Another architecture is rising in the expanding landscape of preparedness. Condensed simulacrum of our existing urban environments are forming within our communities, where the first responders to emergencies, on a small or large scale, practice their craft of dealing with disaster.

The scenario grounds of emergency training include mock hazardous material spills, train wrecks, building collapse, fires, and debris strewn landscapes. The police contend with civil decay, robberies, hostage situations, looting, riots, and snipers in mini Main Street environments called situation simulation villages , tactical training sites, or Hogan's Alleys , where live weapons or small dye-filled simunition rounds complete the realism of the scenario. Whether they are made for police or fire departments, these training sites are stylized versions of ordinary places, with the extraordinary horrors of the anticipated future applied to them on a routine basis.

In disaster situations, from car accidents to riots to earthquakes to terrorist attacks, when order breaks down, the worlds of police, fire departments, and the military, coming to our defense, merge to become the reigning order – the emergency state.

This online version features 211 of the 455 photographs shown in the original exhibit.