From Digital to Post | A brief timeline of Architectural Representations

The digital era reinvented the relationship between conceptual inception and production, making us rethink what architecture is, from visualization to construction. Projects nowadays are not only created digitally, but could also be understood as digital entities, through “file to factory” processes of computer numerically controlled (CNC) productions technologies. As a result, the question of the present is not so much of ‘could it be built’, but rather, which of this plethora of new tools could be best utilized to fully exploit the possibilities that those mediums contribute to the field.

Big part of that technology amelioration that enable us to construct these complex geometries of our 3d software, are the result of the evolution of different fields such as aeronautics and aviation. Those systems gradually, found their way into the field of architecture, through architects like F. Gehry who utilized such principals to enrich the architect’s toolbox in the pursuit of reinventing the field through a radical rapture with the past and its core rational. [1]

People might see projects as the Walt Disney concert hall commissioned in 1991 and think of them as an expression of such radical approach towards our built environment, not for the time built, but the current as well. The truth is however, it uses a language that most architects conceive as out of date. As a result, such digitality, despite the initial excitement, many times alienates the occupant from the building, as the lack of familiarity is not enabling people to experience the building at its full capacity. Many could argue then, that the digital rendering almost killed the core architectural act of paper and pencil. But the key word here is Almost!

If somebody drew the timeline of architecture in parallel to the world’s, then probably the 90’s would be the dark ages. During that era, computers almost replaced the traditional representation of the past. Technical drawings were replaced with polished surfaces, reflecting the always blue deep sky and common figures of occupants enjoying a postcard from the near future experience. That lack of diversity however, is not the main reason I think that such time was the dark years of architecture. The main reason is the utilization of the machine, in the process of producing our very own future. The minimalistic straight line of the past was replaced by the ‘s’ curve and the extend to the architect’s control over the building was the formula of its ability to control it, multiplied by the capacity of the existing software at the time. As a result, the architecture of such era, seems today more than a catalogue product of the existing software of the time, rather than an index of new inputs in a non-linear process that architecture is.[2]

Despite the vast processing power we gained by using the computer, “the drawing itself has been subsumed by the tools we’ve chosen to use.”[3] Those tools, instead of enriching the architect’s scope, they rather narrowed it, exponentially increasing other aspects such as precision, basing our architecture in a preset rather than the even enigmatic, sometimes, possibilities. “Renderings assume the language of photography—so much so that in more advanced rendering packages you even design a digital simulation of the camera—and in doing so present us with an apparently “real” image of the world. Yet it’s exactly this fait accompli idea of reality that the return of the drawing seems to challenge.”[4]

In many recent architecture history essays, some believe that the architectural drawing of the past like Zaha’s conceptual drawings or Koolhas Delirious New York illustrations became less relevant to the field of architecture due to their lack of application, a pragmatic characteristic that our computational era demanded. Within them however, those new hybrid images manage to capture way more than the typical clean-cut representation of the realistic render. They focused on the concepts and atmosphere the architect wanted to create and convey through its project. As a result, such representations enable us to plunge into a deeper discussion about the visual identity of the project, the narrative and the identity of the architect informing the overall process. Hence, those concept images work mainly because of their own nature not to be consumed as final objects-pictures and thus they can both work as a driving conceptual index and a finished product at the same time.

There is no denying that such representations are much more artistic that strictly ‘architectural’. Through the course of architecture however, strictly technical drawings enabled us to just investigate further the way a building was put together and not its atmosphere within the interior. The 90’s and early 00’s managed to escape that rout in a profound way. Instead of trying to conceptualize the unbuilt, they tried to contest and contrast it with our current built environment. By projecting these hyper realistic qualities to our surroundings as something essential in achieving that futurism that the early 00’s commanded.[5]

If that is the case then, architecture is well passed its digital reign crisis and it is strongly reestablishing its post digital identity. There is no denial that the reappearing paper projects of archigram and superstudio acted as catalysts in that progress of reestablishing our current toolbox. But the discourse is different this time. We are using such influences in a process that demands us to learn from the past to inform our future. That post digital style however, could and should “treasure to maintain the cultural differences to maintain identities. I feel that otherwise we risk this new type of drawing becoming so standardized that we might as well go back to the hyper – realistic rendering.”[6]

[1] Genadiev, V. (2018). Articles - ΔΙΠΛΩΜΑΤΙΚΕΣ - ΕΡΕΥΝΗΤΙΚΕΣ - Η αρχιτεκτονική στην ψηφιακή εποχή της κατασκευής. [online] Greekarchitects.gr. Available at: https://www.greekarchitects.gr/gr/%CE%B5%CF%81%CE%B5%CF%85%CE%BD%CE%B7%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA% CE%BA%CE%B1% 82-id11135 [Accessed 22 Nov. 2018].

[2] Clayton, M. (2017). A Post-Digital Architectural Research Agenda to Address 21st Century Challenges. Technology|Architecture + Design, 1(1), pp.16-18.

[3]Jacob, S. (2018). Architecture Enters the Age of Post-Digital Drawing - Metropolis. [online] Metropolis. Available at: https://www.metropolismag.com/architecture/architecture-enters-age-post-digital-drawing/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2018].

[4] Jacob, S. (2018). Architecture Enters the Age of Post-Digital Drawing - Metropolis. [online] Metropolis. Available at: https://www.metropolismag.com/architecture/architecture-enters-age-post-digital-drawing/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2018].

[5] Carpo, M. (2004). Post-Hype Digital Architecture: From Irrational Exuberance to Irrational Despondency. Grey Room, 14, pp.107.

[6] Medina, S. (2018). The Website Behind the "Post-Digital" Drawing Revolution. [online] ArchDaily. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/869084/the-website-behind-the-post-digital-drawing-revolution [Accessed 22 Nov. 2018].