Re: Architecture and Electricity

Brian:

A couple of things that you should look at:

A year or two ago, there was a show at New York's Urban Center Gallery (run
by NYC's Municipal Art Society) that essentially catalogued the different
types of electrical structures (poles, towers etc.) found on Long Island. A
book was published of this show by, I believe, the Princeton Architectural
Press. I can't remember the name of the person who did the show or the
show's title, but you might be able to track it through either the publisher
(they have offices in Manahttan) or the MAS. I suspect that Urban Center
Books (212-935-3592) carries the book.

You might want to check out the books of photography by the Bechers, a
husband and wife team who take gorgeous photos of structural features such as
water towers.

And I don't think you should quickly generalize about the universality of the
structures built to carry electrical cables. While the function of these
structures, like the function of columns, is more or less the same from place
to place, the design (or the architecture) varies. If you examine photos
from the former Soviet Union and its ex-satellites, or even India, or China,
you'll find the range of solutions is broader than you might expect.

One of the striking features of the landscape in what used to be East Germany
is the preponderance of pipelines running above ground, making arches over
roads and obstacles. I guess it was cheaper not to bury them, easier to make
repairs. Anyway, my point is that even very basic infrastructural tasks can
be handled in many different ways.

Good luck.

--Karrie Jacobs
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