Writing Human(e) Histories of Architecture in South Florida
Recently, the gulf coast of Florida has seen an uptick of red tide (Figure 1). An algal bloom of the microorganism Karenia brevis, red tide has been plaguing southwest Florida intermittently since October of 2017, causing huge fish kills, affecting air quality, and threatening the tourist economy. Even if scientists cannot name a single cause of red tide, they admit it is at least partly fueled by human activity. The growth of red tide reflects what some would call the Anthropocene, a new geologic era marked by the irrevocable and permanent alteration of the planet by humans.
Figure 1. A red tide along the Gulf Coast of Florida, n.d. Courtesy United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science.
Red tide has steadily increased in South Florida since the mid-nineteenth century, especially in recent decades with acceleration of resort building and industrial farming. K. brevis feeds off nitrogen and phosphorus—from lawn fertilizer, large-scale agriculture, and septic systems. The case of red tide suggests how human landscapes on the gulf coast are, thus, deeply bound with what historian William Cronon would call the region’s “wild nature.”
Looking at the history of one gulf coast resort community, Marco Island, reveals the extent to which nonhuman actors have shaped and continue to shape the landscape of South Florida. The Deltona Corporation of Miami developed Marco, located just on the northern edge of the Everglades, starting in the mid-1960s. Frank Mackle, president of Deltona, came to Marco because of its wilderness; he appreciated the barrier island’s pristine five-mile long crescent beach as well as its abundant tropical flora and fauna (Figure 2). Mackle took pains to seek a balance between development and the natural world, establishing a research station, which was designed to forestall harmful environmental impacts of Deltona’s activities, shortly after the community opened.[1]
Figure 2. Black and white aerial photograph of Marco Island in May of 1964, before Deltona developed it. Courtesy of the Marco Island Historical Society, 2014-03-007.
Figure 3. Promotional aerial photograph of first waterfront model homes on Marco Island, ca. 1965, showing their placement along human made, bulkheaded finger canals. Courtesy of the Marco Island Historical Society 2013-07-006.
Nonetheless, Deltona dramatically transformed Marco from a remote tropical swamp into a vacation and retirement paradise. The first year saw construction of model homes, a Polynesian style hotel, and the sales office (Figure 3). Development of a commercial district, a yacht club, and a country club, replete with a world-class golf course followed quickly. Deltona advertised their Marco Island lots and community across the nation, including a syndicated insert in newspapers from New York to Chicago, which boasted the island had “the tantalizing beauty that nature created—and the best that man could add” (Figure 4). To create waterfront lots, Deltona built over ninety-one miles of “finger canals,” which required extensive dredging and filling as well as clearing of mangroves. The human-made canals were bulkheaded and lined with concrete, affecting the marshy island’s delicate ecosystem (Figure 5).
Figure 4. Two-page spread from twelve-page advertising brochure for Marco Island, which appeared in syndication throughout the country in January of 1965. Courtesy of the Marco Island Historical Society, 2015-01-010.
Figure 5. Black and white aerial photograph showing construction of finger canals on Marco Island, ca. 1968. Courtesy of the Marco Island Historical Society, 2015-14-125.
As Deltona’s president and champion, Mackle viewed the company’s work at Marco as a form of conservation. In a 1973 promotional video, Mackle described his goal to “take the beautiful, natural environment—not hurt it, but preserve it—and yet build a modern community here, with all the conveniences people have a right to expect.” At the Marco Applied Marine Ecology Station (MAMES), scientists built an artificial reef of tires off the shore to replenish game fish (Figure 6). MAMES also oversaw replanting of mangroves in Robert’s Bay on an artificial island built of dredged fill. Mackle set aside several sea islands as bird sanctuaries.
“If we are the principal actors now on the Earth, we owe it to nonhuman nature to consider the impact of our actions on it, both now and in the past.”
During a time when throwing tires in the ocean seemed sound scientific practice (the U.S Environmental Protection Agency sanctioned the activity in the early 1970s), Mackle’s vision for Marco Island as one which balanced human and nonhuman nature seemed workable. But it became increasingly clear that the natural beauty of the island, which attracted Deltona and Marco homebuyers there in the first place, was at risk. As Deltona built out the island, the effects of development mounted—so much so that by the late 1970s the company found itself immersed in lawsuits related to the environmental impacts of the project. As the New York Times reported, Deltona conceded in July of 1982, ultimately pulling their requests for new building permits, donating 15,000 acres of ecologically sensitive land to the state, and returning money to hundreds of individual buyers who had hoped to build on Marco.
If some of the changes already wrought seemed beneficial—such as declining mosquito populations or fewer alligators—they nonetheless altered the island’s ecology. And nitrogen from fertilizer, necessary for the non-native grass planted on residential lots and at Marco’s golf club, ran into the ocean along with sewage, feeding algae blooms, including those causing the toxic red tide. Like the hurricanes and tropical storms (most recently Irma, in 2017) and rising seas due to climate change, red tide illustrates the power of nonhuman nature on the landscape.
Figure 6. “An Experiment in Nature,” Marco Islander (Summer 1972). Courtesy of the Marco Island Historical Society.
The architectural history of Marco Island over the past half century cannot be reduced to studying Deltona’s resort buildings, landscape, or master plan, just as red tide cannot be examined separately from human activity. To consider the human-made and nonhuman worlds together is not only essential in scientists’ pursuit of a cure for the expanding bloom but for humanists’ efforts to understand the impacts, often unintended, of development on the natural environment. Ironically, it makes for a more humane history—perhaps part of our responsibility as historians of the built environment in the Anthropocene (Figure 7).
Figure 7. The bound nature of the human and nonhuman worlds appears throughout Deltona promotional photographs such as this one of a small girl with a pail on the beach. Courtesy of the Marco Island Historical Society, 2013-04-141.
If we are the principal actors now on the Earth, we owe it to nonhuman nature to consider the impact of our actions on it, both now and in the past. For architectural historians, this means attending to the history of the natural landscape in our examination of the built environment. Marco’s recent history shows nonhuman nature is as much of an agent in its development as the builders and occupants who have called this island home.
NOTES
[1] “Fish, Wildlife Programs Open at Marco Island,” Boston Globe (March 28, 1965), 131.
