Tower to Tower: Gigantism in Architecture and Digital Culture - Hardcover

Steiner, Henriette; Veel, Kristin

 
9780262043922: Tower to Tower: Gigantism in Architecture and Digital Culture
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0262043920 ISBN 13: 9780262043922
Publisher: The MIT Press, 2020

Synopsis

A cultural history of gigantism in architecture and digital culture, from the Eiffel Tower to the World Trade Center.

The gigantic is everywhere, and gigantism is manifest in everything from excessively tall skyscrapers to globe-spanning digital networks. In this book, Henriette Steiner and Kristin Veel map and critique the trajectory of gigantism in architecture and digital culture—the convergence of tall buildings and networked infrastructures—from the Eiffel Tower to One World Trade Center. They show how these two forms of gigantism intersect in the figure of the skyscraper with a transmitting antenna on its roof, a gigantic building that is also a nodal point in a gigantic digital infrastructure.

Steiner and Veel focus on two paradigmatic tower sites: the Eiffel Tower and the Twin Towers of the destroyed World Trade Center (as well as their replacement, the One World Trade Center tower). They consider, among other things, philosophical interpretations of the Eiffel Tower; the design and destruction of the Twin Towers; the architectural debates surrounding the erection of One World Trade Center on the Ground Zero site; and such recent examples of gigantism across architecture and digital culture as Rem Koolhaas's headquarters for China Central TV and the phenomenon of the “tech giant.” Examining the cultural, architectural, and media history of these towers, they analyze the changing conceptions of the gigantism that they represent, not just as physical structures but as sites for the projection of cultural ideas and ideals.

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About the Author

Henriette Steiner is Associate Professor at the Section for Landscape Architecture and Planning at the University of Copenhagen.

Kristin Veel is Associate Professor at the Department for Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
The MIT Press
Publication date
2020
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0262043920
ISBN 13 
9780262043922
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
248

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780262552042: Tower to Tower: Gigantism in Architecture and Digital Culture

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0262552043 ISBN 13:  9780262552042
Publisher: MIT Press, 2024
Softcover