A geography of big things

Abstract: This paper sketches some conceptual tools by which cultural geographers might advance geographies of architecture. It does so by thinking specifically about one architectural form: the modernist residential highrise, which is the ‘big thing’ of this paper. The paper draws on recent developments in material semiotics in order to interrogate features often uniquely associated with the highrise, such as its global reach, uniformity, and scale. The paper first rethinks how cultural geography has traditionally explained the movement of built forms, explicitly turning from diffusionist accounts to the notion of translation. It then offers a reconsideration of the way geographers might think about scale in relation to a ‘big’ and ‘global’ thing like the modernist highrise, arguing that scale is produced relationally and in specific contexts. Finally, it offers a template for cultural geographical scholarship which takes seriously the technical work entailed in things, like a highrise, mat

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Postprint ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Cultural Geographies ; 13 (2006) 1 ; 1-27

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Architektur

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (when): 2006
• Creator: Jacobs, Jane M.

Further information

• DOI: 10.1191/1474474006eu354oa
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-232728
• Rights: Open Access unbekannt; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:49 PM CET