The Grid Book

by Hannah B. Higgins

Ten grids that changed the the emergence and evolution of the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. Emblematic of modernity, the grid is the underlying form of everything from skyscrapers and office cubicles to paintings by Mondrian and a piece of computer code. And yet, as Hannah Higgins makes clear in this engaging and evocative book, the grid has a history that long predates modernity; it is the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. In The Grid Book , Higgins examines the history of ten grids that changed the the brick, the tablet, the gridiron city plan, the map, musical notation, the ledger, the screen, moveable type, the manufactured box, and the net. Charting the evolution of each grid, from the Paleolithic brick of ancient Mesopotamia through the virtual connections of the Internet, Higgins demonstrates that once a grid is invented, it may bend, crumble, or shatter, but its organizing principle never disappears. The appearance of each grid was a watershed event. Brick, tablet, and city gridiron made possible sturdy housing, the standardization of language, and urban development. Maps, musical notation, financial ledgers, and moveable type promoted the organization of space, music, and time, international trade, and mass literacy. The screen of perspective painting heralded the science of the modern period, classical mechanics, and the screen arts, while the standardization of space made possible by the manufactured box suggested the purified box forms of industrial architecture and visual art. The net, the most ancient grid, made its first appearance in Stone Age Finland; today, the loose but clearly articulated networks of the World Wide Web suggest that we are in the middle of an emergent grid that is reshaping the world, as grids do, in its image.

Genres: Art, Design, Nonfiction

300 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2009

Reviews

[Stuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, this book is about ten different types of grid - bricks, tablets, gridiron (cities), maps, notation (musical), ledgers (accounting), screens, typography, boxes, and networks (interwebs) - each type of grid gets a chapter, and the order is roughly chronological according to when that grid was introduced into western culture. The chapters tend to focus on the history of a particular technology's adoption, then talk about what makes that particular instance of the grid-form unique. The intent in most chapters seems to be to illustrate the singular particularity of the historical circumstance that created that grid form, and the ways it has evolved and diffused over time.

Here are some of the things the back of this book says: "The title of this book does not begin to describe how subversive its intentions are. Higgins's review of the deep history of the grid rescues it from whatever claims modernism has made its form and function, and more precisely identifies the grid as a tool of human cognition, which has happened to have a profound effect on our visual culture throughout history." and "Hannah Higgins's new book on grids is a confident synthesis of art, architecture, geography, geometry, urbanism, and social history. Its elegant prose and easy erudition recall the work of Lewis Mumford; its intellectual energy and subtle humor, the writing of Roland Barthes". These are the sorts of things that make me want to fall in love with a book.

Do you know what makes a thing become magical? One way it happens is when someone takes a thing and weaves it into themselves, to the point where it loses its edges a bit. You can tell when this has happened, because when they try to share one of these things, they never seem to manage to follow all the connecting threads, but they usually try really, really hard. Reading the acknowledgements at the end of this book helps to explain some of the things about that make me think that many of the grids Higgins talks about are not very magical for her. Apparently, she thought this book would make a nice essay, but got talked into expanding into book-form. For each subject, she found experts to talk with and share what they knew. Reading the book, I really got the sense that she'd been collecting little bits of information from all these people, and then had to put them all together in a book, but wasn't deeply involved with what she was talking about a lot of the time.

This results in a book full of neat facts, the sorts of things I imagine people prefacing with "Did you know..." to try and start conversation at parties like this. Higgins definitely brings some serious academic credentials to the project, and is never slow to reference a host of other thinkers (she's especially fond of Foucault and Deleuze, but we get everyone from Petrarch to John Cage in the mix). In some sections, notably the ones that deal with her own area of expertise, art history, she does convey a passion for her subject - the chapter on screens, which focuses on the development of perspective is particularly strong.

I was really hoping for more focus on a cohesive theory and history of the grid as visual-symbolic technology. Instead, I got summaries of what other people thought about a bunch of technologies tenuously related by grids. I think a lot of the problem lies in Higgins's desire to present a 'post-modern' view of grids in opposition to the 'modern' view that sees the grid as invariant across situations and as an instrument for social control. In trying to show how grid-like technologies vary widely across situations, how the grids themselves can take other forms that don't immediately look like grids, and how the role they can play can vary widely in its effect, she ends up with an anti-hypothesis, attacking a historical bogey-man, that I might find a lot more interesting if I held the views she's trying to dismantle.

[Maureen Thorson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a constant revelation of facts. As it explores the creation of the grid and its use in both ancient and modern life, it covers everything from bricks to bookkeeping to the revolution in modern commerce created by standardized shipping containers. The author interrogates the grid with cross-references to philosophers, art historians, and social scholars. The upshot is that I feel like I have read a cultural history of human pattern-making and the reuse and adaptation of basic forms. Yay!

[Brian DiNitto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like these kinds of books that try to find and make meaning of hidden patterns. I especially liked the chapter on notation and networks. Great small details to fill in the gaps of history and perspective. A few chapters had sloppy editing, but overall a very enjoyable book.