Laboratories of Extraction: Limit, Measure, and Abundance in the Architecture of the South African Ultra-Deep Mines c. 1953

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to account for the proliferation of spatial theories and measurement systems, elaborated during the Cold War, to advance projects of extraction on a planetary scale. It departs from modernist architectural histories that have defined space as enclosure, in order to examine the way scientific and industrial research in the mid-twentieth century came to depend on new and greater forms of exposure to the earth’s “extreme environments.” Tracing the design history, construction process, and use of laboratories and experimental chambers built in and for mines that operate more than two miles below the earth's surface, this study analyzes the way the building process worked, not only to secure the life and labor of mine workers in high heat, but to articulate architectural techniques that would advance the colonization of environments that will not sustain biological growth or reproduction. Archival analysis centers on how biogeochemical and physiological research was pursued in Apartheid South Africa's ultra-deep gold and uranium mines. I locate records of this research in state, industry, and professional design archives, alongside discussions of racial capitalism, increased demand for economic growth, and concerns about gold supply. Moving between research that made ultra- deep mining possible, and research that exploited the depth of the mine to test the boundaries between biology and geology, I show how architects and scientists depended on the technical skill of mine workers. Underscoring the relationship between the scientific investigation of deep space and the global expansion of the financial industry in the 1970s, the study critically examines shifting territorial claims and design strategies to govern life and labor that has been rendered superfluous in heavily mined communities.