Digital Tectonics [Paperback]

Neal Leach et al., ed., Digital Tectonics (Wiley, 2004)

Let me start by saying that I know absolutely nothing about architecture besides what I've read here and in Michael Benedikt's stuff, so most of the time I've no bloody idea what I was reading here. This one came to me as a library mixup (someone had gotten it confused with Loss Glazier's Digital Poetics), but it caught my attention, and so I read it anyway.

When did philosophy and architecture become so entangled? (I ask myself this after Benedikt's stuff, too.) I don't know, but the end result is that books like this, which are aimed at showcasing new technologies in architecture, also end up showcasing a good deal of philosphy. And I'm on still tenuous, but far more solid, ground with philosophy than I am with calculus, so I did understand at least part of what was going on.

According to Leach and his contributors, there has been a fundamental rift in the construction of buildings since time immemorial-- the architect's aesthetics and the engineer's physics. The point of the digital tectonics movement is to find ways, through computer technology, that these two things can be brought together into one profession. (Can you hear the engineers screaming for blood now? I can.) In order to give the reader an idea of the directions the digital tectonic movement is taking, they published this slim, but detailed and lavishly illustrated, collection of papers from some of the foremost names in the field.

Drawing on the mostly-conceptual work of Gaudi and Otto, and using Deleuze and Guattari mostly as dummies at which to aim critical looks, these folks are proclaiming the idea of a revolution in architecture that will change, if it succeeds, the very way society interacts. This is most evident in the paper "SoftOffice," detailing the construction of a hypothetical space (well, two; an office building and a childs' playroom, though one gets the feeling that the authors see the two as eventually interchangeable) completely at odds with what we know of space today, and yet intuitive. It's easy to see the strengths of such an installation as an office building. This is, in no small part, because the paper's author is also a gifted writer.

As with any anthology of work where the main profession of those contributing is not writing, this is not always the case. There are a few papers that seem to wander off aimlessly or end long before they should (and there's one baleful attempt at a poem that reads rather like a building would look if I tried to design it), but a good portion of what's here does its job quite nicely.

That said, I can tell you from experience that Digital Tectonics is not in any way a book for beginners; if you've got a background in architecture, you're likely to get more out of it than I did. Still, I found it quite enjoyable. ***

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