Architects are visionaries. Ever since Romulus slew his brother for the right to create the Eternal City, thinkers and design¬ers of urban life have not ceased to envision cities whose buildings, monuments, and thorough¬fares would not only serve (or control) city-dwellers, but also exalt the rulers and astonish travellers. But the multitudinous visions create a labyrinth of choices: to create flat cities? high cities? glass cities? green cities? Between utopias and dystopias, how can one determine which visions of life are best?
Paris and the Daguerrotype
It is January 7, 1839. A proud Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, one-time partner of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, discoverer of the earliest photographic process, is explaining his own image-making process, the daguerreotype, to the French Academy of Sciences. Continue reading “Paris and the Daguerrotype”