About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherMIT Press

ISBN-100262515806

ISBN-139780262515801

eBay Product ID (ePID)102769315

Product Key Features

Book TitleAlphabet and the Algorithm

Number of Pages184 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2011

TopicDesign, Drafting, Drawing & Presentation, Social Aspects, Criticism, Aesthetics, History / General

IllustratorYes

GenrePhilosophy, Architecture, Technology & Engineering

AuthorMario Carpo

Book SeriesWriting Architecture Ser.

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.4 in

Item Weight12 Oz

Item Length8 in

Item Width5.4 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2010-031062

Reviews"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, "On page after page, Carpo engages a difficult set of issues, some of which strikechords that are still resonating." -- Flutur Troshani , Leonardo

TitleLeadingThe

Dewey Edition22

Grade FromCollege Graduate Student

Dewey Decimal720.1

SynopsisThe rise and fall ofidentical copies: digital technologies and form-making from mass customizationto mass collaboration., The rise and fall of identical copies- digital technologies and form-making from mass customization to mass collaboration. 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., The rise and fall of identical copies: digital technologies and form-making from mass customization to mass collaboration. 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.

LC Classification NumberNA2750.C375 2011