Introduction: Arrival Zones
The presentation of objects and images in front spaces constructs an identity for the place one is about to enter. From your homesteads foyer, to a shop's window display, to the cover of a novel, the initial construction and presentation of image is a controlled and regulated entranceway. Looking on a larger scale at the presentation of towns and cities, these same forces are at play; only there is a multitude of front spaces to regulate. In the book Real Places, Grady Clay introduces a concrete term for an ephemeral piece of the American landscape called the Arrival Zone. The arrival zone is "the psychological, geographical but unofficial" [Ref. 2] welcoming into a town or city. He notes that most "official" welcome centers, such as rest areas and tourist information centers, are "typically located far from cities" [Ref. 3]. This remoteness decentralizes the purpose of a "welcome station", leaving the actual reception into a city or town to more informal and unsanctioned venues. Gray claims that the dramatic appearance of a skyline and the increased density of billboards as some of the most memorable unmarked arrival zones. Going beyond these physical sites in the landscape, it will be proposed that arrival zones for towns and cities are also constructed through tourist brochures. Like a foyer or a shop window, these marketing tools are created to "welcome" strangers into unknown environments. As arrival zones, they attempt to create a palatable image of the place one is entering and make its foreign aspects familiar. By looking specifically at the "official" and "unofficial" arrival zones of Laramie Wyoming the constructed image of the town, as projected through its welcoming mechanisms, will be identified.
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Wyoming Territorial Park |
Wyoming Territorial Park |
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