Collection: Tartaria Collection

The 1570 first edition of Abraham Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum — generally cited as the first modern atlas — labeled the landmass north and east of the Caspian as Tartaria. So did the 1757 Carte de Tartarie. So did most western cartography until the late nineteenth century, when the label quietly dropped off the printed page.

This collection works the seam between what was on the map and what is in the canon. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago on May 1 — 200 buildings, most demolished within two years. Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower, US Patent 1,119,732 filed January 18, 1902, was dismantled in 1917 for scrap. Star-fort geometry that ran from Renaissance Italy across three continents in three centuries. Every design anchored on something the LOC still has on file.

All the empire on the maps, the buildings in the photographs, the patent on the wire. Below.