Mankind’s quest for verticality has an underexplored dimension:
the queasy feeling of vertigo many experience when close to the edge of a sheer drop. Davide Deriu, Reader in Architectural History and Theory at the University of Westminster, London, has taken on the relative lack of research into the subject with an interdisciplinary approach, captured in his book On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo. Come, stand on the edge with us.
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Intro/Outro: “Vertigo” by U2
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Discussed:
Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
Vertical: The City from Satellites to Bunkers, Stephen Graham, 2016
Vertigo in the City program at University of Westminster, 2015
The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, Roland Barthes, 1979
Funambulism
Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet – Niagara Falls wire walk, 1859
Philippe Petit, World Trade Center wire walk, 1974
Jan Gehl on humans’ “natural” habitat in horizontal planes
Singapore’s HDB social high-rises
Mies’ insertion of ventilation grilles in front of the glass curtain wall at the Seagram Building, 1958
Prosper Meniere, father of the vestibular sciences
Listen On
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