PhD seminars series 2010-2011
The Historical Project: Whatever Happened to Operative History
Thursday 27th January from 16.00 to 19.00 – J.J.P. Oud room

3rd Seminar with Mario Carpo, Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, Vincent Scully Visting Professor at Yale University

The Rise and Fall of the Albertian Paradigm

At the beginning of the early modern age, the Italian humanists–Alberti in particular–invented the modern notion of architecture as an art of design, and the modern profession of the architect as a humanist author. For better and for worse, this paradigm has defined early modern, then modern architecture in the West for most of the last five centuries. As is well known, in less than twenty years the digital turn has ideally obliterated the industrial logic of mechanical mass production. It has also upended some of the very principles of the Albertian design process, predicated upon geometrical notations, allography, and recognizable authorship. Should architects find reasons to worry?