"Terrestrial Not by Nature and Essence": The Acclimatization Chamber as Surface Technology in South Africa, ca. 1958

Eardley examines the experimental design, corporate distribution, and routine use of the surface acclimatization chamber, or "climatic room" as a tool of management in apartheid South Africa. He proposes to consider the room as an architectural model of sorts, one that was elaborated and r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGrey room Vol. 84; no. 84; pp. 64 - 85
Main Author Eardley, Megan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209, USA MIT Press 26.08.2021
MIT Press Journals, The
Subjects
Apartheid
Human resource management
Industrial production
Mining industry
South Africa
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Summary:Eardley examines the experimental design, corporate distribution, and routine use of the surface acclimatization chamber, or "climatic room" as a tool of management in apartheid South Africa. He proposes to consider the room as an architectural model of sorts, one that was elaborated and refined by the extractive industry in the middle of the twentieth century to test and remake the relationship between the body and the earth. Its significance lies not only in the treatment of mine workers but in its function as a testing site to develop management methods that have far-reaching consequences for "the human" in environments that are hostile to biological life. Within architectural history, the climatic chamber belongs to a long line of experimental spaces designed to increase and improve industrial production.
Bibliography:2021
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ISSN:1526-3819
1536-0105
DOI:10.1162/grey_a_00328