24 November 2011

Multi-Storey Streets ~ Historic Cross-Sections...

I love the history of the future -- i.e. looking at how people in past times imagined how tomorrow might become. Specifically, I'm interested in thinking about future cities and how to deal with multi-modal traffic, high density, mixed-use, congestion, safety, and more. So here's a look at how the urban planners and streetscape designers and transit engineers of a century ago thought things might go! First some 1911 ideas about Paris... Dreams of New York 1928... Under London as thought of in 1905... A Five-Storied Street in Cassier's Monthly 1913... Double-Deck Streets in Scientific American 1907... These last two illustrations from the Wishful Thinking chapter in MIT DUSP & History Professor Robert Fogelson's latest book, Downtown! And, of course, Fritz Lang's epic 1927 SF film, Metropolis! And here are two SciAm cross-section views from 1912 about Grand Central Station...

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