ENAC Seminar Series by A. Thiermann
Event details
| Date | 28.04.2021 |
| Hour | 08:45 › 09:30 |
| Speaker | Alfredo Thiermann |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
08:45 – 09:30 – Dr A. Thiermann
Visiting faculty at Harvard University, USA
Inhabiting Technical Media
Jorge Luis Borges’s story “On Rigor in Science” imagines a science of cartography so exact that only a map equal in size to the mapped territory itself is sufficient to describe it. Today, even such a fictional degree of resolution has fallen short. Large amounts of digital data, continuously harvested and disseminated, have penetrated deep into almost every aspect of our daily lives, and we can hardly imagine ourselves outside of this new media-ecology. This lecture will examine the architectural implications of this entangled technological and cultural transformation. As Borges’s story pointedly reminds us, we do not simply use technical media, we inhabit them, and therefore they should be a central preoccupation for architecture.
Looking for the presence of the past in the present, in this talk I will visit seven episodes—from the acheulean industry, passing through broadcasting houses, and culminating in data centres—that illustrate how architecture has closely interacted with both analogue and digital technical media. Tracing the agency and relevance of buildings within seemingly immaterial phenomena, I will indicate how, in a longue durée, forms of recording, storing, and transmitting information have modified the natural and built environment. Anything but immaterial and far from being new, such processes are inevitably grounded in matter, producing specific kinds of buildings, constructing and modifying cities, and even transforming the planet at a geographical scale. With observational distance, this lecture will reconstruct this entangled condition discussing the technical, political, environmental—and therefore architectural—challenges and opportunities inherent to the so-called digital turn.
Short bio:
Alfredo Thiermann is an architect born in Santiago de Chile. Through his design practice and theoretical research, he investigates the intersection between architecture and different technical media. He has taught and lectured at Harvard University, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, among other institutions. His research has been published in Revista ARQ, TRACE magazine, Zeppelin, Potlatch, Real Review, Thresholds, Archithese, GTA Papers, and BauNetz, and has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, the Istanbul Design Biennial, Museo MAC Quinta Normal, and Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho, among other institutions. Alfredo studied architecture, receiving his professional degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Chile and a master’s degree from Princeton University. He received his doctoral degree from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich. He has been a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, developing research on the architecture of radio. This research will be published in a forthcoming book titled Radio-Activities: The Architecture of Broadcasting in Berlin.
Visiting faculty at Harvard University, USA
Inhabiting Technical Media
Jorge Luis Borges’s story “On Rigor in Science” imagines a science of cartography so exact that only a map equal in size to the mapped territory itself is sufficient to describe it. Today, even such a fictional degree of resolution has fallen short. Large amounts of digital data, continuously harvested and disseminated, have penetrated deep into almost every aspect of our daily lives, and we can hardly imagine ourselves outside of this new media-ecology. This lecture will examine the architectural implications of this entangled technological and cultural transformation. As Borges’s story pointedly reminds us, we do not simply use technical media, we inhabit them, and therefore they should be a central preoccupation for architecture.
Looking for the presence of the past in the present, in this talk I will visit seven episodes—from the acheulean industry, passing through broadcasting houses, and culminating in data centres—that illustrate how architecture has closely interacted with both analogue and digital technical media. Tracing the agency and relevance of buildings within seemingly immaterial phenomena, I will indicate how, in a longue durée, forms of recording, storing, and transmitting information have modified the natural and built environment. Anything but immaterial and far from being new, such processes are inevitably grounded in matter, producing specific kinds of buildings, constructing and modifying cities, and even transforming the planet at a geographical scale. With observational distance, this lecture will reconstruct this entangled condition discussing the technical, political, environmental—and therefore architectural—challenges and opportunities inherent to the so-called digital turn.
Short bio:
Alfredo Thiermann is an architect born in Santiago de Chile. Through his design practice and theoretical research, he investigates the intersection between architecture and different technical media. He has taught and lectured at Harvard University, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, among other institutions. His research has been published in Revista ARQ, TRACE magazine, Zeppelin, Potlatch, Real Review, Thresholds, Archithese, GTA Papers, and BauNetz, and has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, the Istanbul Design Biennial, Museo MAC Quinta Normal, and Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho, among other institutions. Alfredo studied architecture, receiving his professional degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Chile and a master’s degree from Princeton University. He received his doctoral degree from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich. He has been a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, developing research on the architecture of radio. This research will be published in a forthcoming book titled Radio-Activities: The Architecture of Broadcasting in Berlin.
Practical information
- General public
- Invitation required
- This event is internal
Organizer
- ENAC
Contact
- Cristina Perez