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On October 7, 1913, Ford engineers at Highland Park started pulling chassis down a line with a rope and windlass while stationary workers added parts....
The Venice Arsenal: Assembly Lines Before the Industrial RevolutionLong before Cromford Mill, the Venetian Republic ran what may have been the largest industrial complex in Europe. Founded around 1104, the Arsenal cov...
Company Towns: Pullman, Hershey, and SaltaireWhen factories were built far from cities, industrialists built towns around them, and the results ranged from gentle utopia to open conflict. Titus S...
Sawtooth Roofs and North Light: Reading Factory ArchitectureThe jagged sawtooth roofline of the classic mill is a lighting machine. Each tooth holds a near vertical window facing away from the sun, bathing weav...
Gigafactories: A Word Tesla Made NecessaryIn 2013 Tesla borrowed gigafactory to describe a battery plant planned at a scale the world had never built: millions of square feet, tens of GWh of c...
UNESCO Industrial Heritage Sites Worth a TripUNESCO now lists the great temples of industry alongside cathedrals. Zollverein in Essen, a coal mine designed like a Bauhaus campus, draws over a mil...