Architectures of pestilence: Smallpox, tuberculosis, and the spatial control of epidemic disease

[摘要] By examining the spatial dialogue that arose to reconcile the opposing figures of smallpox and tuberculosis, it has been possible to trace a spatial or architectural transformation in which methods for protecting the body from disease have evolved into methods for protecting disease from the body. However, given that the threat of pestilence has always inspired defensive strategies based on redundancy, this transformation may be traced not only as it was unfolded at the scale of the individual body, but at the scale of the building, the city, the international network, and the natural order, as well. In separation out the products of these various scales of defense and allows them to read independently, it has been possible to show how solutions follow from the representation of the threat: the problem of pestilence having always been, however, that there was, at any time, more than one representation.

[发布机构] Rice University

[效力级别] health