Our work, a field guide to the landscapes of Gateway, provides tangible connections to pre-existing, ongoing, and emerging site conditions. Three types of connections –– marks –– are suggested to guide the revival of local and regional landscape knowledge: seamarks, landmarks, and ciphers.

Located 1000 feet apart along cardinal directions, a field of sixty-two seamarks guide wanderers and inform observers of the locations and heights of future landform modifications. Varying in shape, size, and height, seamarks guide the creation of a midden –– a near-continuous landform traveling the width of the site from the Gateway Marina to Mill Basin.

Formed incrementally over a span of 11 years from local channel dredge, the midden serves as index (vertical) of the former Irish Channel bathymetry, datum both within and outside the site, and surrogate for the experience of an otherwise inaccessible landscape.

The landmark field situates Gateway’s’ constructed landscape within the context of other national parks and monuments under the care of the Department of the Interior. The proposed series of stamp issues serves as cipher for the reading of Gateway’s local and regional landscapes.

Published: June 05, 2007
Last modified: Jun 05, 2007