Item – Theses Canada

​
OCLC number
305073253
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
LAC copy
Author
Dixon, Tyler,1980-
Title
Exodus : the disappearing rural history of Alberta.
Degree
M. Arch. -- Dalhousie University, 2006
Publisher
Ottawa : Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, [2007]
Description
2 microfiches
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
Alberta has undergone a number of large shifts over the past half century. The foundations of Alberta's prairie lifestyle, as well as the microcosm of the family farm, have been affected in the wake of these changes. The idyllic prairie is not what it once was. Machines now manoeuvre around the ruins of once finely crafted wood houses and barns, lying buried in their own collapse. Industrial and managerial positions lure the population away from the fields with promise of oil wealth. Through my travels around Alberta and Saskatchewan, I have tried to document the abandonment of homesteads scattered in the countryside, in hopes of achieving a better understanding of our rural history - now threatened by extinction under the pressures of Alberta's modern economy. Although the scale of the situation is province-wide, I will use the County of Parland No. 21, west of Edmonton, as site and case study to illustrate common issues across the prairies. I believe examination of past and present is necessary to provide hope for the future. While architecture can not propose any one solution to such a complex problem, it can reflect and anticipate changes. This thesis then becomes a collection of studies and possibilites of the role of architecture in the Rural West.
ISBN
9780494204931
0494204931