The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication

(Paperback)

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A visually inspiring architectural history of the wire and its representations that illuminates the relationship between telecommunications, technology, and architecture. A visually inspiring architectural history of the wire and its representations that illuminates the relationship between telecommunications, technology, and architecture. The Architecture of the Wire explores the development of telecommunications infrastructure and its impact on the architectural and urban culture of the modern age-from poles, wires, and cables, to "micro-architectures," such as the the trophone and the telephone booth. Starting with the intrepid worldwide infrastructures of the late nineteenth century, Carlotta Dar proposes a new history that explores the multiple links and crossroads of such technical "things" with architecture and art. Based on extensive research of North American company archives, and French institutional ones, and drawing on secondary literature in art and architectural history, media studies, and the history of technology, Dar examines the aesthetic implications of material objects that have forever changed our urban, rural, and domestic environments.

Author Bio

Carlotta Dar is an art and architectural historian. She is Associate Professor at the Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture Paris-Malaquais and currently a guest senior researcher at ETH Zurich.