Waiting for the Techno Rapture

Overly lofty ambitions built on an extrapolation from present knowledge are an abiding feature of modernity. In the mid-nineteenth century, the consensus among radical reformers around the world was that technologies born of the Industrial Revolution would allow for the creation of an entirely new society. These aspirations were embodied in The Crystal Palace, a magnificent cast-iron and glass structure that had been unveiled at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Capturing the mood of the era, the Russian intellectual Nikolai Chernyshevsky saw that architectural feat as merely the beginning.