The Architecture of the Wire

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 théâtrophone and the telephone booth. Starting with the intrepid worldwide infrastructures of the late nineteenth century, Carlotta Darò 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, Darò examines the aesthetic implications of material objects that have forever changed our urban, rural, and domestic environments.Preface
1 Matter: Anatomy of the Line
2 Aesthetics: The Sublime and the Ugly
3 Technics: From the Line to the Network, the American Regional Model
4 Imaginary: The Eutopia of Connectivity
5 Wireless: Theories of the Invisible
6 Law: The Public and Private Spheres
7 Planning: Conduits of Sound
8 Public: Au théâtre chez soi
9 Booth: The Public Post
10 Ubiquity: Finder of Men
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index“The electrical wire is a ‘pipeline’ that serves ‘multiple media functions’, Darò argues in this sparky survey.”
—Apollo Magazine

“[The Architecture of the Wire] is packed with anecdotes, archive photos and artistic interpretations. It will make you stop and look at poles and antennas and will remind you how much digital technologies owe to the technological elements of the 19th century.”
—we make money not artCarlotta Darò is an art and architectural historian. She is Associate Professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris-Malaquais and currently a guest senior researcher at ETH Zurich.