73. On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo

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.

--

Intro/Outro: "I Still Wear the Uniform," by The Cooper Vane

--

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