The attractive futility of digital architecture

In AEON International Multidisciplinary Conference on Social Sciences and Arts, 171-176. Plovdiv: Aeon Eood, 2016. [ISBN: 978-619-908030-6]

Given the speed of development and application of new digital modeling and manufacturing technologies, we could assume that in fifty years, maybe twenty, buildings will be entirely made by robots. Let's also believe that architectural projects will be fully managed by mathematical algorithms and possibly even devised by some form of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, we could assume, that all contemporary experiments in search of the delineation of a new "fluid" spatiality, complex geometries, and buildings with strong iconic characters are prodrome to a comprehensive application of the digital in the entire architectural process: from design to construction, through its management. A revolution seems to portend in the way we understand architecture as we conceived it at least for the last century, more or less since Auguste Perret and his proto-rationalism which introduced the use, and the formal poetics, of reinforced concrete as a common building material.

It sounds like a fascinating revolution. It seems, though, that the enthusiasm for digital technologies of a part of the contemporary generation of designers, rightly induced by these new and infinite possibilities, could be an end in itself.

Let me explain.

For many years digital tools are part of the everyday work of designers. From the construction point of view, the advantage resulting from the application of these digital practices cannot be denied. We are proceeding toward a substantial reduction of the necessary amount of time to complete the work. We are defining, and already applying, processes that minimize the possibility of error in all phases of execution: a "required zero tolerance set of operations" (Stott, 2014). The overall quality of constructions will see a noticeable improvement. Developing countries, for example, will drastically reduce exhausting periods of apprenticeship for masses of workers who still suffer lack of constructive knowledge heavily weighing on the final outcome. Indeed, the impact of labor cost in the project budget could be radically reduced due to improved use of robots. Would this be the cause of a new wave of "Luddism"?

In any case, a "win-win" scenario seems to be looming soon.

Architecture, however, is not only its process of realization as it seems to be interpreted by many proponents of the academic design-build. At the same time, it is not exclusive formal experimentation and definition of new geometrical and structural complexities investigated and promulgated by many neo-digital fabricators. Let's remember it is a long time since le Corbusier's purely sculptural definition: "Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light." Moreover, if we carefully look at the Swiss architect's body of work as a whole, we can quickly notice how his own definition was, if nothing else, self-reductive. The architecture cannot always manifest itself exclusively through its phenomenological expression, nor can it be purely conceived as conceptual elaboration (the Zumthor/Eisenmann dichotomy). Because architecture, in the end, very rhetorically speaking, should be produced at the service of humanity and not as self-referential creature.

It is true though that this age is no longer characterized by such a humanist approach and the human thought is, nowadays, subdued to the power of technology. As the Italian philosopher, Galimberti would say: "technique has become the subject of history." Additionally, "Man is no longer a subject alienated and objectified by capitalist production, but a product of technological alienation, which establishes itself as subject and man as its predicate" (Galimberti, 1999). The problem is that technology has always been a means by which one reached purposes, while now it seems to have become the very purpose. "As only purpose (technique) tends to increasingly potentiate without real aim" forgetting to be the means and as such, to contribute to the improvement of human (and possibly of the whole planet's) living conditions as its primary intent.

I believe that with the advancement of new digital technologies and their radical applications in architecture, it is not entirely clear what we are looking for. Sometimes, it seems that we are experimenting just because technology allows it. This is where the technique explores and advances strengthening itself. Forms become more and more complicated because finally, we can represent and consequently build them. We gained access to intricate shapes that were previously only accessible to spatial virtuosos through their analog drawings. I am thinking, for instance, of the baroque: not many could have handled the three-dimensional curvilinear sinuosity of San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini. The internal decoration of its elliptical dome shows a decreasing in size coffered ceiling to emphasize its perspective depth. It might be one of the first (handmade) "scripts" in the whole history of architecture.

Nowadays, every designer has easy access and possibilities to design complex shapes through the use of the right software. In many cases, it appears an "end in itself," a formal hegemony that prevails basic programmatic requirements of the project to which the architecture by its nature, for better or for worse, has always had to respond. In this light, architecture, saturated in its advanced spatial research, does not seem to be interested in any other issue beyond its own morphology. It does not suggest solutions. It does not promote processes of transformation that could influence the improvement of the life of a society. Instead, it appears to be very concerned of its own spectacular representation (Debord, 1967), to emerge instead of to contribute, to amaze rather than to improve.

Often the result of the current digital fabrication experiments consists of items of furniture, benches, small structures, pavilions, interior design projects. Their small scale allows currently available machines to support their construction. When it reaches the size of a building, "digital architecture" often rises to the role of a contemporary monument, an object, self-celebrating its complexity and the evident difference with the environment in which it occurs. The architectural object (from Medieval Latin objectum as "tangible thing, something perceived or presented to the senses," but also related to old French objecter "to bring forward in opposition"), arises by definition, in contrast (or; indeed, opposition) with the context. Moreover, the object excises the ties that would bond it to the surrounding anthropogenic layers to propose spatialities, which are surely charming but intentionally alien, uprooted, and deliberately displaced.

 Finally, at the urban scale, the latest attempts of parametric urbanist applications seem to be ambitious in terms of spatial, functional, and infrastructural response. They are based on the computation of several parameters collected from the program and from the context. Dynamism, flexibility, and adaptivity are the keywords of this operation. Patrick Schumacher calls the advent of urban parametricism an "epochal phenomenon" and states:" the shared concepts, computational techniques, formal repertoires and tectonic logics that characterize this work are crystallizing into a robust new hegemonic paradigm for architecture."

Too often, though, it unfolds through masterplans where through mostly no-Euclidean configurations the proposed urbanity reaches an all-encompassing Organicism crystallizing the city into a single formal expression. As if to recall, albeit with a completely different language, the alienating obsessions of visionaries like Ludwig Hilberseimer.

In architecture's history, we have already experienced similar moments. The artistic movement called Liberty in Italy or Art Nouveau in France, or Jugendstil in Germany, was an evolution of the English Arts and Crafts movement. It started to spread throughout Europe in the late nineteenth century. This eminently "graphic" characterization promoted an aesthetic based on Organicism, on asymmetry, and on the elegant virtuosity of the line as a stylistic expression. Nonetheless, apart from the architecture of Antoni Gaudi, we cannot really record spatial and typological research capable of promoting a better "living," capable of meeting the needs of a society that would soon abandon the glories of the Belle Epoque and enter the dramatic period of the First World War. In just twenty years, this movement, almost purely based on stylistic/formal expressions, exhausted its innovative drive and the fascination for its "florality'  "was first ridiculed, then quickly forgotten.

On the other hand, a few years later, by a diametrically opposite approach, the birth of Futurism before and the modern movement after, was fundamentally based on the needs of an industrial society now rapidly being transformed from a rural into a predominantly urban condition. Buildings became "machines for living in," and their rationalist architectural language was defined not only by new materials such as glass, steel, and concrete but also by very functional canons. The architect was asked to contribute to the solution of fundamental problems of the whole society (from the proletarian to the bourgeoisie), and conceive, adopting technological breakthroughs, new architectural types. To be remembered, in this light, is the experience of Russian Constructivism. In a matter of months, those architects were asked to imagine new building typologies for a brand modern society, something completely unknown before. After almost a century, and even after it was pronounced dead by celebrating its funeral by critics as Charles Jencks (July 15, 1972, with the demolition of the, then awarded Pruitt-Igoe project) "modern" architecture (together with its contemporary variations and global adaptations) appears to be in good health, being still practiced by many leading contemporary architects. It was not forgotten like the Liberty. After the disciplinary, philosophical, and conceptual crisis of all kinds, after undergoing the postmodernist attack (which had as its main aim to put forward a recognizable identity previously canceled by the modernistic linguistic abstraction) rationalist "modern" architecture continue to resist, often successfully, to nowadays. It still responds to the needs of the society of the new millennium. I believe that this mainly happens because rationalism was born on practical and economic issues (form follows function) applied to transform society, and its formal and space research was consequent and not divorced from them.

The deconstructivist movement born in the late '80s also had, in its original form, short life. Many contemporary archistars who operate today in the so-called new-subjectivity were part of it. The concept of "conflict" between text and meaning derived from the first linguistic studies of Ferdinand Saussure and then those of Jacques Derrida, philosophically charmed a generation of architects (and as a student, also me) who attempted to translate into architecture such theories by overlapping spatial layers that were inevitably and deliberately confrontational. The extreme conceptualization of the deconstructivist approach caused, in some cases, post-humanist phenomena (let's here remember the famous master bedroom by Peter Eisenmann in the House VI where the bed was separated in two parts from the trace of a missing beam).

  Many of those who pursued the assembly of openly incompatible spatial elements to produce dramatic perceptual scenarios is now looking for a more and more "fluid" space. In some cases an opposite direction to that of their initial research.

The rapid decline of deconstructivism proves once again, as it was for Liberty, that if an architectural proposal is not perceived as a first pragmatic and then poetic response to the spatial needs of the society, it will not have a long life. Yet, undoubtedly, the deconstructivist contribution is a very original spatial investigation, and it remains remarkable, reflecting a particular historical moment of crisis of interpretation of the modern (but also of the post-modern) movement.

I believe that the "digital" architecture has yet to demonstrate that it can substantially contribute positively and proactively to the upcoming issues of a complex society. A predominantly urban culture that is heavily suffering the overwhelming impact of rapid globalization, which many still find it challenging to interpret, especially in the Western world. In this sense, for instance, it would be exciting to see how, and if, parameters referring to emergencies such as the new massive waves of immigration in Europe could be implemented in parametric urbanistic solutions. Even the whole sustainability question seems to be almost forgotten in times of dramatic climate change. Very rarely, one can see architecture resulting from scripting processes tackling substantial environmental issues if not for a few concerns in the building performance. 

Is there, therefore, innate and inherent futility of digital architecture? The attractive neo-Organicism of these astonishing digital worlds is really nothing more than a formality fetish similar to a temporary fashion.

Bibliography:

Stott, Rory. (2014) The Depreciating Value of Form in the Age of Digital Fabrication. Arch Daily

Galimberti, Umberto. (1999) Psiche e Techne. L’uomo nell’eta’ della tecnica. Milano: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli editore

Debord, Guy. (1967) La Société du spectacle. Paris: Buchet/Chastel