Places of Invention

What is the relationship between creativity and location? That modern history is checkered with stories of creative places is almost a truism. From Florence, Italy, around 1500 to Silicon Valley around 2000, the geography of artistic and technical invention has featured places that have become synonymous with creativity. Historians of science and technology have not ignored this (nor have historians of art, architecture, or literature). In the history of modern technology we have fine examples of location-based studies of innovation and the environments that promote it—works on Birmingham, England, in the eighteenth century, northern New Jersey and New York City in the nineteenth century, and the San Francisco Bay area in the late twentieth century are only the most obvious examples of scholarly attention. The localization of invention is also not unknown to the museum world, but the emphasis here has typically been on the truly local. Local history museums, and some state museums, have often made a point of featuring the technical creativity of a locale, often in a well-defined period. Far less common, however, are attempts to take this local concern and transform it into comparative, analytical studies, and this is where the significance of the Smithsonian Institution's new effort becomes apparent

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Creativity · Locale (computer software · Period (music · Point (geometry · Political science · Silicon valley · State (computer science · Visual arts · Architecture · Computer Science · History · Law · Museums and Cultural Heritage