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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Winstanley's Eddystone Lighthouse
Lighthouse design is all about visibility. These small towers act as beacons for ships at night, alerting captains to various landforms and aiding in navigation. The taller these buildings are, the further away they can be seen. Therefore, the effectiveness of any given lighthouse is based on verticality. Pictured above is the first recorded offshore lighthouse in the world. It was built from 1696 to 1698 off the coast of Southern England, on a shallow reef known as the Eddystone Rocks.
Earth, Air, Water and Fire : The Verticality of The Classical Elements
Throughout human history, our ancestors have created myriad different theories and ideas to explain our world and how it’s composed. One theory was common to nearly all early civilizations, and it identified four basic elements: earth, air, water and fire. If we examine these four elements and pick apart the relationships between them, we’ll find verticality at the center of it all.