Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape (review)

Infrastructure is a hard work to review. It does not fit neatly into any category. In some ways it combines elements of "how things work" manuals with photographic studies of industrial landscapes, such as those produced by Bernd and Hilla Becher. Brian Hayes calls his volume a field guide, but physically it is too large and bulky to serve that function easily, falling more readily onto the coffee table. It is not, strictly speaking, history of technology, for it focuses on contemporary, manmade technological artifacts. And yet it frequently refers to the technological past, and it vividly demonstrates key themes in the history of technology, such as the importance of thinking in terms of systems and the close links between technology and its social matrix.

The caption of the first of Infrastructure's more than five hundred color illustrations, an image that shows some curious-looking structures mounted on a rooftop, begins with two questions: What is it? and What does it do? Essentially, these questions are what this "field guide" is all about. Instead of being organized around plant or animal species or subspecies, as a nature field guide would be, Infrastructure is organized around technological species and subspecies. Each of the volume's thirteen chapters focuses on a particular technological system or group of closely related systems, such as mining (underground, open pit, quarrying), waterworks (both supply and disposal), power plants, communications, roads, and aviation. Within each chapter Hayes uses well-selected photographs and nicely written text to explain how the associated systems operate, to identify the technological objects related to those systems, and to describe what those objects do. For instance, in the chapter on the electrical power grid, Hayes not only describes step-by-step how electricity is generated and transmitted, he also tells how to distinguish between an AC high-tension line and a DC high-tension line and how to identify the myriad of objects one might see on, or associated with, high-tension lines (lightning arresters, vibration dampers, transformers, the different types of insulators, bright orange balls, and so on).

Hayes's explanations of the objects that make up the manmade landscape—from silos and water towers to landfills and sewage plants—are clear and often delivered with wit and humor. He avoids obscure technological jargon, frequently explaining the complex in terms of the more familiar and ordinary—for instance, describing the terrace design of open-pit mines as an upside-down wedding cake. His color photographs add immeasurably to the explanations. They are skillfully composed and carefully integrated with the text, and their extended captions alert readers to key points.

Those wanting a critical view of the impact of technology on the landscape or on society may be somewhat disappointed by this volume, which is generally nonjudgmental. Hayes argues that manmade structures can have just as much aesthetic appeal as nature. This is not to say that he does not address environmental and social issues. He frequently touches on such concerns—as he does on the history of technology and the social context of technology—but in passing only. The focus of the volume is how to identify the technological artifacts that cover the modern landscape and how to understand how they fit into technological systems.

Hayes has provided a very engaging read. It reawakened my awareness to the technological world I see around me every day but had come largely to ignore. In every chapter I learned something new, from the mysterious numbers often painted on airport runways (they indicate the magnetic bearing of the runway) to why the drums of concrete trucks rotate at different speeds (depends on whether the driver is mixing the components or simply preventing the aggregate from settling out). Because Hayes does such an excellent job in explaining technological artifacts and how deeply they are embedded in our culture, it is not surprising that the Society for the History of Technology awarded Infrastructure...