Air Conditioning: Taming the Climate as a Dream of Civilization

Air Conditioning: Taming the Climate as a Dream of Civilization begins with an anecdotal story about the oppressive heat of a Singaporean summer. Heat that clings to the skin and thickens the air demands special consideration towards daily activities, unless granted access to the air conditioned network of the indoor world. Air conditioning is a relatively new technological phenomenon, it was initially designed for printing and meat production facilities, and only began to be used to cool humans in the 1920s. However, humans controlling their climates and environments is nowhere close to new. The creation of heat in cold temperatures through fire, shelter, and clothing are all ancient methods of climate control. Landscape alteration for crop cultivation has impacted climates locally for centuries. The idea that culture and behavior is affected by climate is just as old. Issues begin to arise when superiority is asserted–colonizers declaring that their (European, temperate) climate produces the best of mankind, and the opposing climate (Equatorial, tropical) produces laziness and hedonism. Today, climate is an optional thing, at least to those who can afford it. Seasonal rotation disrupts the unending production and strictly linear growth of capitalism. Air conditioning is the primary tool of indoor climate standardization, and in its usage contributes to increasing climate volatility. To end on an anecdote, I grew up in a house in Seattle that does not have central air conditioning; most houses built or remodeled there before the 2010s do not have air conditioning. Only in the past few years has it gotten hot enough to make air conditioning feel necessary. We must learn to live in the discomfort of heat before our AC emissions overtake us, and the heat becomes truly dangerous.

Horn, Eva, “Air Conditioning: Taming the Climate as a Dream of Civilization.” in Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary, The Avery Review, no. 16, 2016.