About this Blog

What is On Verticality?

On Verticality is a blog that explores the human need to escape the surface of the earth through vertical means, and our complex relationship with verticality throughout our history. From our first vertical act of standing upright to our conquering of the skies through flight and skyscraper construction, much of our efforts through history have been to escape the surface we exist on. The human struggle with verticality is eternal, ubiquitous, and has been fought by every member of our species who has ever lived.

I use the term verticality to mean our vertical relationship to our surroundings. This is a combination of our upright, bipedal bodies and our connection to the axis-mundi, which is an imaginary axis pointing towards the center of the earth. Gravity acts along this axis and pulls us down, confining us to the surface. This is the root of all our angst over escaping the surface, and lays the groundwork for a constant struggle throughout our history.

Interested in reading more? A good place to start is the Theory of Verticality or the Introduction to Verticality.

Who Am I?

I'm an architect who began my career with a passion for tall buildings and the effects they have on the people who experience them. This passion has since expanded to include all aspects of the human relationship with verticality, tapping into my interests in evolutionary psychology, anthropology, biology, anatomy and human pre-history. This blog represents the fruits of these interests.

My thoughts and theories on verticality have grown over time, and led me to begin writing a couple books on the subject. This blog is a way of getting my thoughts out into the world, and the main verticality narrative is a first attempt at organizing the content of the first book. The project has evolved countless times since I first sat down to write an outline, and this blog will be no different. It will be a mixture of structured posts that tie into the larger verticality narrative, as well as isolated musings on specific topics. I'm constantly absorbing new and old material on the subject, and I post the raw and not-so-raw findings here. Cheers!