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Part one of a two-part deep dive into the grid and how it has quietly shaped our personal and social realities throughout history. From the invention of the brick to the birth of the spreadsheet, tracing the grid’s influence across architecture, urban planning, culture, and technology.Starting with the brick-“equal parts mortar and module,” tied to the proportions of the human hand—and follow its logic through systems like the tablet, gridiron city plans (like Mohenjo-daro), maps, musical notation, ledgers, the screen and the moveable type, setting the stage for digital forms to come.Along the way, we talk Le Corbusier, the Swiss grid system of Josef Müller-Brockmann, the design of Instagram, and Lotus 1-2-3. This is a mellow research-based episode on how grids both liberate and constrain the ways we live, think, and create.Cited: Hannah B. Higgins The Grid Book