Fake Mountains 2

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‘Architect Ju Hyun Kim is attempting to give downtown Manhattan a facelift by building a mountain over big box stores like Best Buy, Target and AMC, keeping in mind the fact that the city lacks in mountainous topography. The NYC architect claim that the project will provide a natural environment along with the forest and will also serve as a habitat for birds and insects. He adds that the set up will offer various activities such as hiking, rock climbing, snowboarding and mountain biking.’ — eco friend

 

‘On the morning of Monday April 1, 1974, the residents of Sitka, Alaska, noted something strange in the familiar sight of Mount Edgecumbe, a dormant volcano located at the southern end of Kruzof Island, Alaska. A menacing plume of black smoke was rising from the crater!

‘Concerned residents called the police and firefighters and the Coast Guard commander radioed the Admiral in Juneau who ordered a chopper be sent out to investigate. As the Coast Guard pilot approached Mt. Edgecumbe, he peered down into the crater. But there was no lava to be found anywhere. Stacked in the cone of the volcano, burning with a greasy flame, was a huge pile of old tires.

‘The fake eruption of Mt. Edgecumbe was the work of a local prankster, 50-year-old Oliver “Porky” Bickar. He collected 70 old tires that he kept in an airplane hangar and then patentiely waited for three years until a bright, clear day. In the early morning on April 1 he phoned Earl Walker, a chopper pilot in Petersburg offering a helicopter transportation service. With the helicopter and the help of some friends, Bickar transported the tires and several gallons of kerosene into the crater of Mount Edgecumbe. All the men piled the tires into a stack, then lit them on fire and headed home.’ — Forbes

 

‘Once there was a mountain in the middle of Los Angeles. Most movie studios, in their backlots or in movie ranches in the San Fernando Valley or in environs close to L.A., had a Western town. Then, when the 1960s happened, the classic Western fell quickly, deeply out of favor. Westerns were seen as racist, imperialistic, colonialist, bigoted, xenophobic, misogynistic, albeist, sexist, homophobic.

‘One victim of Paramount’s Western town pull-out was the scaled-down mountain backdrop behind Paramount’s Western town. This mountain went up in 1955 and was constructed of chicken wire and plaster. It was a three-dimensional backdrop of sorts, though not with much dimension. The mountain was a fairly thin sliver covering up a warehouse. Accounts from people who worked at Paramount in the 1970s say that, by the late Seventies, the mountain was already looking decrepit, before it was finally torn down.’ — Invisible Theme Park

 

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‘German architect Jakob Tigges explores the outskirts of megalomania with his proposed a plan to construct a 1000-meter tall mountain at the site of the recently closed Tempelhof airport in Berlin, which was originally constructed by the Nazi’s as part of their megalomaniac Germania plan.

‘If realized, The Berg would be the largest man-made icon. A tourist attraction unlike any city has ever served, providing Berliners and (more importantly) tourists with a convenient location to enjoy a range of activities including hiking, hang-gliding, rock climbing and even skiing, as the mountain would collect snow on its peak from September to March offering the perfect skiing climate in the otherwise slope-less city.

‘The plans for The Berg seem to have spawned out of a severe case of ‘peak-envy’. On the Berg website, the 35 year old architect writes: “While big and wealthy cities in many parts of the world challenge the limits of possibility by building gigantic hotels with fancy shapes, erecting sky-high office towers or constructing hovering philharmonic temples, Berlin sets up a decent mountain … Hamburg, as stiff as flat, turns green with envy, rich and once proud Munich starts to feel ashamed of its distant Alp-panorama and planners of the Middle-East, experienced in taking the spell off any kind of architectural utopia immediately design authentic copies of the iconic Berlin-Mountain.”

‘Whether the world is gullible or people truly want to see and experience The Berg, the project attracted a lot of local media, gathered a huge 5000+ following on Facebook and has some promising product endorsements already.

‘Although an uninhabitable monolith of this magnitude might look appealing at first sight, funding for it might be another matter. Not to mention the environmental impact of the gigantic structure. The mountain is so big it would alter the weather surrounding it and attract a wide range of flora and fauna. Nonetheless Berliners are getting behind the project as another tourist-attracting (money-making) option for their fair city.

‘“It’s provocative, but not constructive,” Tigges told Der Spiegel of his proposal. The architect sees his idea as more of a place-holder in the minds of Berliners, a mythical mountain to fire imaginations until an appropriately grand solution is found. In the meantime, Tigges says, he would prefer for Tempelhof to remain untouched as he considers it more interesting for a Sunday walk than your average park landscape.

‘“Tourists would come to the site to take photographs of the mountain that isn’t there,” said Tigges, who noted that his euphoric mountain renderings serve as a direct critique of the city of Berlin. “The site is much too valuable to sacrifice for mediocre apartment buildings.”’ — nextnature.net

 

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‘The Netherlands is famous for being an extremely flat country. But now a Dutch journalist has attracted attention with a proposal for constructing an artificial mountain in the country — and some people are taking the idea seriously. Journalist Thijs Zonneveld became a household name in the Netherlands overnight with a short column that looked like something written to fill a slow summer news day. But his idea to build a 2,000-meter (6,560-foot) peak appears to have caught the public’s imagination.

‘The title of the small piece in which Zonneveld let off steam over the athletic and geographic handicaps of the Dutch could not have been clearer: “Mountain!” As a result of their country’s natural disadvantages, Zonneveld argued, neither cyclists nor Alpine athletes would ever have the chance to win any medals. There are simply no mountains in Holland, he wrote. “The country is flat. Flat as a polder. Being flat is really useful for growing beets, raising cows and building straight roads, but it’s a disaster when it comes to sports.”

‘In an appearance on “Knevel & Van den Brink,” a popular TV talk show in the Netherlands, Zonneveld convinced seven skeptical people to seriously discuss the issue for 10 minutes. Initially describing it as a “bizarre idea,” he went on to cite the advantages of the Alpine attraction. Zonneveld believes that it could be done for about €1 billion ($1.43 billion). Of course, he adds, raising this “costly mountain” would not be a job for the public sector, but for bold investors instead. He said that he planned to meet with experts and representatives of interested companies this week — including, he said, six of the country’s 10 largest engineering firms — for a brainstorming session on the feasibility of the idea. Zonneveld insists that his Alpine challenge is surmountable — for example, if the mountain was hollow.

‘A hollow mountain would save an enormous amount of material. If it consisted of a mass of reinforced concrete, the colossus would weigh an estimated 5.2 trillion kilograms. If it were built out of stone, the mountain would be even heavier, and more expensive. But lighter doesn’t necessarily mean cheaper. Blogger Erik van der Zee has already calculated that building the mountain out of ordinary Lego pieces would be unaffordable, if only because of the astronomical wages it would require. At a rate of one Lego piece per second and worker, the superstructure alone would consume about 729 billion man-years. Put differently, the entire human population could be employed around the clock for the next 104 years.

‘The biggest problem, Zonneveld believes, probably wouldn’t even be the structural engineering challenges or the money, but rather the people who would have to be resettled to make space for the mountain. It’s also clear that current tourist attractions, like the Urk lighthouse hill — which towers a breathtaking 24 feet above sea level — would lose a significant amount of appeal. But Zonneveld isn’t going to give up his dream. “The mountain will come,” he wrote in a column published on Friday. “Period.”‘ — Der Spiegel

 

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‘Mountains in the Netherlands? The highest hill on the Dutch mainland is the Vaalserberg – with an absolute altitude of 322,7 m above sea level. So, what’s going on with skiing, hiking and mountain biking? One of the participants of the challenge is the Dutch engineering and consultancy firm DHV. They already started with the first steps: The project is called Bergen in Zee – because of its proximity to the seaside town of Bergen aan Zee and because the word “bergen” is the Dutch word for mountains. The artificial mountain will be constructed approximately 10 km near the seaside of Bergen aan Zee.

‘But how to construct such a huge mountain? The diameter of Bergen in Zee will be slightly more than 12 km and the foot of the mountain will be on the continental shelf at a depth of between 10 and 20 m. The top of the mountain will rise 2000 m above sea level – for comparison, Austrian’s highest mountain Großglockner counts 3798 m above sea level. There will be natural ski pistes (at least 5 km long) and an ice rink around the top of the mountain.

‘The construction process: Bergen in Zee will consist of several different layers: (1) The core could be made of sand. (2) The second layer will be made of waste. The absorption of any gassing through fermentation or other chemical processes in the waste will be used to pump water into the mountain. (3) The third shell will have a honeycomb structure. The structure will make it possible to store the gas and CO2 safely without inconveniencing anybody. (4) The top layer will consist of sand, with space for buildings, vegetation and a wooded area around 50 km².

‘Sustainable thoughts: (1) The existence of the mountain will save millions of travel kilometres during the vacations. A first idea of sustainable developments in the tourism sector. (2) The production of energy: wind energy in the night and solar energy in the daytime. The production of energy will be constant and flexible. (3) The combination of the building materials (sand and water) opens up the prospect of a gigantic heat-cold storage that can provide all of the western part of the Netherlands with heat or cold.’ — Follow the Weasel

 

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‘In a part of the world notorious for building giant tinderboxes for skyscrapers, the United Arab Emirates is entertaining the outlandish idea of building an actual mountain somewhere in the country to inhibit rainfall. Something the country desperately needs. The UAE’s National Center for Meteorology and Seismology has accepted funding from the government to research the feasibility and potential outcome of undergoing such a project. But the naysayers are doing some serious naying to this scheme, myself included.

‘Scientists at the University of Oxford say even if the UAE figures out how to build a mountain, one peak isn’t enough to bring rain – a full ridge is needed. The plan is being called a waste of money when there are other technologies and studies that could use the cash.

‘In my own mind, I have to ask where the hell do they think they’re going to get the material to build a mountain? They think they can just upheave thousands of years of cataclysmic bedrock? I’m picturing the most massive manmade hole in the ground where they’re quarrying and then what… are they going to glue it together? A human made mountain would be one massive pile of rubble ready to topple over at any point.’ — i am bored

 

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A general view of a mountain slope painted green in Fumin county, southwest China’s Yunnan Province February 12, 2007. The mountain was artificially painted green by the local forestry bureau to simulate planted trees, at a cost of about 400,000 yuan ($51,000), local media reported.

 

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‘A residential compound in China has two 15-storey high artificial mountains built, and the property management office said the mountain was built for good Fengshui. Shangqing Jiayuan Residential Compound in Shanghai has two high artificial mountains built besides the buildings No.30 and No.31. The two artificial mountains are 50 meters high, reaching the 16th floor of the 28-storey high buildings.

‘Compound residents said the mountains were built along with the buildings, which was finished in 2003. Residents said they don’t feel uncomfortable for having two giant artificial mountains in the compound as long as they don’t block the sunlight. A property office spokesman said since the mountains are part of the compound, they have to maintain the well-being of the mountains all the time. The spokesman said not long ago the Shanghai Mountain Climbing Association contacted them for a outdoor rock-climbing competition, but considering safety factors, they declined their plead.’ — whatsonxiamen.com

 

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‘While Kaolinite has been mined in Hirschau, Bavaria, since 1833 it was in 1901 when Amberger Kaolinwerk began mining Kaolinite — one of the most common minerals, a clay-like layered silicate, used in ceramics, medicine, coated paper, food additives, in toothpaste, and is the main ingredient in porcelain — they found themselves with a problem. In the process of separating the Kaolinite from the dirt they ended up with a lot of left over quartz sand. So they started piling it up.

‘By the early 1950s the pile had grown large enough that a skier wanting to practice in the summer, brought his poles to the mountain, dubbed Monte Kaolina, and began doing skiing down the enormous pile. By 1956 there was a ski club dedicated to skiing down the quartz sand mountain.

‘Today, although the mountain has stopped growing — it turns out quartz sand is good for a whole bunch of things — it continues to host skiers, the Monte Kaolino Railway a 200 meter long cable car with boat shaped wagons, a “Dune Pool” including a 50 m – water slide, and 1,000 meter Alpine-Coaster that zooms riders down the giant slag heap. In addition to all this, Monte Kaolino is also home to the Sandboarding World Championships, in which many of the smae types of winter boarding competitions are held, but on sand. Speeds of up to 60 mph have been clocked.’ — atlas obscure

 

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‘The Marble Arch Mound did not quite go to plan. The 25-meter-high artificial hill, built in the middle of London’s busy shopping district, was supposed to attract 280,000 visitors to the city’s retail center after the pandemic flattened sales. But as soon as it opened on July 26, visitors ridiculed the temporary structure, with one comparing it with a piece of scenery from a low-fi 90’s video game. And, after costs ballooned $3.7 million (£2.7 million) beyond its expected price tag to $8.25 million, a local politician resigned. Dutch architecture firm MVRDV designed the mound and intended for it to appear as if the corner of London’s famous Hyde Park had been lifted up from the ground.’ — Insider

 

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‘wroclaw mountain by vicente guallart / guallart architects is the result of an international contest to celebrate expo 2012 in wroclaw city poland. the building is set to be the iconic centre piece with the concept being a ‘mountain of activity’ – a structure of one hundred meters high, with auditoriums, offices, restaurants and other commercial space, including a cable car and look out point. the building is to be located between the centennial hall and tower of culture and science in warsaw. based on a mountain-like form, the activities it houses would be able to expand out onto exterior terraces, created directly by the topography of the building, onto its roof, directly accessible via the cable car from the park in which the structure stands. the topography of the mountain is positioned in such a way that its south face forms an angle to accommodate a bank of photovoltaic panels on the facade which will generate port of the energy consumed by the building.’ — designboom

 

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Jerudong Park, Singapore

 

Expedition Everest ride, Disneyworld

 

Mountain Museum, Nepal

 

Artificial indoor mountain range, Dubai (plan)

 

The London Zoo, 1913

 

Wonderland Theme Park, Vaughn, Canada

 

Bearfire Ski Resort, Texas (plan)

 

Macau’s Fisherman Wharf, China

 

Chinese billionaire’s rooftop mountain, Beijing

 

Cadillac Mountain Range, Disney’s California Adventure, Anaheim

 

Shigatse, Tibet

 

Proposed hospital disguised as a mountain, Adelaide, Australia

 

Okada, Japan

 

Manmade salt mountains, Germany

 

Elvis Presley climbing a fake mountain for the film “Fun in Acapulco’

 

Lace Hill, a mixed-use development, Armenia (plan)

 

‘The Alps’ ride, Willow Grove Park, Philadelphia

 

Earth Quest Adventures Theme Park, New Carney, Texas (in progress)

 

Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Paris

An Informal Community for London proposed by Ross Anderson & Frances Murphy

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! His stuff is hard not to like. No Eagles drifting through the air yet, knock on wood. Congrats on the debitchification. Since you’ve gotten love in a humanist mood, maybe he can make the chestnuts being  sold by the poor, sad looking roasted chestnuts cooker/seller guy by my local metro station entrance look edible, G. ** Ferdinand, Hey, man. Nice venture by your friend. I’d go. Thanks for your email. I’ll send you the pdf today. Bon Monday! ** Steve Erickson, There you go. I have not seen ‘The Devil’s Honey’. Should I? That’s an almost good title. We’re rain and rain again here too. Cool, I’ll get the Ken Carson. That’s exciting. Thanks! We have a baby mouse here. Tiny little thing who seems to be able to crawl through the slightest wall crack. Takes teensy tiny shits. Mixed feelings. ** _Black_Acrylic, I don’t suppose he’s father of the Bunnyman. Awesome you interviewed him. Is that online? Oh, that was a very sweet goal, thanks! Feeling the adrenaline. Thank you again! ** liamgarriock, Hi, welcome, good to meet you. An amazing note-perfect take on Fulci’s work right there. Nailed. Do you write, about film or other things? That was really sharp, and thanks for putting it here. Come back any time. ** Bill, Try again, but you will get some splatter. Why didn’t I know about ‘Mutiny in Heaven’? I’ll see if I can find it. Thanks, B. ** Audrey, Hi, Audrey. I assume once one actually masters the guitar, a racing mind becomes a big plus. I didn’t make it on camera, but I was at the fake rave in that one scene in ‘Strange Days’. Well, it was a real rave, albeit staged for the movie in a blinding bright, very un-rave-like light with camera guys running all over the place. I like that film too. Oh, for the Zoom club, there’s a different assignment every week, I guess obviously. For last Saturday’s, the film was Abel Ferrara’s ‘Ms. 45’ and the text was an excerpt from the diaries of a Polish poet named Anna Kamienska. But then we also always just end up talking about all kinds of other stuff too. It’s nice, maybe especially for me since I’m so physically far away from my US pals. Can you describe the little thing you shot? If you want? My week will be mostly trying to get our film’s edit as final as possible. And I’m seeing Brian Eno in concert on Thursday? What’s your week proposing? ** Mark, Cool, thanks in advance about the haunt. Let me know what it was, if you make it. Marc Ribot is great, yeah. Cool you saw him. Have a weekend-like week. xo. ** Nick Toti, Hey, Nick! Awesome: the Fulci love. Things are good, mostly just heavy film editing, trying to get the final cut. Oh, shit, that forced Vimeo option happened with ‘Permanent Green Light’ at a screening. It looked like shit. Never fucking again. I wish we’d just cancelled it. Wales, cool. So close but not close enough. ** Cody Goodnight, Hi, Cody. I’m fine if not entirely dandy. I envy your weekend, food- and activity-wise. I mostly just caught up, or tried to, on my giant stack of unanswered emails. And listened to a lot of Cheap Trick. And watched ‘Ms. 45’. And melted a fair amount of cheese. Here’s to a precipitous today for you. ** Right. Today you get a sequel to a long ago post called, you guessed it, Fake Mountains. See you tomorrow.