Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Professor Stephen Graham
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Entire libraries can be filled with volumes exploring the cultures, politics and geographies of the largely horizontal mobilities and transportation infrastructures that are intrinsic to urban modernity (highways, railways, subways, public transit and so on). And yet the recent ‘mobilities turn’ has almost completely neglected the cultural geographies and politics of vertical transportation within and between the buildings of vertically-structured cityscapes. Attempting to rectify this neglect, this paper seeks, first, to bring elevator travel centrally into discussions about the cultural politics of urban space, and, second, to connect elevator urbanism to the even more neglected worlds of elevator-based descent in ultra-deep mining. The paper addresses, in turn: the historical emergence of elevator urbanism; the cultural significance of the elevator as spectacle; the global ’race’ in elevator speed; shifts towards the ‘splintering’ of elevator experiences; experiments with new mobility systems which blend elevators and automobiles; problems of vertical abandonment; and, finally, the neglected vertical politics of elevator-based ‘ultra-deep’ mining.
Author(s): Graham S
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Theory, Culture and Society
Year: 2014
Volume: 31
Issue: 7-8
Pages: 239-265
Print publication date: 01/12/2014
Online publication date: 06/11/2014
Acceptance date: 01/01/2014
Date deposited: 30/09/2014
ISSN (print): 0263-2764
ISSN (electronic): 1460-3616
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0263276414554044
DOI: 10.1177/0263276414554044
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric