Dirk Zoete
Faits Divers
A typical house
And here we enter a special section of some Failed Utopian Architecture; the ones that were built by megalomaniacs such as Walt Disney, Michael Jackson or HENRY FORD. This last famous industrial once said that ‘everything he produces can have any color, as long as it’s black’. Next to a bit a bit of humor, Ford also had some grim ideas about moneysaving and slavery. He sent some guys out to establish a rubber plantation in Brazil and named it, for obvious reasons, Fordlandia. I think it’s an amazing story so last year I was excited to find out that Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson released an album entitled Fordlândia. As for this HTV artists are asked to reveal the sources from which they derive their energy to make things, I would like to introduce this tender and special composer, whom I got to know many years ago in Reykjavik; on his official website, Jóhannsson explains the album’s relation to the Henry Ford-owned location: ‘One of the two main threads running through it is this idea of failed utopia - the story of the rubber plantation Henry Ford established in the Amazon in the 1920’s, and his dreams of creating an idealized American town in the middle of the jungle complete with white picket fences, hamburgers and alcohol prohibition. The project – started because of the high price Ford had to pay for the rubber necessary for his cars’ tires – failed, of course, as the indigenous workers soon rioted against the alien conditions.’
The cover of the CD
The village
Ford purchased a 25,000 square kilometer tract of land along the Amazon river, and immediately began to develop the area. A barge-toting steamer arrived with earthmoving equipment, a pile driver, tractors, stump pullers, a locomotive, ice-making machines, and prefabricated buildings. Workers began erecting a rubber processing plant as the surrounding area was razed of vegetation. Scores of Ford employees were relocated to the site, and over the first few
months an American-as-apple-pie community sprung up from what was once a jungle wilderness. It included a power plant, a modern hospital, a library, a golf course, a hotel, and rows of white clapboard houses with wicker patio furniture. As the town’s population grew, all manner of businesses followed, including tailors, shops, bakeries, butcher shops, restaurants, and shoemakers. It grew into a thriving community with Model T Fords frequenting the neatly paved streets. After the riots and the failure, Fordlandia was given back
Fordlândia on Google Maps (3° 47’ 60 S, 55° 28’ 60 W)
