project 32/

RADICAL "HISTORICAL" RE-PARTITIONING OF A COUNTRY

G. Zernov, Moscow

The proposal discussed below is intended for the territory of a rather small country, but in principle this project is suitable also for very big states similar to Russia and China.

The project envisages the use of one of the most important but still unmanifested profound characteristics of any human being: a special, deep intimate connection with one's historical past and what is particularly interesting and yet previously ignored - to some specific epoch in that past. In each person there is simul- taneously a multitude of layers of common human history (onto genesis), but - which is very important - only one specific con- crete layer is actualized, is particularly powerfully active, and moreover in each individual this actualization looks different.

Of course, in everyday life this is manifested on the level of the subconscious.

But what happens if you actively summon this need to the sur- face of consciousness? The project under discussion proposes to repartition a territo- ry (within the framework of an entire state) in such a way as to create zones next to each other but of separately existing epochs of the life of that state. In other words, the phases which replaced one another along the historical, temporal scale, are to be laid out synchronically, so to speak on a spatial plane.

Hence, there will be a region where people will live entirely with a communal structure, another with a patriarchal structure, a third with a capitalist structure. The population, having been given the opportunity, can choose without coercion where to live: first in a patriarchal village, then in a commune, then in a mod- ern industrial city. Moreover, a unique source of revenue will emerge for such a state connected with the modern rapid development of tourism. Along the direct roadways dividing one histori- cal region from another, tourists in special groups can, by choice, get acquainted with the history of that country, so to speak, in its authentic, genuine and not "museum" form. Further- more, many visitors fascinated by the life of this or that epoch (see above) will themselves want to stay for a while in one region or another. The former as well as the latter can be an enormous source or revenue for the entire country as a whole.

RADICAL "HISTORICAL" RE-PARTITIONING Of A COUNTRY 1. Build a wooden (Masonite) pedestal 180 x 90 x 40 cm.

2. Make mountains on it out of plaster, leaving the middle flat.

3. Cover the entire middle with imitation grass.

4. Make the line of highways as in the sketch. Paint them gray.

5. Make round "zones" (cf. sketch) out of white cardboard and glue them to the grass between the "highways."

6. Arrange various historical epochs inside the zones: primi- tive, tribal-patriarchal, antiquity, Roman, Middle Ages, the epoch of Ludwigs or the tsars (XVI-XVII centuries), bourgeoisie, the beginning of the XX century, modern, etc.

7. Make the central square of the country into the bureaucratic- administrative area.

8. Put the name of the epoch contained in each square.