Today it is abundantly clear that the combined effects of deforestation and fossil fuel consumption is threatening the existence of much life on this planet. As we look for alternatives to coal, oil and uranium we direct our gaze from the depths of the earth towards water, wind and the sun. In order to harness such renewable power we find ourselves digging again; turbines, solar panels and batteries require vast amounts of metals and rare earth minerals. We cannot seem to wean off the underground. The relationship between mining and architecture is both clear and elusive. The mine or quarry is after all a place (with specific spatial qualities) and its produce ends up constituting or maintaining buildings. Even technologies such as air conditioning or the elevator purportedly originated in mines, and Lewis Mumford pointed out that the mine was the first completely inorganic environment created by man. This project traces these questions in early modern Europe and the New World, c. 1500–c. 1800. Through the nexus of representation — from De Re Metallica to the Encyclopédie, it attempts to locate mining in architecture, and architecture in mining in a story that rendered the world productive, both above and below.