Thirteenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

The 18th century was crucial in shaping the modern environment and modern world. Modern forestry – which was emerging at the end of 18th century mainly in Germany, France and the United States – had a major impact on modern worlding and diffusion of modernity. Accordingly author exams mechanisms of modern forest which emerged as material-discursive apparatus which orchestrate heterogeneous rhythms and temporalities – people, trees, noble lineage, mechanisms. The paper is based on the economic manual About Trees and Wild Herbs written by Jan Krzysztof Kluk (1739-1796) called „the first polish forestry guide book”. The analysis of About trees…will allow to examine the architecture of the modern forest as an important part of the modern environment. Author focuses on three mechanisms which are organizing apparatus of modern forests: 1) Separation of trees (tight units) which persistence is controlled and dependent on the mechanisms of the apparatus; 2) „Block” the forest to impose cyclicality of reproduction and wood production on it; 3) Tangle forest’s life and condition of nature with utility. Thus author considers apparatus architecture of the modern forest which emerges as a predictable wood producing machine in a place of complex local encounters which flows with different dynamics. This denaturalization of modern forest allows to recognize it as a specific, constructed apparatus that requires constant human maintenance and management. This also puts the problems of forest destruction, conservation and protection into a different perspective.