CIM-10 Bomarc missile battery belonging to the 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron, McGuire AFB, ca. 1959 (via National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Photo 090603-F-1234P-002)
The “flight” here leads to the first gathering of people around a fire, which leads to the creation of the first shelters — the origin of architecture. Yet Le Roy’s reading of Sanchuniathon gives a more important significance to storm at Tyre. The very hurricane that gives birth to seafaring becomes the storm that gives birth to architecture. This was by no means a strange way to look at the historical relationship between ships and buildings. In La marine, Le Roy also mentions in a footnote Goguet’s description of large seaborne rafts known as “pyrogues” as “that other kind of building.”By the time that Le Roy published his treatises on naval architecture, “bâtiment” was commonly understood to refer to both “ship” and “building.” But as Le Roy noted, thanks to Vitruvius replacing Ousous’ wooden raft with a shelter, we can now locate the origins of architecture in seafaring. The ship was the very first architectural object.
