![]() | Modernism''s Visible Hand: Architecture and Regulation in America Subjects: Architecture and technology -- United States -- History; Architecture and society -- United States -- History; Buildings -- Environmental engineering -- United States -- History; Technological innovations -- Economic aspects -- United States -- History; R; A groundbreaking history of the confluence of regulatory thinking and building design in the United States Drawing on a range of previously unexplored archival resources, Michael Osman examines the increasing role of environmental technologies in building design from the late nineteenth century. He shows how architects appropriated and subsumed the work of engineers as thermostats, air handlers, and refrigeration proliferated. He argues that this change was closely connected to broader cultural and economic trends in management and the regulation of risk. The transformation shaped the evolution of architectural modernism and the development of the building as a machine. Rather than assume the preexisting natural order of things, participants in regulation--including architects, scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, managers, economists, government employees, and domestic reformers--became entangled in managing the errors, crises, and risks stemming from the nation's unprecedented growth. Modernism's Visible Hand not only broadens our conception of how industrial capitalism shaped the built environment but is also vital to understanding the role of design in dealing with ecological crises today. Michael Osman is associate professor of architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles. |
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