Welcome to On Verticality. This blog explores the innate human need to escape the surface of the earth, and our struggles to do so throughout history. If you’re new here, a good place to start is the Theory of Verticality section or the Introduction to Verticality. If you want to receive updates on what’s new with the blog, you can use the Subscribe page to sign up. Thanks for visiting!

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Im Jahre 2000 : In the Year 2000
Snippet Christopher James Botham Snippet Christopher James Botham

Im Jahre 2000 : In the Year 2000

The early twentieth century was a time of optimism towards the future. Aeronautics and flight were on the public’s consciousness, and there was much speculation about how the future would look once humanity conquered the skies. Pictured here is one such vision. It’s from a set of six cards titled Im Jahre 2000, which is German for In the Year 2000. What’s interesting about the set is that three of the cards deal with flight.

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How You May Live and Travel in the City of 1950
Snippet Christopher James Botham Snippet Christopher James Botham

How You May Live and Travel in the City of 1950

Pictured above is a vision for a future city from 1925, which predicted what cities would look like in 1950. It’s quite an ambitious proposal, since it required sweeping urban changes to occur in only 25 years. The changes feature a vertical separation of city functions that start below the ground and end on top of skyscrapers.

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Skyscrapers of To-morrow
Snippet Christopher James Botham Snippet Christopher James Botham

Skyscrapers of To-morrow

Pictured above is a 1923 illustration showing Harvey Wiley Corbett’s idea for a future skyscraper. Corbett believed buildings would continue to get taller and wider, resulting in massive, slab-like structures with aircraft landing platforms on their roofs and multiple underground levels of traffic. He compares his concept with two iconic buildings of the time, the Eiffel Tower and the Woolworth Building. These were both the tallest in the world when completed, which really hits home the sheer scale of Corbett’s structure.

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En L’An 2000 :  In The Year 2000
Snippet Christopher James Botham Snippet Christopher James Botham

En L’An 2000 : In The Year 2000

Imagine a future where flight is commonplace, and the skies are full of flying people, including police officers, fire fighters, postman, and countless others, zipping around above our heads. That’s what a group of artists led by Jean-Marc Côté dreamed up in 1899 when asked to imagine light-hearted inventions that would contribute to the future. The result was a series of nearly 90 vignettes called En L’An 2000, which means In the Year 2000. The pieces were originally printed as cigarette cards, and later made into postcards. They include a variety of subjects, with a distinct focus on flight and flying machines.

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What We Are Coming To
Snippet Christopher James Botham Snippet Christopher James Botham

What We Are Coming To

If you wanted to cram every possible building type into a single structure, what might that structure look like? It’s a hell of a design problem, and the image above shows one artist’s idea of what it might look like. It’s an illustration by Grant E. Hamilton, called What We Are Coming To. It appeared in an 1895 issue of Judge magazine, with the headline ‘Judge’s combination apartment house of the future.’

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Cities of the Future from the Past
Snippet Christopher James Botham Snippet Christopher James Botham

Cities of the Future from the Past

It's always interesting to see how previous generations viewed the future of their cities. In particular, the early 20th century was a hotbed for this type of thinking due to the emergence of the skyscraper as a building type.

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