Jim Crace’s book Harvest provides fascinating portrait of rural life in England just before the start of the Industrial Revolution. What is so striking is the way the pattern of life is dictated by the availability of light and labour to do work. They make hay while the sun shines and rest in the winter.
The arrival of energy-dense coal was a game-changer. Now we had energy on tap, factories could be set up and run continuously. The natural rhythms and pace that we had evolved with became smoothed out.
Enter Taylorism in the twentieth century and every hour is a productive unit to be optimised.
I call it the Great Flattening. The removal of all the contours of energy, light and even culture in the name of constant productivity, enabled by cheap energy.
Now, I am not trying to be romantic about living 250 years ago. There are plenty of things not to like (not least the dentistry). But I find it interesting to consider what is the impact of this great flattening of our experience of life and the world that we design.