3-D Holograms, Real-Life Wonkavators, and More

BARRON YOUNGSMITH

Second Floor to the Left, Please A REVOLUTION IN ELEVATORS has been a long time coming. Other Victorian-era technologies have transformed beyond recognition—typewriters, for instance, have given way to computers and tablets— but modern elevators remain close cousins of their earliest incarnations: boxes connected to a set of cables and a counterweight, traveling in a vertical shaft. With a new design, unveiled in late November, ThyssenKrupp, a German steel company, may finally be bringing the humble lift into the future. Thyssen-Krupp has built a machine powered not by cables, but by magnets, and capable of moving not just up and down, but also left and right. It’s the closest the world has ever come to the Wonkavator from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Magnet-based elevators would be a boon for innovative architects with heads…

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Foreign Policy (Digital) - 1 Issue, January - February 2015

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