'Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.' 'Novelty is but oblivion.' To unearth and burn subterranean stores of carbon for energy gives rise to specific material and cultural conditions. Those conditions could be referred to as carbon modernity, and they seem to have an unambiguous point of origin in time: the late 18th century, when coal was adopted as a primary source of energy for the first time, transforming the productive capacities of the human species and giving rise to a new spatial paradigm that had no precedent. From the first steam engine and onward, all subsequent permutations of built form - from Victorian London to suburban America to contemporary Tokyo - have been predicated on dense and abundant energy, forging an uninterrupted episteme whose onset marked an irreversible break from the past. This spatial paradigm - which could be referred to as carbon form -has defined our age, and since the adoption of fossil fuels, there has been no turning back.
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