Urban Histories of Science: Making Knowledge in the City, 1820-1940

253 Pages·2019·12.371 MB·English

by  Oliver Hochadel, Agustí Nieto-Galán

Urban Histories of Science
This book tells ten urban histories of science from nine cities—Athens,
Barcelona, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Dublin (2 articles), Glasgow, Helsinki,
Lisbon, and Naples—situated on the geographical margins of Europe and
beyond. Ranging from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries,
the contents of this volume debate why and how we should study the scientific
culture of cities, often considered “peripheral” in terms of their production
of knowledge. How were scientific practices, debates, and innovations inter-
twined with the highly dynamic urban space around 1900? The authors ana-
lyze zoological gardens, research stations, observatories, and international
exhibitions, along with hospitals, newspapers, backstreets, and private
homes while also stressing the importance of concrete urban spaces for the
production and appropriation of knowledge. They uncover the diversity of
actors and urban publics ranging from engineers, scientists, architects, and
physicians to journalists, tuberculosis patients, and fishermen. Looking at
these nine cities is like glancing at a prism that produces different and even
conflicting notions of modernity. In their totality, the ten case studies help
to overcome an outdated center-periphery model. This volume is, thus, able
to address far more intriguing historiographical questions. How do science,
technology, and medicine shape the debates about modernity and national
identity in the urban space? To what degree do cities and the heterogeneous
elements they contain have agency? These urban histories show that science
and the city are continuously co-constructing each other.
Oliver Hochadel is a tenured historian of science at the IMF-CSIC (Spanish
National Research Council) in Barcelona.
Agustí Nieto-Galan is Professor of History of Science at the Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona.
Routledge Studies in the History of Science, Technology, and
Medicine
Edited by John Krige, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
29 Spatializing the History of Ecology
Sites, Journeys, Mappings
Edited by Raf de Bont and Jens Lachmund
30 Cancer, Radiation Therapy and the Market
Barbara Bridgman Perkins
31 Science and Ideology
A Comparative History
Mark Walker
32 Closing the Door on Globalization
Internationalism, Nationalism, Culture and Science in the
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Fernando Clara and Cláudia Ninhos
33 Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Race and Natural History, 1750–1850
Edited by Nicolaas Rupke and Gerhard Lauer
34 Health Policies in Transnational Perspective
Europe in the Interwar Years
Josep-Lluís Barona-Vilar
35 Urban Histories of Science
Making Knowledge in the City, 1820–1940
Edited by Oliver Hochadel and Agustí Nieto-Galan
36 Pioneering Health in London, 1935–2000
The Peckham Experiment
David Kuchenbuch
Urban Histories of Science
Making Knowledge in the City,
1820–1940
Edited by
Oliver Hochadel and
Agustí Nieto-Galan
First published 2019
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Oliver Hochadel and
Agustí Nieto-Galan; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Oliver Hochadel and Agustí Nieto-Galan to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hochadel, Oliver, 1968– editor. |
Nieto-Galan, Agustâi, editor.
Title: Urban histories of science / edited by Oliver
Hochadel and Agustâi Nieto-Galan.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. |
Series: Routledge studies in the history of science, technology and
medicine; 35 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018018199 | ISBN 9780415784177
(hardback; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315228549 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Science—Europe—History. | City and town
life—Europe—History. | Science and civilization.
Classification: LCC Q127.E85 U73 2019 | DDC 509.4/09034—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018018199
ISBN: 978-0-415-78417-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-22854-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
Contents
Figures and Maps vii
Contributors ix
Preface xiii
Urban Histories of Science: How to Tell the Tale 1
OLIvER HOCHADEL AND AGUSTí NIETO-GALAN
1 Envisioning a New European Metropolis: Designing the
National Observatory of Athens 16
MARIA RENTETzI AND SPIROS FLEvARIS
2 Institutionalizing the “Metropolis of Mechanics”:
Philosophical Engineering in the City of Glasgow c. 1820–c. 1875 37
BEN MARSDEN
3 The Natural Sciences and Their Public at the Meetings of
the Hungarian Association for the Advancement of Science in
Budapest and Beyond, 1841–1896 59
KATALIN STRáNER
4 Copepods and Fisherboys: Advanced Marine Biological
Research and Street Poverty in Naples c. 1890 80
KATHARINA STEINER
5 Locating Dublin in the Late Nineteenth-Century Ether 102
TANYA O’SULLIvAN
6 Second City of Science? Dublin as a Center of Calculation in
the British Imperial Context, 1886–1912 122
JULIANA ADELMAN
vi Contents
7 From Capital City to Scientific Capital: Science, Technology,
and Medicine in Lisbon as Seen through the Press, 1900–1910 141
ANA SIMõES
8 Collective Expertise behind the Urban Planning of
Munkkiniemi and Haaga, Helsinki (c. 1915) 164
EMILIA KARPPINEN
9 On Hygiene in a Modern Peripheral City:
Buenos Aires, 1870–1940 186
DIEGO ARMUS
10 From Electricity to the Photo Archive: National Identity and
the Planning of the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition 208
LUCILA MALLART
Index 227
Figures and Maps
1.1 Map of Athens, 1864. 25
1.2 a/b The Athens observatory and its architectural plan.
Illustrations 1.1, 1.2a, and 1.2b are from Theophil Hansen,
“Die freiherrlich von v. Sina’sche Sternwarte bei Athen”
in Christ. F. L. Forster, Allgemeine Bauzeitung, 11, Wien
1846, 126–131. All three illustrations are courtesy of the
Danmarks Kunstbibliotek. 27
1.3 view of Athens with the Observatory and Acropolis. 1900.
Romaidi Brothers. Neohellenic and Historic Collection
of Konstantinos Tripos. With kind permission from the
photographic collection of the Benaki Museum (no. 1.944). 29
3.1 Caricature from the journal Borsszem Jankó, September 7,
1879, p. 5. Image courtesy of the National Széchényi
Library of Hungary. 70
4.1 “Giovanni Buono 3.7.90,” Historical Archives Stazione
zoologica di Anton Dohrn Napoli, La 120, 344. 84
4.2 “Steinheil 132–144, Neapel 16. Juli 1890,” Historical
Archives Stazione zoologica di Anton Dohrn Napoli,
La 119, 132. Both images with kind permission of the
Historical Archives Stazione zoologica di Anton Dohrn,
Naples. 87
5.1 Trinity College Dublin, courtesy of the National Library
of Ireland. 103
5.2 William Fletcher Barrett, Wikimedia Commons, author
unknown. 107
5.3 George Francis Fitzgerald, Wikimedia Commons, author
unknown. 112
6.1 Lithograph entitled “Queen’s cub’s, 1885,” MS 10608/2/4/2,
Ephemera in the Royal zoological Society of Ireland
papers, Trinity College Dublin. Reproduced with the
permission of the trustees of Trinity College Dublin. 132
viii Figures and Maps
7.1 Fialho de Almeida, “Monumental Lisbon.” Ilustração
Portuguesa. 142
7.2 Map of Lisbon around 1900. 145
7.3 Melo de Matos, “Lisbon in the year 2000.” Ilustração
Portuguesa. Figures 7.1–7.3 are in the public domain. 155
8.1 A detail of the Munkkiniemi and Haaga model.
Picture of the model in Saarinen, Munkkiniemi–
Haaga-suunnitelma, p. 116. 172
8.2 Detail of one of the many plan maps in The Munkkiniemi
and Haaga plan (1915). Both images are in the public
domain. 176
9.1a Water cart, Archivo General de la Nación
(Argentina), c. 1880. 190
9.1b Filtered water tank, Archivo General de la Nación
(Argentina), c. 1876, attributed to Christiano Junior. 190
9.1c Drinking water plant, Archivo General de la Nación
(Argentina), c. 1875, attributed to Christiano Junior. 191
9.1d Palacio de Aguas Corrientes, Archivo General de la Nación
(Argentina), c. 1898. 191
9.2a Parque 3 de Febrero, Colección Dirección de Paseos.
Museo de la Ciudad. 202
9.2b Parque Chacabuco, Archivo General de la Nación
(Argentina), c. 1940. Images 9.1a–9.2b are in the public
domain according to Argentine laws. 202
10.1 Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Exposició Barcelona
MDCCCCXVII [1915]. Fons Puig i Cadafalch. Reproduced
with permission from the Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya. 215
10.2 Front and back of file no. 27.746 on Cornellà de Conflent.
From Repertori iconogràfic d’Espanya. Exposició de Barcelona
1918. Courtesy of Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.
Photos by Hèctor Castro. 219
Contributors
Juliana Adelman is Lecturer in history at Dublin City University. She has
published widely on the history of science, medicine, agriculture, and
food. Her work has appeared in Social History of Medicine, BJHS, Irish
Economic and Social History, and the Field Day Review. Her first mo-
nograph Communities of Science in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, 2009,
surveyed popular science and science education. She is working on her
second monograph provisionally titled Civilized by beasts: animals and
urban change in Dublin, 1830–1900.
Diego Armus is Professor of Latin American History at Swarthmore College
(USA). His current projects include a history of smoking in modern Bue-
nos Aires and the preparation of The Buenos Aires Reader. One of his
most recent books is The Ailing City. Health, Tuberculosis and Culture
in Buenos Aires, 1870–1950 (2011), with 2007 and 2013 Spanish versions.
He has also written or edited, among others, Cuidar, Controlar, Curar.
Estudos de História da Saúde e da Doença na América Latina e Caribe
(2004, 2009, 2014); Disease in the History of Modern Latin America. From
Malaria to AIDS (2003); and Entre Médicos y Curanderos. Cultura, Histo-
ria y Enfermedad en la América Latina Moderna (2002).
Spiros Flevaris is an Austrian-Greek architect with extended experience
in designing and managing a variety of architectural projects in both
countries. Flevaris has designed a successful exhibition on oriental to-
bacco showcasing in several Greek cities and historical tobacco centers
and has a long experience of working closely together with not only
academics, museologists, and museum and library archivists, but also
journalists, photo editors, and CEOs in order to meet the challenges of
designing, financing, and managing traveling exhibitions. He has also
an interest in the history of architecture and has coedited with Maria
Rentetzi the Tobacco: 101 notes on oriental tobacco, Exhibition Cata-
logue (2014).
Oliver Hochadel is a tenured historian of science at the IMF-CSIC, Barcelona.
His research focuses on the relationship between science and its publics,