''Dreams of Power''

''Dreams of Power''

‘‘Dreams of Power’’ Peter Dowling 09006043 We as architects tend to avoid the question of the act of building, the motion of machines the action of cranes, the force of trucks and the labour of people, in this act we manipulate nature to fit our needs as a society to make the spaces in which we live. In the image above the artist is portraying a world free of fossil fuels it is a speculation based on an alternate history where the industrial revolution as we know it never happened, to me it begins to demonstrate the spatial implications of power in this world. We live in a time where energy is a real concern and has a future which is relatively uncertain. 1 ‘’you can’t change anything without expending energy’’ Fundamental to all life is the provision of energy, in our biosphere this comes fundamentally from our sun, evolution was fuelled by this reliable steady source over hundreds of millions of years. From the simple organisms which first perfected the process of photosynthesis in our oceans, the precursor to the evolution of trees and plant life that in turn provided energy in to the entire animal kingdom underpinning food chains both at land and at sea. Humanity first as a hunter gatherer and later as early agrarian societies also depended on this steady then mysterious source of energy, settlements appearing around systems of collective farming, and tribes existing within the natural systems of forests as hunter gatherers. The scales of these societies were essentially determined by their ability to reliably extract resources from nature (this limited earlier growth). These earliest of societies often fell victim to their acute reliance on natural systems; despite this the relative stability facilitated the accumulation of knowledge. by the time of the roman empire humanity's ability to adapt had begun to take effect, the romans learning from other civilisations that came before them attained a new mastery over nature tapping the power of water flows on a large scale for the first . ‘’YOU are probably reading this on a piece of ex-tree. Felled by a petrol-guzzling time allowing them to develop a more steady supply of food and water to their chainsaw, it was carted to a paper mill in a diesel-powered truck. Or perhaps these growing capital, advancements in transport (roads) allowed the empire to grow to sentences are on a tablet, with plastic components that started life as crude oil, and stable at a scale never seen before its scale capable firstly of supporting its capital, a metal smelted with coke produced from the tar sands of Canada. Either way, the city of one million people. words are probably lit with electricity from a coal-fired power station. Maybe you are even sipping wine, grown with fertiliser made using natural gas, in a glass created in In a way rome itself was the pinnacle of renewable civilisation, food shipped or 1 carted from the corners of the empire to feed the burgeoning capital a city powered an oil-fired furnace.’’ by nothing but the sun the air and the earth, over time for various reasons the roman empire eventually collapsed and with it the city of Rome also became but a spectre ! ! 1. Le Page, Michael . "What would a world without fossil fuels look like?." New Scientist 219, no. 2291 (2014): 10. 1. Le Page, Michael . "What would a world without fossil fuels look like?." New Scientist 219, no. 2291 (2014): 10. 2. Mumford, Lewis. The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 2. Mumford, Lewis. The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 1961. 3. Mumford, Lewis. "Technics of Agglomeration." In The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New 3. Mumford, Lewis. "Technics of Agglomeration." In The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: 3.Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 457. York: 3.Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 457. 4. Hawking, S. W.. "Our Future Star Trek Or Not." In The universe in a nutshell. New York: Bantam Books, 2001. 158. 4. Hawking, S. W.. "Our Future Star Trek Or Not." In The universe in a nutshell. New York: Bantam Books, 2001. 158. Mumford, Lewis. "The Invisible City ." In The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: 5. 5. Mumford, Lewis. "The Invisible City ." In The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 565. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 565. of its former self without an empire to sustain it, a city of its scale was not surpassed facilitated the rapid growth of urban centres above the existing population until the dramatic expansion of the city of London during the industrial revolution distribution. ‘’The dirt roads, the sail-power, the horse-power of the eotechnic transportation system had favoured a dispersal of the population: within the region, there were many points of equal advantage. But the relative weakness of the steam locomotive, which could not easily climb a grade steeper than two feet in a hundred, tended to 2 concentrate new industrial centres on the coal beds and in the connecting valleys’’ With this change in power source, the nature of production also shifted, steam worked best on a large scales as a result large scale production began to take over from the small scale, and a shift from local individual production to large scale operations functioning on a national level. The resultant economy was plentiful with resources which helped to nurture rapid technological development. Machines powered by coal heated steam ultimately replaced horse and river, coke refined steel became plentiful and began to revolutionise engineering and ultimately architecture, creating the structures and infrastructure needed to facilitate the rapid development ahead. ‘’In the last two hundred years, population growth has become exponential; that is, the population grows by the same percentage each year. Currently, the rate is about 1.9% a year. That may not sound like very much, but it means that the world population doubles every forty years. Other measures of technological development in recent times are electricity consumption and the number of scientific articles. They 3 too show exponential growth, with doubling times of less than forty years ‘’ while initially those who benefited from the industrial revolution, were those who existed at the top of the social order, over time the advantages of mass ! industrial production began to seep down to the masses, access to goods was increased which cheaper goods being accessible on a large scale, left The emergence of Britain as the world’s first industrial power (in a modern sense), was the first of the fledgling nation-states to take advantage of coal as a power surpluses facilitated rapid technological advancement, machinery became source, this relates to its limited land resources. As an island nation, its quantity of available which expedited agricultural processes, great transport systems forestry and large dam able rivers in by the 18th century according to the historian developed which began to make the world a smaller place. Rolf Sieferle were coming under strain with the growing requirements of metallurgy The age of the telegraph and early electrification furthered this process, and and food production respectively (and transport). ultimately the development of the internet and spaceflight demonstrate to us ‘’In Britain during the late 18th century some streams were so dammed up that no the contemporary of this globalising effect of surplus energy both physically 1 and abstractly, today we can communicate globally almost instantaneously, fresh power could be squeezed out of them’’ just as the international space station physically whirls around the earth at Timely technological developments in steam technology and the use of coke in the inconceivable speeds. production of steel began to erode the nation's relationship with its rivers and forests as a means of power and transport, this in the form of the railroad and the factory ! ! 1. Le Page, Michael . "What would a world without fossil fuels look like?." New Scientist 219, no. 2291 (2014): 10. 1. Le Page, Michael . "What would a world without fossil fuels look like?." New Scientist 219, no. 2291 (2014): 10. 2. Mumford, Lewis. The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 2. Mumford, Lewis. The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 1961. 3. Mumford, Lewis. "Technics of Agglomeration." In The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New 3. Mumford, Lewis. "Technics of Agglomeration." In The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: 3.Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 457. York: 3.Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 457. 4. Hawking, S. W.. "Our Future Star Trek Or Not." In The universe in a nutshell. New York: Bantam Books, 2001. 158. 4. Hawking, S. W.. "Our Future Star Trek Or Not." In The universe in a nutshell. New York: Bantam Books, 2001. 158. 5. Mumford, Lewis. "The Invisible City ." In The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: 5. Mumford, Lewis. "The Invisible City ." In The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 565. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961.

View Full Text

Details

  • File Type
    pdf
  • Upload Time
    -
  • Content Languages
    English
  • Upload User
    Anonymous/Not logged-in
  • File Pages
    12 Page
  • File Size
    -

Download

Channel Download Status
Express Download Enable

Copyright

We respect the copyrights and intellectual property rights of all users. All uploaded documents are either original works of the uploader or authorized works of the rightful owners.

  • Not to be reproduced or distributed without explicit permission.
  • Not used for commercial purposes outside of approved use cases.
  • Not used to infringe on the rights of the original creators.
  • If you believe any content infringes your copyright, please contact us immediately.

Support

For help with questions, suggestions, or problems, please contact us