The tallest man made structures in the world from 1311 until 1880, were Cathedrals (prior to this date the record was held by the pyramids in Egypt). Unlike commercial skyscrapers, where designing tall buildings translates into increased profits, in the case of cathedrals the motivation was more symbolic: to communicate the power of the church, and to reach closer to heaven. In order to reach these ever greater heights, advancements in construction techniques were required, including the pointed arch and the flying buttress. Relying on trial and error, these technologies were pushed to their limits and beyond, resulting at times in collapse, such as at the Cathedral of St Pierre de Bauvais in the North of France.

Beauvais Cathedral, which started construction in 1225, was designed to have the highest vault of any church in Europe, at 154 feet. The extreme height, however, led to structural vulnerabilities, and in 1284 (two years after its completion) a portion of the vault collapsed. While the vault was repaired and construction on the remainder of the cathedral resumed, an even greater calamity befell the church in the 1570′s when its 500 foot tower toppled to the ground with parishioners still inside (they survived). To this day, Beauvais remains structurally deficient, with temporary vaults propping up its buckling piers. The above laser scans of the Cathedral were taken in 2001 by the Media Center for Art History and the Robotics Lab at Columbia University in an effort to analyze the structural forces at play.

Inspired by the Eiffel Tower, the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky imagined an earth-anchored structure reaching out into space. Thus, the concept of the space elevator was born in 1895. Tsiolkovsky described a ‘celestial castle’ fastened to the Earth by a multi-stranded cable. The ‘castle’ would be locked into a geostationary orbit, meaning it would revolve with the Earth, remaining parallel to the same location. As evinced by Tsiolkovsky’s evocative drawings, notions of space elevators began as romantic, faraway visions.

As the understanding of physics has expanded since Tsiolkovsky’s time, it is possible to tangibly anticipate the reality of the space elevator, as Arthur C. Clarke did in his novel Fountains of Paradise. In this piece of science fiction, Tsiolkovsky’s romanticism gives way to a modern, rational imagining of the space elevator. In the book, Clarke describes a thin but strong ‘hyperfilament’ that makes the elevator possible. Although the ‘hyperfilament’ is constructed from a fictional diamond crystal in the novel, Clarke later expressed his belief that another type of carbon — Buckminsterfullerene — would be a suitable substitute in a real space elevator. Recent innovations in carbon nanotube technology further increase the chances of an actual elevator.

Although it was not possible to realize the space elevator at the time of Fountains of Paradise’s publication, the strength of the book’s ideas motivated scientists to pursue… more

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva

While the Mad Max trilogy was filmed almost entirely in Australia (launching Mel Gibson’s career), its visual language was thereafter adopted by the anarchist and gangster rap sub-cultures of America’s West Coast. The films, released in the early 1980s, relied on a dystopian punk aesthetic: dust, grease, blood and engine parts. These visual cues paralleled a storyline depicting a world in chaos.

The Burning Man Festival, staged yearly in the desert in Nevada, is perhaps the most overt celebration of the post apocalyptic anarchistic aesthetic of the films (although firearms and motor vehicles are prohibited at the event). Just as in Barterville from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the Burning Man organization claims that ‘there are no rules about how one must behave or express oneself’ at the festival—a polite version of lawlessness. In addition, one of the central features of the festival is a full sized re-creation of the Thunderdome, erected by the Death Guild (a San Francisco punk music label), where nightly death matches are held (no one has actually died, as foam batons take the place of actual weapons). In recent years, pranksters replaced the Thunderdome signage with a banner reading ‘Hot Topic’, the name of a popular chain that markets goth merchandise to bored suburban teenagers—perhaps a critique of the Death Guild’s ode to a movie that grossed $36,000,000 domestically for Warner Brothers in 1985 and a reflection on the absurdity of a sanitized death ring.

The anarchist community was not the only Californian sub-culture to adopt the Mad Max aesthetic. The themes of anarchy and lawlessness were equally relevant to the West Coast gangster rap scene of the 90′s, which romanticized brutality against the police, violent crime and the drug trade. The video for Tupac Shakur’s California Love is said to have… more

While the West Coast of Sri Lanka has experienced a lot of turmoil over the years, it managed to escape the worst effects of the war and the tsunami, events that ravaged other parts of the country. The focal point of the West Coast is Colombo, the island’s main harbor and former capital. It is a place that most strongly reflects evidence of Sri Lanka’s three colonial regimes: the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English. These powers left behind a non-vernacular architectural legacy imported directly from their colonial homelands. In contrast, recent times have seen a diplomatic shift in how foreign parties are approaching building in Sri Lanka as evinced by the newly built British High Commission in Colombo.

The British High Commission was designed by Scottish architect Richard Murphy in collaboration with Sri Lankan architect Milroy Perera, a former colleague of Geoffrey Bawa’s. The design is heavily influenced by Bawa in regards to its formal layout and use of a rich variety of local materials. In this building, the presence of sixteen internal and peripheral courtyards are a dominant recurring device, with variations that range from pools to gardens. Murphy had previously proposed courtyards for Jesus College, Cambridge, but similar precedents can also be found locally in Sri Lanka. Examples of similar forms can be seen at Sigiriya which is a fifth-century fortress that is topped with a series of pools and many of Bawa’s designs such as the Bluewater Hotel which also contain courtyards and pools. While the design heavily references local architectural traditions, the building is also clearly influenced by the the architectural works of celebrated Western architects such as Carlo Scarpa’s Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice and Louis Khan’s National Assembly Building in Dhaka. As a result of this inclusive approach, Murphy’s embassy serves as an ambassador for current British architecture, reflecting a respectful contemporary attitude towards its host.

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva

This past summer I drove across country, from New York City, to Los Angeles. A close friend was starting life anew, re-birthing, and my task was to guide her through the amniotic fluid of America with the aid of a GPS, road map, and a copy of Hamburgers Across America. The view driving across the Goethals Bridge, from Staten Island into New Jersey, provided our last glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean. We had technically left the East Coast, and it was only a half hour into our journey. That afternoon, for our last Eastern meal, we stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s at the side of the highway.

For the remainder of the trip, all five days, we searched for hints that we were getting closer to the West. We started to place bets on when we would see the first sunflower, the first mountain, the first cactus (the cactus would remain elusive). While the changes were at first subtle, slowly the scenery shifted: hilly green pastures in Kansas, dry open expanses in Colorado and fiery orange mountains in Arizona. It was not until we became completely disoriented by the sights that surrounded us, that we realized that we had at last reached the West. But on reaching the West, we wanted nothing more than the familiarity of the East. We stopped for lunch at Burger King, kept our radio tuned to NPR, and slept at the same Hilton Garden Inn’s that we had frequented in Kansas City and Columbus.

As we entered Las Vegas we got braver with our surroundings, taking the time, in the desert heat, to admire the fountains at the Bellagio Casino, rising and falling to Celine Dion’s power ballad My Heart Will Go On. We abandoned our familiar Eastern fast-food haunts for an all-you-can-eat Vegas buffet. Having driven across nothing but desert for the past couple of days, they were now more familiar to us than the verdant landscapes back East. As we… more

Following the devastation of Sri Lanka’s 2004’s tsunami much foreign aid was provided for reconstruction. The government’s Reconstruction and Development Agency (RADA) has released reports stating that ‘by December 2007, nearly 100,000 houses had been provided nationwide, out of a needs assessment of 117,372 units. In January 2008, RADA reported a reconstruction rate of over 90%’. However, this reconstruction aid was unevenly distributed across the island.

Although the Eastern Coast was hit the hardest, the bulk of the rebuilding took place in the South, leaving the Eastern and Northern Coasts struggling to recover from the devastation. Many attribute this disparity to the division between the area controlled by the Sri Lankan government (the Southern Coast) and that which, up until May of 2008, was controlled by the Tamil Tigers (parts of the East Coast and the entire Northern region). The Southern parts of the country have benefited enormously from the rebuilding, with the improved housing and infrastructure leading to greater productivity and an improving regional economy. World Vision reports that ‘incomes in the South are now higher than pre-tsunami levels, whereas in the East incomes have dropped 25% lower than pre-tsunami levels’. The East and particularly the North have not been able to recover from this disaster, a circumstance that has been exacerbated by close to thirty years of civil war.

Given that the war has come to an end, the recently re-elected government may want to consider the tremendous opportunity they have to reunite the country and stimulate long-term development. Allowing the Eastern Coast, leading up to the North, to tap into the socio-economic benefits of reconstruction could not only relieve the plight of those who have been suffering for years, if not decades, but may work to strengthen the chances of a peaceful, prosperous future for everyone.

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva