'à es us e ct n s, es - Sexton Digtial Initiatives - Dalhousie University

fig. 63. cOnstructiOn site Of the “city built in 135 dAys.” A rAilcAr distributes
Precut ArchitecturAl cOmPOnents frOm lOt tO lOt. | sOciété histOrique du sAguenAy.
Hotel Company (1900) and Shawinigan
Falls Arena Company (1910) to develop
part of Shawinigan. South of the border
in Beloit, Wisconsin, the Fairbanks Morse
Company, before significantly scaling
back on the scope of their project, created
Eclipse Home-Makers110 to carry out it out.
Yet if none of these projects came close
to rivalling Arvida’s 270 houses in so
many models in 135 days, it was because
the Aluminum Company of America and
the Aluminum Company of Canada had
successfully and profitably pushed the
economic system to its limits, making a
bundle by doing it with an implacably
“systematic organization.” The Arvida
construction site, designed as much to
attract purchasers and workers as investors,
gigantic in scale due to the diversity
of models and the number of houses
all going up at the same time, required
an unprecedented degree of planning.
House models were first distributed on
“House Designation Charts.” with the
resulting diversity carefully mapped out
in the blocks of the first phase. Excavation
of sites began on June 15, 1926, followed
by assembly of formwork for the concrete
JSSAC | JSÉAC 36 > N o 1 > 2011
foundations, reused from house to house.
Precut framing components (from a sawmill
set up near the site), duly identified
according to sets of detailed plans referring
to the house model in question, were
delivered on railcars running along tracks
following the future streets from lot to
lot. The houses could then be assembled
with a hammer and nails. “They fitted
so nicely,” it was said, “that house after
house was put up without a saw being
used on the framing” (fig. 63). It was
like the Alcoa, Tennessee site before it
but even more efficient, and was the
talk of the town. “Houses are being built
[in Arvida] in much the same fashion as
Henry Ford builds automobiles, with the
exception that the carpenters go to the
work instead of having the work come
to them.” All that was left was to watch
and monitor its growth, in detail, using
plumbing, interior painting, and other
“progress charts” (fig. 64). The assembly
line that was Arvida churned out a new
house every five hours.
It is hardly surprising that, like the colour
plan and house images, the city construction
site itself became an “object of
Lucie K. Morisset > aNalysis | aNalyse
fig. 64. ArvidA wOrks, “PrOgress chArt: ArvidA hOuses 1926-27,”
July 24, 1926. | ville de sAguenAy.
representation,” a key part of the company
brand. The Aluminum Company
of America photographed it from every
angle and invited distinguished visitors
such as the prime minister and presidents
of the Engineering Institute of Canada
and the Mellon National Bank, who could
in 1926 attest Arvida’s manifestation as
much more than a paper city. The “huge
investment in Canada” 111 announced in
April 1926 was also reported breathlessly
in September’s New York Times:
“In three months, 300 houses have been
erected and two churches are being
built” 112 (fig. 65).
Thus it was as Garnier foresaw: the industrial
conditions that conjured Arvida in
the first place were what allowed it to
become real.
epilogUe
After the completion of this initial phase,
the city continued to spread across the
surrounding countryside until the 1960s.
A fitting object of representation for a
multinational in constant expansion,
it could take pride in its catalogue of
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