The company town took distinctive form in the industrial age. Since the creation of Derby Mills on the Derwent or the planned town of Chaux in Burgundy, communal space has been shaped by industrial organization. Company towns were typically organized defensively, seeking to keep workers in and oversight out. Such spatial autarchy has grown only more noticeable in the last century. Where older, pre-modern correlatives of defensive settlement designed against existential risks, certain communities now seem buttressed against regulatory interference, no matter its political valence. This talk explores defensive communities from the history of North America, to better explore how spatial autarchy links social organization and political life. I hypothesize that efforts to design and deploy space defensively reflect the increasing permeability of social networks, digital interdependency, and the wide spread of infrastructures. If space becomes a weapon to be used defensively, what impacts does this have on communal life?
“Control and Communication: Architecture, Industry, and Spatial Autarchy” explores spatial autarchy by counterposing the extensibility of infrastructure with the concentration of particular settlement nodes. It uses selected examples to begin constructing a history of autarchy through spatial design, a useful tool in the post (neo)liberal present.