Faculty Profile: Min Kyung Lee
Lee is conducting research on the quantification of space in 19th-century Paris and London.
A World of Numbers
“Weight and length are measured before birth. Footsteps are tallied. ... Air temperatures are calculated. Ice melt is tabulated. From the most intimate aspects of our lives to the global scales of our planetary environment, life is quantified.”
Urban Mapping
“My research asks a basic question about how urban space was represented through geometric maps and plans—modalities that we still use today, and that we take for granted.”
We Need Standards
“The comprehensive quantification project began with the European Enlightenment, when scientific communities in London and Paris raced to triangulate the surface of the Earth and to determine a universal standard measure.”
All Together Now
“The tremendous international efforts to map the Earth based on a universal mathematical reference marked the beginning of a thorough rationalization of space.”
London v. Paris
“The fellowship project explores the social and epistemological consequences of this comprehensive mapping project on the built forms that compose London and Paris.”
Min Kyung Lee, assistant professor of Growth and Structure of Cities.