Exhibit: Where Disaster Strikes: Modern Space and the Visualization of Destruction

Fires, volcanoes, floods,bombs, droughts, (and monsters). We can easily understand their effect on the built and natural landscape because they happen so suddenly. The Harvard Map Collection invites you to see 350 years of maps that visualize the sudden devastation of disaster, from the London Fire of 1666 through the bombing of Hiroshima to the cities we see destroyed in our movies. By looking at these maps in the context of the other media that comes out of disasters, we can see how our modern spaces define what counts as disaster and how disasters continue to shape the spaces around us. You can see an online version of the exhibition here. The exhibition space is open 9-5, Monday through Friday.