the great divergence: architecture & computer technology since 1960

7/7/2020

Metaphor for the Internet, or a Socially Distanced Universe
Superstudio, A Journey from A to B, 1972.

Introduction: Bigness | Smallness

I want to trace the divergence between architecture and computer technology, since 1967. In the 50 odd years since, dramatic advances have been made in the field of computer science, notably the invention of the transistor, personal computers, and the internet. However, I would argue that the field of architecture, in comparison, has mostly stayed the same. Besides evolutionary improvements in building performance, the adoption of computer-aided design, and the unprecedented building boom in China, there has not been the fundamental shift in the way people build and live over the past 50 years. In some cases, buildings have become even more wasteful, housing more expensive, and living environments less healthy and more unequal. Why is that the case, and how did the two disciplines react to changing economic and political forces differently? I would like to revisit several epochal moments in the last fifty years and understand these changes more precisely.

Economic and political changes notwithstanding, my hypothesis is that these two fields proposed radically different scales of social intervention -- bigness versus miniaturization -- and ultimately one won out. By means of its inherent flexibility, network adoption, and friendliness to market capitalism, computation won out as the primary means to shape society and culture, in ways that 19th century urban planners and architects can only dream of. In contrast, the implosion of the postwar consensus in the 1970's forced architects to re-package modernist utopias into consumption playgrounds, abandoning social agendas for commercial interests, in a decades-long quest for ever bigger "bigness". In the next 50 years, I foresee that the two disciplines, which once worked side-by-side with shared hardware, will once again come together, to address the spectacular challenges of this century.

Prologue, 1960: "To the Moon and Beyond"

When President Kennedy delivered his famed 1963 speech to send a man to the Moon, the country launched into a decades-long effort to spearhead the scientific and technological innovations to achieve his goal. To make the literal moonshot a reality, the United States needed massive computational power, in a time when "computer" still referred to a profession, much like a "secretary" or "engineer". The national project triggered intense investment in computer technology and research, particularly silicon transistor technology, to make all the real-time calculations possible as astronauts traveled millions of miles from the Earth. In this era, IBM's machines reigned supreme, their room-sized behemoths powering the space program, as well as corporate America. In an era of unchallenged American supremacy, at least in the non-Communist world, computational technology signaled efficiency, progress, and national pride. Simultaneously, modernist architecture, as exemplified by industrial classicism of Mies van der Rohe and the slick interiors of SOM, captivated a postwar society eager for prosperity and progress. For a brief moment, architecture and computers worked side-by-side, in spacious fluorescent laboratories. In these machine rooms, humans encountered both systems at the scale of a room -- architecture as an efficient, modernist shell, and computers as futuristic printing presses, outputting reams and reams of digits to guide the spacemen.

1967: "The Audacity of Hope"

During the high watermark of Pax Americana, in the late 60's, the architects and the computer scientists still worked side-by-side, pushing scientific advances forward. However, with the Apollo program roaring full-steam ahead to a successful conclusion, they began to envision alternative lives after the Space Race. For the architects, spatial questions became urban, and even planetary: with a newfound understanding of the Earth, how should humans inhabit and occupy the planet? The world population seemed to be ever-expanding, and resources ever-shrinking. An environmental conscience emerged in the discipline. Meanwhile, the computer scientists, emboldened by new transistors and silicon chips, began to dream up new ways to shrink their incredible calculating machines. Without the messy business of punch cards and vacuum tubes, the silicon computers of tomorrow can be much smaller than previously imagined. What other practical problems can they solve? The possibilities seemed endless.

Architecture's vision for the future came in the form of a 200-ft tall geodesic dome. At the '67 World Expo in Montreal, American architect and futurist Buckminster Fuller erects a double-layer, icosahedral acrylic bubble, a monument to American triumph in space. Inside this miniature "Earth sphere", visitors can marvel at Apollo technology and learn about the environment. A monorail even ran straight through the pavilion, to add to its vision of a techno-utopia. In the same year, Texas Instruments unveils the first prototype of an electronic handheld calculator. Though primitive by today's standards, the pocket calculator was groundbreaking technology, at a time when folks were still using slide rules, log charts, and room-sized computers. Within a few years, the electronic calculator would become a widespread item, found in every office, home, and college campus in America.