ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL

The dramatic transition from the analogue to the digital has changed many aspects of everyday life.  Within architecture, it has seen a slow, gradual shift, yet a drastic amendment to the methods and traditions that once controlled and defined the industry.

The Digital Culture in Architecture addressed and exposes the reality of the digital transformation as no longer a good or bad influence within an architectural world, rather it address the direction in which the transition is taking architecture.

As the conversion to a digital world was occurring, Hoberman on a small scale exploited they ways of using technology as a creative medium, rather than just a tool (Archaeology of the Digital).  Within the industry today, the use of this digital technology as a creative medium is the direction in which architecture is heading.  Software’s and technologies are no longer being used as a tool to represent and construct things, rather they are being used in conjunction with computational methods to create a platform for new parametric design.

In Le Corbusier’s Toward an Architecture he underlines that these new digital methods are causing a revolution within architecture.  Corbusier explores the notion of “Architecture or Revolution”.  Upon this, he forces his audience to believe that only one is preferred.  Can architecture and this ‘revolution’ not be intertwined?

Additionally, is this new technology really a revolution, or is it just an evolution of the old?  And as explored in the Digital Culture In Architecture this new direction that the digital is influencing architecture to go in, is in fact an evolution of what currently exists to adapt and keep up with the modern pressures and desire for greater structure, simplified processes and a greater study of types.

Texts: 

1. Picon, Antoine, “Introduction,”* + “People, Computers and Architecture: A Historical Overview,”* in Digital Culture in Architecture: an Introduction for the Design Profession (2010): 7-57.
2. Lynn, Greg, ed., Archaeology of the Digital: Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Chuck Hoberman, Shoei Yoh (2013).
3. Le Corbusier, “Architecture or Revolution?” Toward an Architecture (1924/1928/2007), pp.291-307.