For years, illustrator R. Crumb has kept sketch books filled with power lines and other everyday urban “junk” as reference for his work. To paraphrase: it’s easier to copy than it is to invent, let alone comprehend. Of course, all that industrial bric-a-brac doesn’t have to remain a mystery.<\/p>\n
Combining photos and clear, occasionally poetic descriptions, this thorough almanac deconstructs the general architecture and much of the minutiae found throughout the modernized world. From power and water plants to railroads, highways, airports, bridges, dams, docks, municipal dumps, and industries like ag and mining, the book illuminates the subtle and not-so-subtle: Manhole covers are round, making them easy to roll and impossible to fall in; huge rotary kilns force water out of mineral products; AEI scanners monitor railroad cars; the rooflines of mill buildings cascade since these operations use gravity to move materials from one section down to the next.<\/p>\n
The industrial ecology of a utility pole (excerpted below) and drill down on the power grid is what first hooked me. Choke coils, lightning arresters, bushings? I couldn’t have picked them out of a police line-up if my life depended on it. Not anymore!<\/p>\n