The Alphabet and the Algorithm (Writing Architecture)by Carpo, Mario (2011) Paperback
Author(s): Mario Carpo (Author)
Publisher: The MIT Press
Edition: 1st
Language: English
ISBN-10: B011DB23H2
Book Description
Digital technologies have changed architecture–the way it istaught, practiced, managed, and regulated. But if the digital has created a”paradigm shift” for architecture, which paradigm is shifting? In TheAlphabet and the Algorithm, Mario Carpo points to one key practice of modernity: themaking of identical copies. Carpo highlights two examples of identicality crucial tothe shaping of architectural modernity: in the fifteenth century, Leon BattistaAlberti’s invention of architectural design, according to which a building is anidentical copy of the architect’s design; and, in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies, the mass production of identical copies from mechanical master models, matrixes, imprints, or molds. The modern power of the identical, Carpo argues, cameto an end with the rise of digital technologies. Everything digital is variable. Inarchitecture, this means the end of notational limitations, of mechanicalstandardization, and of the Albertian, authorial way of building by design. Chartingthe rise and fall of the paradigm of identicality, Carpo compares new forms ofpostindustrial digital craftsmanship to hand-making and the cultures andtechnologies of variations that existed before the coming of machine-made, identicalcopies. Carpo reviews the unfolding of digitally based design and construction fromthe early 1990s to the present, and suggests a new agenda for architecture in an ageof variable objects and of generic and participatory authorship.
Digital technologies have changed architecture–the way it is taught, practiced, managed, and regulated. But if the digital has created a “paradigm shift” for architecture, which paradigm is shifting? In The Alphabet and the Algorithm, Mario Carpo points to one key practice of modernity: the making of identical copies. Carpo highlights two examples of identicality crucial to the shaping of architectural modernity: in the fifteenth century, Leon Battista Alberti’s invention of architectural design, according to which a building is an identical copy of the architect’s design; and, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the mass production of identical copies from mechanical master models, matrixes, imprints, or molds. The modern power of the identical, Carpo argues, came to an end with the rise of digital technologies. Everything digital is variable. In architecture, this means the end of notational limitations, of mechanical standardization, and of the Albertian, authorial way of building by design. Charting the rise and fall of the paradigm of identicality, Carpo compares new forms of postindustrial digital craftsmanship to hand-making and the cultures and technologies of variations that existed before the coming of machine-made, identical copies. Carpo reviews the unfolding of digitally based design and construction from the early 1990s to the present, and suggests a new agenda for architecture in an age of variable objects and of generic and participatory authorship.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Ever wondered what became of architecture in its digital reincarnation? Mario Carpo vaults from Renaissance aspirations to current conditions at the pace of a breathless fable. Where will it lead us?” Kurt W. Forster , Yale School of Architecture
About the Author
Mario Carpo is Associate Professor of Architectural History in the French Schools of Architecture, Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Vincent Scully Visiting Professor of Architectural History at the School of Architecture of Yale University. He is the author of Architecture in the Age of Printing: Orality, Writing, Typography and Printed Images in the History of Architectural Theory (MIT Press, 2001), and other books.
Wow! eBook
