Page 7 - Vertical City

INTRODUCTION

We can all remember the excitement and joy of our
first tree house; it’s a childhood memory that probably
remains forever.

For a family or a community it was, nonetheless, dif-
ficult to inhabit high places whether for safety, to spare
tillable land in places where such plots were rare or
susceptible to flooding, or for many other reasons and
constraints.

Building shelters on such sites was daunting and
we can but admire the ingenuity of their builders. The
Meteora in Greece, the walled cities of Shibam and
Sanaa in Yemen, or the perched monasteries built on
the vertiginous cliffs of India and Tibet are extraordi-
nary examples.

The second industrial revolution 1 with the initial
invention of the mechanical lift followed by numerous
discoveries and innovations during the 20th century,
particularly in the past twenty years, have modified
conditions. If it has been possible to live in comfort in
high dwellings for the past century, it has become affor-

1 ATACE: Automobile, Telecommunication, Aviation, Chemistry,
Electricity.