Full Gallery — VCU Patterns of Place

Allison Ewing, Piedmont

Helene Renard, Mountains

Allison Ewing, Piedmont

Helene Renard, Mountains

Kevin Jones, Mountains

Camden Whitehead, Coastal Plains

Kevin Jones, Mountains

James Hill, Coastal Plains

Allison Ewing, Piedmont

James Hill, Coastal Plains

James Hill, Piedmont

James Hill, Coastal Plains

James Hill, Piedmont

Kevin Jones, Mountains

Modest country churches mark the landscape in small rural communities. Cars in an informal yard create a pattern of human gathering.

Kevin Jones, Mountains

The ‘holler’ or ‘hollow’ is ubiquitous in the mountains of SW Virginia. These networks of narrow valleys between ridges form a central organizing principle in human settlement and are often associated with coal mining. In order to avoid going up and down the mountains, railroads (and later on, roads) followed the contours of the river bank and to this day allow for the export of coal from the Appalachian coalfields.

Kevin Jones, Mountains

Lines of ‘deforestation’ allow for electrical transmission lines to traverse the mountain ridges of SW Virginia. These long, impossibly straight scars cut across the landscape and mark an interruption in the pattern of native forest and rolling hills.

Kevin Jones, Mountains

The coal-fired Glen Lyn Power Plant ceased operation in 2015. Its hulking mass still sits along the New River in Giles County, very near the border with West Virginia. A deep pit adjacent to the power plant contains remnants of coal, which erode and shift with the rains.

Kevin Jones, Mountains

Part of a line of several hundred round hay bales wrapped in plastic in a field near the WNRV AM radio broadcast station. This pattern of agricultural production is typical during the fall and winter in rural SW Virginia. Submitted by Kevin Jones

Kevin Jones, Mountains

Concrete piers stand sentry in the New River where the Glen Lyn railroad trestle, completed in 1909, once stood. It is not uncommon to run across remnants of forgotten infrastructure while navigating the New River.

John Malinoski, Coastal Plains

Helene Renard, Mountains

This split-rail fence is one of many fence types seen along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Helene Renard, Mountains

Base and stair at shelter entrance

Helene Renard, Mountains

Shelter roof structure

Helene Renard, Mountains

Rocky Knob Shelter

Helene Renard, Mountains

View of overlapping roof segments of the framers market shelter in Blacksburg

Helene Renard, Mountains

As documented in Visual Character of the Blue Ridge Parkway (U.S. Dept of the Interior/NPS), this shelter was the first building constructed on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is “constructed of exposed heavy, square chestnut timbers erected on a base of horizontally laid stone. The floor is flagstone. The roof is made of hand-split oak shakes on exposed wood purlins. The building is a good example of early rustic park architecture.”

Helene Renard, Mountains

Detail of joint at farmers market timber structure

Mimi Sadler, Piedmont

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