The trap fallen into by Modernism was that of trying to be exempt from style and time. Through severing all possible ties with one tradition it established another of its own to be put in its place. Overall that endeavour inadvertently resulted in an evolution of the existing tradition, if not perhaps a direct continuation.
Although Modernism was very clear in its set goal of aseptic interiors, hygienic compounds and sun-drenched corridors. And yet, as shown by numerous Modernist estates nowadays, it inevitably fell prey to the very processes it strived to (almost surgically) remove. As grime, filth and occasionally excrement tarnish the endless expanses of what was to be pristine whitewashed cleanliness, a sense of futility emerges.
As alluded by Forty, the city is a collective memory set in stone. Through the city’s ability to give events a corporeal (if not permanent) form, escape from inherent process is quite impossible, as even thoroughly deconstructed ideas get firmly rooted in place and enjoyed for their physicality.
An inherent flaw is presented through this observation. Through architecture’s inherent materiality how can any ethereal concepts be embodied in any other way than purely conceptually? Material as such, be it wood, metal or otherwise, has a set story within itself. Any additional conceptual layers may be added to it, or a particular arrangement of elements can embody a different story altogether, however any such addition can soon prove to be superficial and easily washed away, replaced or erased.
Parametricism and related strands of digital architecture capitalizing on the potential of the digital virtual are endeavouring to create another clean cut with history – much like Modernism’s attempts. By separating its thought processes and form-finding exercises from the material realm, a separation from preceding practices is sought. The results are, not surprisingly, quite literally a world away from any precursors, due primarily to an entirely new set of tools. As this gap widens, so does the confidence to promote and expand the realm further.
And yet, as shown by Modernism, it is most likely to result in a continuation of tradition, albeit in an altered way. Crucially, digital is all-virtual. The notions of digital and virtual will be explored in more detail below, but essentially the attempted leap is one about materiality itself, not entirely dissimilar to earlier Deconstructivist tendencies. Whereas Modernism created proud forms, Deconstructivism took to dismantling them in various ways. Digital architecture, on the other hand, takes these notions of materiality a step further and attempts to advance without any material substance at all. Although this makes it greatly self-referential, it also makes it, in fact, most original.
Also, most uniquely, the classical choice of either a Rational or a Romantic approach is not applicable. Whereby Modernism and Classicism share a common affinity towards the Rational and Deconstructivism and Baroque are both decidedly Romantic, the two strands join within digital architecture, making it Romantic and Rational simultaneously.
Within the digital realm it is therefore possible to explore its virtual concepts considerably further than within any previous medium. This is primarily because it takes virtuality itself a notch further, creating an entire universe (or series of universes) within its confines. While being constrained to its own environment (almost entirely disconnected with the materiality of actual buildings), this hardly makes it limited. Unlike previous virtualities, which were limited to either flat graphic representations, elaborate textual descriptions and similar, this one can be explored in much the same way as the actual world.
This forms a crucial handicap. The near-limitlessness of it is understandably daunting to explorers and creators, leading to referencing it with the actual world. This is not without practical meaning, as it can be very useful for virtually composing buildings before actually undertaking the plethora of difficulties associated with physically erecting them. However that also brings with itself foreign concepts into this pristine digital realm – such a gravity, weather, time and uniqueness, amongst others. In other words, the virtual world needlessly acquires characteristics of the actual world.
This is problematic in many ways. Firstly, its potential gets lost. If none but the most basic of simulations are performed, who is to say that the resulting solution is the best or the most appropriate one? And secondly, the digital virtual becomes perceived as an extension of the actual. Apart from the inevitable problems of identity of its active users, the solutions painstakingly developed within one environment can easily not work within another.
This evolution can be illustrated by a scene from a film and a contemporary digital tool used for building information modelling. While the former attempts to artistically represent/capture the potential spatial implications of a disconnected virtual world, the latter focuses a developed version of a virtual realm into an exact simulation of a future material building component.
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| Scene from Johnny Mnemonic 1 |
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| Scene from a digital building tool 2 |
The detailed virtual component faithfully replicates as many characteristics as possible of its as-yet-virtual subcomponent parts so as to create a comprehensive overview of implications for creating the actual desired object. This includes weight, cost, resistance, etc. With that the burdens of a material world are transferred into a virtual, thus subduing it to the former’s rules and discarding the not-so-negligible difference.
The represented virtual world, on the other hand, is not burdened with implications such as buildability, spatial and temporal logic, interconnectedness, uniqueness, etc. It focuses instead on what it means to be detached from the aforementioned constraints and what that can lead to. In terms of architectural implications, several curious notions are explored such as plan, model and finished object being all the same thing at the same time, as well as the spatial qualities of pure information, and interconnectedness across numerous levels of representation.
In an endless, yet contained, Escher-esque world where Piranesian staircases could easily be the norm, what would be the most fitting architecture? Especially as buildings are entirely unnecessary?
