

Carlotta Daro, "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication" (MIT Press, 2025)
Oct 5, 2025
Joining the discussion is Carlotta Darò, an architectural historian and author of 'The Architecture of the Wire,' who delves into the evolution of telecommunications infrastructure and its influences on urban culture. She explores how 19th-century technologies—like telephone booths and micro-architectures—shaped societal spaces. Carlotta highlights the often-overlooked contributors to this tale, from engineers to everyday users, and reveals the intersection of art with telecommunication. She also hints at her exciting future research on acoustics and immersive experiences.
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Archive-Driven Origin Story
- Carlotta Darò developed the project during a Mellon postdoc in Montreal and researched AT&T and Bell Labs archives.
- She gathered heterogeneous archival material and powerful images that became the visual backbone of the book.
Keyword Structure Reveals Thematic Threads
- Darò structures the book around keywords like matter, aesthetics, technique, imaginary, wireless, law, planning, public, booth, and ubiquity.
- This keyword approach creates thematic cross-sections linking material objects to cultural and architectural meanings.
The Théâtrophone Entertainment Experiment
- Darò recounts the théâtrophone, a Parisian service using telephone infrastructure to broadcast theater and opera to urban audiences.
- She frames it as an early leisure application that used city networks for entertainment for fifty years.