Architecture, Technology and Process

283 Pages·2004·13.09 MB·English

by  Chris Abel

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A ,
RCHITECTURE
T P
ECHNOLOGY AND ROCESS
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For Ursula and all the other generous friends, both near and far, professional and
non-professional, who have given me so much encouragement over the years
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A ,
RCHITECTURE
T
ECHNOLOGY AND
P
ROCESS
Chris Abel
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Architectural Press
An imprint ofElsevier
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP
30 Corporate Drive, Burlington, MA 01803
First published 2004
Copyright © 2004, Chris Abel. All rights reserved
The right ofChris Abel to be identified as the author ofthis work
has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988
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C
ONTENTS
Foreword by Ken Yeang vii
Preface xi
Introduction 1
1 Architecture in the Pacific Century 11
2 Cyberspace in mind 33
3 Technology and process 61
4 Foster and Gehry: one technology; two cultures 91
5 Harry Seidler and the Great Australian Dream 163
6 Mediterranean mix and match 203
Appendix I: Biotech Architecture: a manifesto 233
Appendix II: Birth of a cybernetic factory 237
Notes and bibliography 247
Index 263
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F
OREWORD
Contemporary architecture is going through an exciting period of experimentation.
However, many architects seem to be repeating the same dreadful mistakes that
our twentieth-century predecessors have made. Architecture–technology rela-
tionships are commonly over-simplified and many designers who are apparently
working at the cutting edge are in reality still glaringly conventional in how they
actually use and conceptualize technology.
Current architectural theories have also been slow to catch up with the new-
found morphological freedom that is offered by digital technology. Designers
enamoured with their new tools are frantically casting about in search of a the-
oretical framework or any kind of hook with which they can make sense of the
boundless shapes and geometries that their computers enable them to generate.
A multitude of competing ideologies add to the confusion of the times, making
life more difficult for architects as well as creating new opportunities. Busy pro-
fessionals no less than neophyte designers concerned with the art of architec-
ture and how to produce it, are all struggling to position themselves, a task which
by its nature entails a rigorous process of self-examination.
Added to these issues is the question of what knowledge base architecture
should be founded on? What is the fundamental knowledge that we architects
possess? In architecture, we find that, while the need to know originates in one
discipline, the required knowledge itself often belongs to many others. How can
we work from principles when what we do is produce artefacts? How do we
take knowledge from another discipline, and adapt it to our own?
In the past, our approach has been one of extension. We inclusively expanded
the range of our discipline to encompass other fields. Architectural education
began to require more and more knowledge that was inherent to or borrowed
from other disciplines. At the same time, many of these disciplines were them-
selves also rapidly expanding their own knowledge base and independently
advancing their own theoretical bodies, creating further problems of assimila-
tion. The more we extend, the more we are also forced to trade off knowledge
for data, exchanging theoretical concepts for ‘hard facts’. As a result, architects
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viii FOREWORD
often end up appropriating the knowledge from other disciplines as an ever-
growing database of strategies from which they can pick something that seems
appropriate to the task at hand. The danger is that, in converting theory into use-
able methods or facts, the original concepts underlying those methods and facts
may get forgotten or lost. It often seems that, no matter how hard we try, the
more complex the knowledge, the further removed it becomes from us.
Chris Abel is a focused writer. His writings are largely about the technology of
architecture and the architecture of technology. For the lost and uncertain, they
serve as a timely navigational aid – something between an architectural baro-
meter and sextant, telling us in each chapter what to look for, which direction to
look in, and why we should even look at all.
In this one single volume Abel does the work of a horde of architectural critics
writing all at the same time from all over the globe. The critical essays here rest-
lessly straddle the world from Los Angeles (Gehry), to London (Foster), Malta
(Architecture Project), Kuala Lumpur (Kasturi and others) and Sydney (Seidler).
Ferreting out incisive profiles from the architectural mise-en-scène on our behalf,
Abel writes like an inquisitive and constantly thinking architectural equivalent of
Bill Bryson, the prolific travel writer. Along the road, he explains how digital tech-
nologies and new science have affected architectural theory and production over
the past half century, the way we assimilate new technologies like the Net into
our mental frameworks, and the impact of global economic developments on
architecture in the Far East, all with equal aplomb.
Asian architects will certainly regard the first chapter as a tacit vote of confi-
dence in the region. Abel has in one fell swoop moved away from the largely
Eurocentric angle of other writers by starting the book with a chapter on
‘Architecture in the Pacific Century’. This is a timely and welcome essay. His
arguments will help to allay the angst of those architects living in Asia Pacific in a
period when Japan, the world’s number two economy, is still mired in an
extended recession, and who may fear that the recent monetary crisis might
have permanently eclipsed the bright future they were once promised. Abel
reminds us of the reasons for that earlier confidence in the region’s potential,
which manifested in a period of intensive building of new townships and super-
tall towers. At the same time, he asks us to pause and consider where it might
all be leading, pointing to the detrimental effects on the environment of ill-
planned economic growth and development. The recent publication in Beijing of
a Chinese language edition of Abel’s previous collection of essays, many of
which are also focused on related issues, will doubtless confirm his place as a
leading critic and thinker in that region, as well as elsewhere.
As he reminds us in his introduction, Abel’s approach stems from his early work
in the late 1960s on the architectural implications of cybernetics and systems
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FOREWORD ix
theory, since broadened by long stints working in the countries about which he
writes. Ultimately, this volume, as with all Abel’s writings, must be benchmarked
against what is historically his most important polemical essay, ‘Ditching the
Dinosaur Sanctuary’, published in Architectural Design in 1969, and which was
republished in the first collection. The first time that anyone forecast the liberat-
ing impact of computerized production lines upon architecture, Abel’s essay
served as a penetrating critique of prevailing dogmas and a keen insight into the
new Zeitgeist, anticipating many of the events to come. Evidently, judging from
these essays he is still in great form.
Ken Yeang