The Arcades Project - Operi

le tomb . ... But what appalled me the most was that, on raising my eyes (altogether
by chance) to the gallery surrounding this valley of death I noticed not just
an extraordinary likeness but a complete identity between the several kingpins
playing the life-sized game and the miniature humans struggling there on the tahIe
. ... What's more, these kingpins ... appeared to me . .. to collapse in desperation
precisely as their childlike facsimiles were overtaken hy the formidable
rake. They seemed to share . .. all the sensations of their little doubles; and never,
for as long as I live will I forget the look and the gesture-full of hatred and
despair-which one of those gamhlers directed toward the hank at the very moment
that his tiny simulacrum coralled by the rake went to satisfy the ravenous
appetite of the croupier." Felix Mornand, La Vie des eaux (Paris, 1862), pp. 219-
221 ("Aix-Ia-Chapelle"). [GI4]
It would be useful to compare the way Grandville portrays machines to the way
Chevalier, in 1852, still speaks of the railroad. He calculates that two locomo­
tives, having a total of 400 horsepower, would correspond to 800 actual horses.
How would it be possible to harness them up? How supply the fodder? And, in a
note, he adds: "It must also be kept in mind that horses of flesh and blood have
to rest after a brief journey; so that to furnish the same service as a locomotive,
one must have on hand a very large number of animals:' Michel Chevaliel;
Chemins deftr: Extrait du dictionnaire de I'economie politique (paris, 1852), p. 10.
[GI4a,l]
The principles informing the exhibition of objects in the Galm'ie des Machines of
1867 were derived from Le Play. [GI4a,2]
A divinatory representation of architectural aspects of the later world exhibitions
is found in Gogo!'s essay "On Present-Day Architecture;' which appeared in the
mid-Thirties in his collection Arabesques. ''Away with this academicism which
commands that buildings be built all one size and in one style! A city should
consist of many different styles of building, if we wish it to be pleasing to the eye.
Let as many contrasting styles combine there as possible! Let the solemn Gothic
and the richly embellished Byzantine arise in the sanle street, alongside colossal
Egyptian halls and elegantly proportioned Greek structures! Let us see there the
slightly concave milk-white cupola, the soaring church steeple, the oriental miter,
the Italianate flat roof, the steep and heavily ornamented Flemish roof, the quad­
rilateral pyTarnid, the cylindrical column, the faceted obelisk!"" Nikolai Gogol,
"Sur l'Architecture du temps present;' cited in Wladinrir Weidk, Les Abeilles
d'Aristie (paris