notes.husk.org

Pylon construction diagram, from Makeshift’s Pylons of...

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:32:34 +0000

Pylon construction diagram, from Makeshift’s Pylons of Great Britain manifesto/booklet.

"As early as 1937 the architect John Leslie Martin could be found arguing in Circle, the avant-garde..."

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:19:25 +0000

“As early as 1937 the architect John Leslie Martin could be found arguing in Circle, the avant-garde casebook he edited with Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, that the ‘new aesthetic’ which would provide the subjects to match new developments of modern form and technique in the visual and plastic arts was to be sought ‘in the motor-car and the aeroplane, in the steel bridge and the line of electric pylons.’”

- James Purdon in Landscapes of Power, an article on pylons, poetry, and painting, from Apollo Magazine.

"Initially borrowed from Greek by French Egyptologists as a term for the gateway towers of Egyptian..."

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:02:34 +0000

“Initially borrowed from Greek by French Egyptologists as a term for the gateway towers of Egyptian temples, the word pylon had remained in current use in part because it had been applied to the steel towers used to mark the course in the new extreme sport of aircraft racing.”

- James Purdon in Landscapes of Power, an article on pylons, poetry, and painting, from Apollo Magazine. (Compare the British phrasing to the more prosaic “transmission towers” that Americans tend to use.)

Top: London Underground Circuit Map Radio by Yuri Suzuki,...

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:04:00 +0100

London Underground Circuit Map Radio

The Underground ‘straight eight’ all-electric skit-set circuit diagram

Top: London Underground Circuit Map Radio by Yuri Suzuki, 2012 (more here, here).

Bottom: The Underground ‘straight eight’ all-electric skit-set circuit diagram by Harry Beck, March 1933.

The power is on - so back off, a poster from the East London...

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:07:58 +0100

The power is on - so back off, a poster from the East London line’s late 1990s rebuilding at London Transport Museum’s Pick Mix site (thanks, Chris)

Three Mile Island, circa 1980, from Postcards of Mushroom...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:35:24 +0100

Three Mile Island, circa 1980, from Postcards of Mushroom Clouds at Slate.

"Metallic balloons that come in contact with power lines can short out electrical circuits, PG&E..."

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:00:05 +0000

“Metallic balloons that come in contact with power lines can short out electrical circuits, PG&E spokesman Joe Molica said. The problem is especially acute on Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, when many such balloons are in people’s hands.”

- Ellen Huet for SFGate: Metallic balloon zaps power for an hour in S.F.

San Francisco, I love* your shonky infrastructure.

Zack Sultan: My dad photographs the windmills he helps build in...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:42:05 +0000

Zack Sultan:

My dad photographs the windmills he helps build in various parts of the world. Pictured, Criterion — in the hills of western Maryland near Oakland.

That’s nice, that.

The Beauty Of Power Lines

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 01:37:00 +0100

The broadcast of BBC Four’s Secret History of the National Grid has, as you may have noticed, regenerated my interest in electricity pylons (partly aided by Joe Moran).

In Alain de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows Of Work, there’s an entire chapter on transmission infrastructure. In it, he mentions two notable books. One is apparently a Korean guide to pylons around the world, which, annoyingly, I have yet to track down.

However, the other, “De schoonheid van hoogspanningslijnen (in het Nederlandse landschap)”, or “The Beauty of Electricity Pylons in the Dutch Landscape”, definitely exists. Here’s an excerpt of a translation of the description:

An often heard opinion is that power lines the horizon visual pollution. The compilers of this publication believe that a conscious way of looking at other aspects of the power line to be apparent, and often there is a certain beauty. The beauty can both relate to the mast itself as the perspective effect of a beautifully designed range and how to measure the line indicates the underlying landscape. Preceded by a brief explanation about the function and typology of high-voltage lines, looks at the problems of designing a line entails.

I’d love to see a translation of the work; I suspect it’s not worth learning Dutch for by itself. It’s also great to see a re-appreciation of human creations as beauty - in the National Gallery there’s a Turner painting of Maidenhead Bridge being crossed by a steam locomotive, as well as a French picture of a railway station. More like this, please.

The coat of arms of North Korea, featuring a prominent...

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 22:32:00 +0100

The coat of arms of North Korea, featuring a prominent hydroelectric dam and electricity pylon.