially. Or-- yeah, two consecutive nights and a couple of weekends every summer.
AUDIENCE: Is there some camaraderie, do you think, because it's so unique?
MARTIN HOGUE: Yes. Oh, yeah. No, I can say that firsthand. I mean, this summer, some of the kind of accidental communities that were created were so, so great. It was really-- I mean, as the operator of the campground, I was really both a facilitator of connections and meeting people and engaging. And we had some really-- it was quite rewarding experience. Yeah. So yeah, no. We should be in touch, and I'll be sure to share the details.
AUDIENCE: So do you organize activities in the Art Park, like the park ranger around the campfire-type thing? Is there any of that going on?
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah. So I think this summer, I did a campfire talk on the campfire, which seemed appropriate, but I think that's the only time. I try to be in the background. Like, I don't want to be-- I want to be the facilitator. I'm enabling-- I'm like a host if people have questions or stuff I can help, but I'm also trying not to insert myself too much. So it's an interesting role to play.
So I'm there to orient people. I'm there to greet them. Like, for me, the greeting, the arrival. Like, I always have the map and I circle-- I do that every time even though people know where they're going. So I love going through the kind of theatrics of that.
But it's also one where I try to-- if people want to chat, if people want to-- the campfire area that we have is-- people don't-- they could prepare food at their campsite if they don't want to join, but they're also welcome to join in the larger social. And people usually do. Like, I'm not saying that they don't.
But I try to be mindful of their privacy and see how I can help be available if needed. It's been fun. I've really learned a lot. It's been an enjoyable experience, and I think one that's really shaped, in some way, insights for the book at the same time. Yes?
AUDIENCE: Thank you for your presentation. I'm from Japan. [INAUDIBLE] mentioned Asian countries, a lot of different kinds of cultures these days, especially in Japan. Glamping style has already been in one of the cultures in Japanese camping style, but we would never call it glamping style anymore.
But whenever I saw the picture, when I did camping in Japan, to the US people everybody says it's glamping. So I want to know your opinion about whether Asian camping style could be accepted in the US or not because as far as I know, a lot of people use like luxury tents, which could be attached to the US cars. But we would never use these kind of tents, or we would bring tons of stuff to be here. Kind of room preparation. So yeah, I want to know your--
MARTIN HOGUE: Well, yeah. I'd love to talk to you more about that maybe afterwards. Like, my knowledge is fairly limited in this area, so I'm not sure. I mean, I've seen some beautiful platforms that are kind of floating in the woods that are just absolutely gorgeous that would qualify more as glamping sites, I think. Certainly for a more limited group of individuals, but maybe it's something that we could chat about. I think that I'd love to do that.
AUDIENCE: I mean, what's so interesting about it is it's like an association with comfort. Like, what is your comfort? Because I think in America it's like this, you have to be uncomfortable camping. You have to be smelly. You have to be dirty.
MARTIN HOGUE: Well, that, or that people will reminisce about the smallest things, or they will remember the smallest inconvenience, which I know that's what I do. So I project that on everybody else. But it is interesting that oftentimes we-- that's when you realize how comfortable-- or how unwilling we all-- some of us are to give up some of those daily comforts that we all enjoy. Yeah. Yes?
AUDIENCE: Did you observe differences in the sites that you went to that were mapped out? Did you observe differences in the landscape that might encourage different campsites to interact with one another or be more secluded from one another?
MARTIN HOGUE: Yes. Yeah, I think that's a really great question. I mean, some of the more memorable experiences that I've had have been often at walk-in campsites. Like in Acadia, there's just a wonderful-- a newer developed campground on the coast side where you have to walk in about a half mile from the parking lot. So find those to be much more rewarding than some of the very densely organized motor campgrounds.
But I think the automobile is the one-- is the one utility that dictates those kinds of spatial arrangements. Where the road can take you, that's where you can camp. And so when you get out of the car, that's where the really interesting things start to happen. If you're able to-- even to venture a few hundred feet from the major part of the campground, it could be much more private and much more rewarding and secluded.
So those are the ones-- when I think back on some of the experiences that we've had, those are some of the ones that come to mind as some of the most meaningful and interesting are the walk-in sites. We were talking about that, I think, last week, right? On the Finger Lakes, on Seneca Lake.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
MARTIN HOGUE: There's a forest--
AUDIENCE: I've been to some-- yeah, I've been to some campsites where they would seem to be more secluded, but then there'd be pop-up communities that seem to be encouraged because of pathways.
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: So I was curious what you thought.
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah. No, this is something we should chat about, I think. Again, my experience is an interesting one because I feel like I've thought a lot about camping, but I've camped less than I've thought about camping.
So I think about it a lot. In that sense, I'm a camper. But it's also one where I'm able to observe and step outside of the circumstances and observe, analyze, map, you know, trying to contextualize what's going on, and less one that is fully immersed in the kind of now of that experience. Does that make sense?
So it's one that I think maybe helps to explain a little bit the kind of book or the kind of research that I've been doing. But every time I do go, we do go, I always love it. So it is quite-- like, when you are able to forget about all of that and be in the present, it's always a wonderful thing to experience. Yes?
AUDIENCE: What was your goal in establishing Art Park?
MARTIN HOGUE: It's-- well, I was invited as an artist in residence there in 2017. And for a while, I wasn't quite sure what I would contribute to the Art Park. It's an Art Park that has more traditional sculptural objects. But more and more, increasingly artists are invited to do temporary works and works at various scales.
And so I thought, why don't I propose this idea? And I thought at first it was a bit harebrained, and it was accepted enthusiastically. And to me, I'm trying to pitch it as a kind of programmatic change that you come to the Art Park, but you're not just there for a couple hours. You are there for a couple of days.
And so it's been really-- what I've enjoyed about it is to actually walk around the Art Park at 10:00 PM and see the work, experience the work that's already there in a completely different manner. So in a way, it's more to facilitate or broaden the range of experiences that could be had there.
But ironically, the infrastructure, because it's painted in the same color, becomes a kind of artwork in itself too. So it has both of those kinds of dimensions at the same time.
AUDIENCE: Is it a competitive process to get there for a weekend? How does it work?
MARTIN HOGUE: I wish it was a little bit more.
[LAUGHTER]
It's oftentimes-- again, we've gone from all the sites are busy to one site, you know? From one weekend to the next. We're trying to calibrate our timing a little bit. Usually it's in June. We find that sometimes because the kids are not out of school yet that it maybe should be July, but then July-- so we're trying to find the right timing for it.
But I've had seasons where it's busy all the time and other ones that are a bit more quiet. It's not a highly competitive process, to answer your question.
AUDIENCE: And it's just Friday through Sunday. Hmm.
MARTIN HOGUE: Yeah. So it's a very kind of instant thing. And so we're trying to make it fairly simple to manage. And so there are really four sites, four weekends, 16 opportunities. Does that make sense? And so when you claim one, it is yours for the duration of that weekend. We're not trying to break it down to smaller increments.
SPEAKER 1: [INAUDIBLE] we're well over time, and I want to make sure you get a breather too. So if there's maybe one or two more questions, I think we have time for that, but then we'll probably wrap up. So if there's anything else--
MARTIN HOGUE: I'd be happy to share information on the project. Like, always trying to broaden the kind of, you know, knowledge that the project exists. But it's been-- for me, it's been just a rewarding experience because I'm on the other side of it. Like, I'm managing, big quotes. Managing that experience. And so that's been really helpful in shaping this book, I think.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
While clean air and an open sky may be all we truly need for a great time outdoors, camping has become inextricably linked to specific activities such as erecting the tent and cooking over a fire. In a Chats in the Stacks book talk presented at Cornell University’s Mann Library in September 2023, Martin Hogue, associate professor of landscape architecture, discusses his new book "Making Camp: A Visual History of Camping's Most Essential Items and Activities" (Princeton Architectural Press, 2023), in which he traces the radical transformation of recreational camping from the late nineteenth-century wilderness camp to our contemporary campgrounds with dense rows of individually numbered campsites. Utilizing drawings, patents, diagrams, sketches, paintings, advertisements, and historical photographs, Hogue shares the individual histories of key components that define this familiar and often generic spatial setting: the campsite, the campfire, the picnic table, the campground map, the tent, and the sleeping bag, as well as water distribution and trash collection systems. Hogue also argues that it is the subtle interplay between these various components—some already in place upon arrival, others imported by each occupant—that helps ensure the illusion that campers retain some agency in making their own camp.Martin Hogue serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University, where he teaches design studio and several courses that explore representations of rural, urban and suburban landscapes in film and other media. Prof. Hogue has had a long interest in the arts, design education, and the study of how humans come to define places as sites imbued with particular meanings and cultural practices.
