Center for Land Use Interpretation
Encyclopedia
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...
, USA, it is actually situated in the Palms
Palms, Los Angeles, California
Palms is a community founded in 1886 in West Los Angeles, California, and was the oldest neighborhood annexed to the city of Los Angeles, in 1915. The 1886 tract was marketed as an agricultural and vacation community...
district of Los Angeles, at 9331 Venice Blvd. Other locations of the CLUI include the Desert Research Station near Hinkley, California
Hinkley, California
Hinkley is an unincorporated community in the Mojave Desert in California, U.S., northwest of Barstow, east of Mojave, and north of Victorville. It sits just north of California State Highway 58....
in the Mojave desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
, the exhibit halls and artists residency program at Wendover, Utah
Wendover, Utah
Wendover is a city in Tooele County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Elko Micropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,537 at the 2000 census, with a 2006 estimated population of 1,632....
near the Bonneville Salt Flats, and in Troy, New York
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital...
along the Hudson river
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
.
The center creates publications, conducts tours, and holds lectures about the way land is used
Land use
Land use is the human use of land. Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements. It has also been defined as "the arrangements, activities and inputs people undertake in a certain land cover...
, and also how land and its use are understood. The Center's newsletter, The Lay of the Land, is available in print to subscribers as well as online.
Programs and projects
The Center produces public exhibits on themes and regions for galleries and museums, as well as for exhibition in CLUI spaces in Los Angeles and elsewhere, and conducts public bus tours and educational field trips. Lectures and presentations are held at the CLUI’s exhibit spaces, through programs such as the Independent Interpreter series. Other programming includes site specific Extrapolative Projects in the field, and special focus thematic study areas.Land Use Database
A collection of source material and processed information on unusual and exemplary land use in the United States, the database is used in-house at the CLUI as a resource for regional and thematic programming, and is coupled with the CLUI Photographic Archive, a collection of thousands of images taken by CLUI representatives, covering all types of land use sites. A limited version of the Land Use Database, with over one thousand locations, is available online.The American Land Museum
The American Land Museum is a network of landscape exhibition sites being developed across the United States. Each site in the network will provide regional interpretive programming for the selected district it represents. The Center’s facilities at Wendover, Utah, for example, represent the Great Basin region, and provide exhibitions and information to the public, and support the Center’s Wendover Residence Program, which enables new and innovative interpretations of the region to be developed and presented.Examples
People were taken in a bus tour along a highway outside Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
to see such sights as the world's largest Frito Lay factory, an abandoned rocket-test pad, and a wind-power facility. Another tour concerned the Salton Sea
Salton Sea
The Salton Sea is a shallow, saline, endorheic rift lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault, predominantly in California's Imperial Valley. The lake occupies the lowest elevations of the Salton Sink in the Colorado Desert of Imperial and Riverside counties in Southern California. Like Death...
, an accidental, man-made, inland ocean.
CD-ROMs, which can be obtained from the center, provide interactive travel guides to such things as nuclear proving grounds around the world and views from the first highway in Antarctica.
CLUI also creates exhibits that are placed into the landscape to draw public interest, such as its "Suggested Photo Spot" project, a metaphorical pun on Kodak Corporation's
Eastman Kodak
Eastman Kodak Company is a multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquarted in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1892....
"Kodak Photo Spot
Kodak Photo Spot
A Kodak Photo Spot is a location with a Kodak-sponsored sign indicating a recommended spot from which to take a photograph. They are found in areas popular with tourists, and are particularly common in Disney theme parks...
s" which are placed in theme parks. One such spot is at the wastewater treatment plant of Kodak's company headquarters.
Another such exhibit featured "sound-emitting devices" in locations of interest. One of them was a device to emit the sound of lake waves gently lapping at the imaginary shore of Owens Lake, California
Owens Lake
Owens Lake is a mostly dry lake in the Owens Valley on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo County, California. It is located about south of Lone Pine, California...
, once 100 square miles (259 km²) of deep water, and now an alkali dust plain due to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is the largest municipal utility in the United States, serving over four million residents. It was founded in 1902 to supply water and electricity to residents and businesses in Los Angeles and surrounding communities...
, which has relied on the area as a water supply until the lake was completely depleted.
Books published by the center includes one on the original atomic tests, Nevada Test Sites. It produces a newsletter, Lay of the Land, at least once a year.