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Wind Turbines constructed on an unamed mountain in Searsberg, Vermont. (courtesy Vera) |
| Something in our collective memory attaches itself to these graceful
armatures, as though the form of the windmill is some essential
archetype for those structures we devise to yoke our lives to
the forces of nature. Vermont has always offered its own brand of austere beauty. Spare, clapboard farmhouses, board-and-batten barns, the precise geometric patterning of slate rooftops, all are part of our collective memory of the place. If there is any predominant aesthetic, it is one preoccupied with preserving and reinventing this homespun beauty. In such a landscape of tradition, it's a surprise to find what is surely one of the more stunning examples of Modern design to be built in recent times. The 11 wind turbines constructed on an unnamed mountain in Searsburg are surely that. Coming across them by chance, as I did one morning last fall, I read their profile as an industrial sculpture park, their beauty nothing short of astonishing. With the rotors of the turbines spinning at varying speeds against a crisp blue sky, their perpetual animation seemed to observe their own celestial rhythms. But the sculptures' purpose soon became apparent; even from far away, it was clear that this graceful congruence of colossal instruments had gathered to gauge some condition of the elements. They are, in fact, windmills constructed of steel and fiberglass; and their location makes all the sense in the world. Vermont's harsh climate and relentless winds had, for years, encouraged Green Mountain Power (GMP) to investigate using the wind as an alternative source of energy. Since the Seventies, the power company had been prospecting for a site that might be feasible, both environmentally and economically, for wind resource studies. With a $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, California, GMP identified Searsburg, a small town in southern Vermont, as that place: while strong winter winds sweep the 2,900-foot ridge, its elevation is nevertheless low enough that the area is not ecologically sensitive. After environmental studies had concluded that there were no critical black bear habitats in the area or any nesting or migrating birds that would be threatened by the project, GMP contracted Zond Energy System in Tehachapi, California, to construct, install, and help maintain the turbines in Searsburg. In operation since June 1997, the Searsburg Wind Power Facility is now the largest commercial wind generating plant in the eastern United States. And while providing clean, emission-free energy, the facility also serves as a study site for the power industry, environmental groups, and planners. The faceted steel towers--24-sided, 132 feet high, and each weighing 64,000 pounds--have been designed to withstand wind gusts of up to 150 miles per hour. The immense fiberglass blades of the rotors--each 60 feet long and weighing 4,250 pounds--have been sheathed in a black Teflon-like surface that sheds ice easily. Too, they've been painted black to absorb solar energy and help melt the ice. A computer in the base of each tower controls the turbine, allowing it to respond to the ever-changing air movements; when the wind exceeds 65 miles per hour, the rotor blades have been programmed to "feather" or align themselves with the air currents to prevent them from being damaged. It's all here: the industrial elegance, the economy of form, the integrity of industrial materials. These attributes are matched by the innovative development of a technically proficient alternative energy resource. And so the wind turbines satisfy the conditions of Modern design. As significant--both to the ideals of Modernism and to Searsburg--is that community response has been largely favorable. People like them. Peter Bourgois, a landscape architect at Cavendish Partnership, which advised GMP on the visual impact of the project, observes: "In a natural landscape of rolling hills and serpentine roads, the random arrangement of the towers, both horizontally and vertically, blends well with the existing landscape. In the Midwest, where the land is flat, gridded with rows and fences, a more regular grid of towers might be more appropriate. But here, the random element enhanced them." Bourgois also notes that because wind power provides clean electricity, it generally elicits a positive response; it's a nonthreatening technology that people innately understand. "But beyond the technology, the visual image has its own appeal," he adds. "They're just neat to look at. People think about Don Quixote; they get romantic about [windmills]." To say the least. For all their up-to-the-minute technology and for all their suggestions of some mammoth earthworks installation or industrial performance art, there is something ancient about the structures as well. It's not only the ridge of the mountain that they straddle so gracefully and efficiently, but they also cross the line between the ancient and the modern. Something in our collective memory attaches itself to these graceful armatures, as though the form of the windmill is some essential archetype for those structures we devise to yoke our lives to the forces of nature. If there is a gentle familiarity to the forms, the sound they produce is gentle as well. The morning I saw them, their blades made a soft, rhythmic sound, as though harnessing all that wind calmed them as well. Nineteen-ninety-seven was a good year for architecture. Frank Gehry's new Guggenheim Museum, with its soaring titanium-clad forms, brought worldwide attention to Bilbao, Spain, as Richard Meier's new Getty Center with its radiant galleries and plazas energized Los Angeles. The Searsburg wind turbines are modern landmarks of a different sort; and they may be every bit as significant, simply because they serve such a workaday function. Indeed, that industrial forms can speak so powerfully to the imagination may be Modernism at its best. The machine in the garden is an image powerful, poetic, and central to modernity--but this metaphor is rarely expressed with so much eloquence. Here, on this New England mountaintop, the image is simultaneously heroic and ordinary, with inevitable utopian associations. The 550-kilowatt wind turbines are expected to provide electrical energy to some 2,000 homes in the valley. But for all the power they generate, there is something else they do every bit as well. They take our breath away. |
Keywords:
Vermont, modern, windmills, alternative energy