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Object Lessons
Air Conditioning
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Air conditioning aspires to be unnoticed. Yet, by manipulating the air around us, it quietly conditions the baseline conditions of our physical, mental, and emotional experience. From offices and libraries to contemporary art museums and shopping malls, climate control systems shore up the fantasy of a comfortable, self-contained body that does not have to reckon with temperature. At the same time that air conditioning makes temperature a non-issue in (some) people's daily lives, thermoception-or the sensory perception of temperature-is being carefully studied and exploited as a tool of marketing, social control, and labor management.
Yet air conditioning isn't for its reliance on carbon fuels divides the world into habitable, climate-controlled bubbles and increasingly uninhabitable environments where AC is unavailable. Hsuan Hsu's Air Conditioning explores questions about culture, ethics, ecology, and social justice raised by the history and uneven distribution of climate controlling technologies.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
Air conditioning aspires to be unnoticed. Yet, by manipulating the air around us, it quietly conditions the baseline conditions of our physical, mental, and emotional experience. From offices and libraries to contemporary art museums and shopping malls, climate control systems shore up the fantasy of a comfortable, self-contained body that does not have to reckon with temperature. At the same time that air conditioning makes temperature a non-issue in (some) people's daily lives, thermoception-or the sensory perception of temperature-is being carefully studied and exploited as a tool of marketing, social control, and labor management.
Yet air conditioning isn't for its reliance on carbon fuels divides the world into habitable, climate-controlled bubbles and increasingly uninhabitable environments where AC is unavailable. Hsuan Hsu's Air Conditioning explores questions about culture, ethics, ecology, and social justice raised by the history and uneven distribution of climate controlling technologies.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
- GenresTechnology
168 pages, Paperback
Published February 8, 2024
4 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 28, 2025
Air conditioning, like the automobile, is one of those technologies that was invented and then humanity threw away millennia of accumulated knowledge because, hey, this cheap and easy.
Hsuan L. Hsu does a masterful job of assessing the history and impact of air conditioning. He walks a balance, describing the stupid unsustainability of air conditioned bubbles that the affluent can move through while ignoring that they live in Florida or what have you in the summer and they should be experiencing some heat, while also acknowledging that things like cooling centers for the elderly are essential now that climate change has made hot summers in urban areas unsurviveable for some populations. The thermal ignorance of those who live their lives in air conditioned spaces versus the misery of the great uncooled masses, segregated in the US along racial lines and globally by wealth and national preference. Koreans, sensibly, believe that if you sleep with a fan on you, you will die, so, while most Korean homes have an air conditioner, their carbon emissions are less than other comparable countries who don't understand that sleeping in drafts is unhealthsome.
Air conditioner emissions are cooking the planet, and the more that developed countries try to stay cool, the more the un-airconditioned bake. Hsu references modern art exhibits about air conditioners a little too much. I know the Tate Modern isn't a small venue, but is three air conditioners dripping into a pan art? Art (the kind on paper and canvas), records, archives, and all the other documents held in vast cooled and dehumidified spaces; Hsu has some numbers about the emissions of individual libraries and museums that are staggering. The rejection of architectural techniques other than air conditioning, things like not building entirely out of glass, avoiding picture windows, thicker walls, window positioned to catch cross breezes, inner courtyards, and the like, all disappeared from public architecture and domestic architecture when builders adopted air conditioning. Cultural practices for staying cool, like siestas and spicy foods, are also disappeared in the face of air conditioning. Renewing a world where we make our own choices for thermal comfort, and we can just be hot sometimes, instead of relying on one terrible technology, is a goal that we need to embrace. Let's hope. Until then, I'm glad that the Object Lessons series is back to being awesome.
Hsuan L. Hsu does a masterful job of assessing the history and impact of air conditioning. He walks a balance, describing the stupid unsustainability of air conditioned bubbles that the affluent can move through while ignoring that they live in Florida or what have you in the summer and they should be experiencing some heat, while also acknowledging that things like cooling centers for the elderly are essential now that climate change has made hot summers in urban areas unsurviveable for some populations. The thermal ignorance of those who live their lives in air conditioned spaces versus the misery of the great uncooled masses, segregated in the US along racial lines and globally by wealth and national preference. Koreans, sensibly, believe that if you sleep with a fan on you, you will die, so, while most Korean homes have an air conditioner, their carbon emissions are less than other comparable countries who don't understand that sleeping in drafts is unhealthsome.
Air conditioner emissions are cooking the planet, and the more that developed countries try to stay cool, the more the un-airconditioned bake. Hsu references modern art exhibits about air conditioners a little too much. I know the Tate Modern isn't a small venue, but is three air conditioners dripping into a pan art? Art (the kind on paper and canvas), records, archives, and all the other documents held in vast cooled and dehumidified spaces; Hsu has some numbers about the emissions of individual libraries and museums that are staggering. The rejection of architectural techniques other than air conditioning, things like not building entirely out of glass, avoiding picture windows, thicker walls, window positioned to catch cross breezes, inner courtyards, and the like, all disappeared from public architecture and domestic architecture when builders adopted air conditioning. Cultural practices for staying cool, like siestas and spicy foods, are also disappeared in the face of air conditioning. Renewing a world where we make our own choices for thermal comfort, and we can just be hot sometimes, instead of relying on one terrible technology, is a goal that we need to embrace. Let's hope. Until then, I'm glad that the Object Lessons series is back to being awesome.
December 29, 2024
Surprisingly dynamic, compelling, and a delight to read! I sat down (in the cold comfort of air conditioning) and easily read it all in one go. Of the contemporary histories of air conditioning (the three of them), this is BY FAR the best.
December 12, 2024
Interesting read! Never thought that much about air conditioning before. It’s crazy how much it both impacts our lives and how much we take it for granted. Would love to read more books in this series about random objects/technologies. The perfect purse book I’ve dragged all over the place w me since buying it in PARIS!
August 12, 2024
This book makes compelling arguments against something so often taken for granted. The case against air conditioning, especially against the casual and unequal overuse of air conditioning, was eye-opening for me.
My one gripe would be that the author shows that AC contributes to climate change, and then frequently conflates climate change and AC usage, depicting an equality between decreasing temperature inside and increasing temperature outside. That equality creates stronger statements but weaker arguments.
Despite that complaint, this is valuable and quick read. I'd recommend it.
My one gripe would be that the author shows that AC contributes to climate change, and then frequently conflates climate change and AC usage, depicting an equality between decreasing temperature inside and increasing temperature outside. That equality creates stronger statements but weaker arguments.
Despite that complaint, this is valuable and quick read. I'd recommend it.
May 20, 2024
This was a refreshingly quick and interesting read, an eclectic book about air conditioning and society. We don't think about air conditioning enough, whether it's in our homes or on museums, factories and data servers, or in some of the movies and novels. Glad I got to read this just in time for summer!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews