"During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, cities have been transformed by successive waves of transportation and communications technology. At each stage, new combinations of buildings, transportation systems, and communications networks have served the needs of inhabitants. Now, as the infobahn takes over a widening range of functions, the roles of inhabited structures and transportation systems are shifting once again, fresh urban patterns are forming, and we have the opportunity to rethink received ideas of what buildings and cities are, how they can be made, and what they are really for. The challenge is to do this right -- to get us to the good bits."
--William J. Mitchell; City of Bits (1995; MIT Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts)


"This will kill that. That is, the book will kill the building."
--Victor Hugo; The Hunchback of Notre Dame


The one problem with Victor Hugo's statement is that he wasn't prescient enough to forsee that, although the book did indeed reduce the communicative power of architecture, only the all-pervasive power of the computer (manifested in ATM machines, cellular phones, the world-wide web, and your average desktop machine) could actually kill architecture. The book only made it mute.

This page is under heavy construction. Until I get it finished, here are a few links to suggest the kinds of explorations and investigations which I propose to undertake.
If you have a suggestion about the content of this site, I would greatly appreciate any feedback you could give. Mail me here

As a preview of things to come, here's a photograph from downtown Columbus that I think illustrates, in a number of ways, some of the impacts which technology and new forms of communitcation will have (and are having) upon the architectural environment. Enjoy!


In a way, this image reflects a lot of the changes which technology is wreaking on the build landscape. While the aspect that most people focus on is the computer, the design of this billboard in downtown Columbus, Ohio reflects more than just that.

At its most basic level, the billboard is no longer a passive object. Rather than blithely displaying one message only, fading and cracking until it is re-rented to another company, this billboard is capable of displaying 3 different images and slogans by rotating the dozens of bars that make up the surface. This photograph captures the billboard in the process of changing, with the new image just beginning to come into view on the right half (look for the big ghosted null-set symbol just between the "by" and "mouse"). This upgrade from passive to dynamic display object is one way in which technology (specifically electronic timers, compact motors, and possibly even photovoltaic batteries) is impacting upon the built environment.

On another level, however, the text of the ad itself portends and reflects greater changes for the architecture of the 21st century. By emphasizing its web site as a place to conduct transactions, Huntington is freeing its customers from having to actually visit its bank buildings. This process (which was started by the ATM machine, as pointed out by William Mitchell), has now extended to its next logical step--you don't even have to go to the ATM anymore, you can telecommute to the bank. From here, is it really that big of a step before the bank building disappears completely as a public-presence building? That answer is already apparent, as the rise of such Internet-based banks as Message Media demonstrate. Here is a "bank" which has a vast geographic scope, yet only has at most a half-dozen physical structures, and these might be tucked away in a corporate office park in Hartford, Connecticut, or on the coast of the Cayman Islands. The image of the bank is not stored in a building, but on a web site.

How much more of a dissolving tendency will communications technology become?

News Stories
AT&T is working on a pocket-Internet device
Intel and other companies have put together a demonstration of an electronically enhanced house.
How RADAR might be used in domestic architecture in the near future.
Computers and Artificial Intelligence as a form of human augmentation.

Web Sites
The City of Bits web page
Message Media
HotWired
Internet Society Home Page
GeoCities
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Updated 4/24/97

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So that's it! Any comments? Email me by clicking below:

© 1996 mbernhar@freenet.columbus.oh.us

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