”The Largest Air-Conditioned Room in the World”: Climate Control and Climate Change in Houston
- Date
- 24 September 2026, 15:15–17:00
- Location
- English Park, Geijersalen (Building 6)
- Type
- Lecture
- Lecturer
- Professor Jonathan Levy, Centre for History (CHSP), Sciences Po
- Organiser
- Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Department of History of Science and Ideas, and Department of Economic History
- Contact person
- Brett Christophers
- Language
- English
In this talk Professor Jonathan Levy, Centre for History (CHSP), Sciences Po, will present a book-in-progress on the history of climate change in the late twentieth-century from the perspective of a city: Houston, Texas. Houston has long been the corporate headquarters of the global oil economy. Because of its unique urban form, dominated by sprawl, automobile use, and climate control through air-conditioning, Houston has the most energy-intensive form of urban life in the world.
This talk will discuss the rise of air-conditioning in the city, as well as its entanglement with the histories of real estate and civil rights. It focuses upon the construction of the Astrodome (1965), when it was billed the “largest air-conditioned room in the world.”