Antoine Picon | Harvard University (original) (raw)
Smart cities by Antoine Picon
This article argues for the importance of social imagination in the understanding of urban infras... more This article argues for the importance of social imagination in the understanding of urban infrastructures, especially those designed and built by engineers. It begins by defining social imagination as image-based systems of representation and values that are shared by various collective stakeholders concerned with infrastructure, such as engineers, but also politicians, administrators, operators, maintenance technicians and indeed users, and then introduces a tripartite model of infrastructure. Infrastructure is interpreted as the result of the interactions between a material basis, professional organizations and stabilized socio- technical practices, and social imagination. The notion of network is interpreted from such a perspective. Its dependence on imagination is outlined. Through two case studies, the nineteenth-century networked metropolis, epitomized by Haussmann’s Paris, and the rise of the contemporary smart city perspective, the role of social imagination in the conception of urban infrastructure is analyzed further. What seems at stake in the transition towards the smart city is the increased importance given to occurrences, events and scenarios as the basis for urban infrastructure regulation.
Marie Veltz, Jonathan Rutherford, Antoine Picon, "Smart Urbanism and the Visibility and Reconfigu... more Marie Veltz, Jonathan Rutherford, Antoine Picon, "Smart Urbanism and the Visibility and Reconfiguration of Infrastructure and Public Action in the French Cities of Issy-les-Moulineaux and Nice", in Andrew Karvonen, Federico Cugurullo, Federico Caprotti (eds), Inside Smart Cities: Place, Politics and Urban Innovation, Milton Park, Abingdon, Routledge, 2019, pp. 133-148.
La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que d... more La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.
As cities compete globally, the Smart City has been touted as the important new strategic driver ... more As cities compete globally, the Smart City has been touted as the important new strategic driver for regeneration and growth. Smart Cities are employing information and communication technologies in the quest for sustainable economic development and the fostering of new forms of collective life. This has made the Smart City an essential focus for engineers, architects, urban designers, urban planners, and politicians, as well as businesses such as CISCO, IBM and Siemens. Despite its broad appeal, few comprehensive books have been devoted to the subject so far, and even fewer have tried to relate it to cultural issues and to assume a truly critical stance by trying to decipher its consequences on urban space and experience. This cultural and critical lens is all the more important as the Smart City is as much an ideal permeated by utopian beliefs as a concrete process of urban transformation. This ideal possesses a strong self-fulfilling character: our cities will become Smart because we want them to.
The books opens with an examination of the technological reality on which Smart Cities are built, from the chips and sensors that enable us to monitor what happens within the infrastructure to the smart phones that connect individuals. Through these technologies, the urban space appears as activated, almost sentient. This activation generates two contrasting visions: on the one hand, a neo-cybernetic ambition to steer the city in the most efficient way; and on the other, a more bottom-up, participative approach in which empowered individuals invent new modes of cooperation. A thorough analysis of these two trends reveal them to be complementary. The Smart City of the near future will result from their mutual adjustment. In this process, urban space plays a decisive role. Smart Cities are contemporary with a ‘spatial turn’ of the digital. Based on key technological developments like geo-localisation and augmented reality, the rising importance of space explains the strategic role of mapping in the evolution of the urban experience. Throughout this exploration of some of the key dimensions of the Smart City, the book constantly moves from the technological to the spatial as well as from a critical assessment of existing experiments to speculations on the rise of a new form of collective intelligence. In the future, cities will become smarter in a much more literal way than what is often currently assumed.
La montée en puissance récente de la thématique de la ville intelligente ne doit pas faire oublie... more La montée en puissance récente de la thématique de la ville intelligente ne doit pas faire oublier l’ancienneté des relations entre villes et systèmes d’information. Cet article entreprend du même coup de replacer cette montée en puis- sance dans le cadre d’une histoire plus étendue qui débute à la charnière des XIXe et XXe siècles avec l’avènement de so- ciétés ayant recours à des quantités de plus en plus massives de données pour fonctionner. Il évoque ensuite le moment cybernétique et systémique des décennies 1950-1970 avant d’en venir aux questions soulevées par la thématique de la ville intelligente. À chacune de ces étapes, doctrines et pra- tiques urbaines se modifient en relation directe avec la ques- tion de la ville comme ensemble de systèmes d’informations.
This article shows how the recent rise of the smart city approach is actually rooted in a long history of the relations between cities and information systems. This history begins at the end of the 19th century, with the development of information-based societies. It continues during the period of cybernetics and systems theory which proved to be especially influential from the 1950s to the early 1970s. The issues raised by the smart city approach are discussed in the last part of the article. At each of these stages, doctrines and urban practices evolve in direct relation with the issue of the city as a set of information systems.
Digital culture and architecture by Antoine Picon
Today’s explosive developments in digital technology have affected architecture and the urban lan... more Today’s explosive developments in digital technology have affected architecture and the urban landscape. Computer-aided design and digital simulation have led to new forms as well as to an increasingly strategic approach to architecture and urban development. From the preliminary sketch all the way to the production of building components, digital tools offer new possibilities that were still inconceivable just a few years ago. These new possibilities raise also numerous questions regarding the challenges that await the architectural discipline.
The book provides a profound introduction to the important role of digital technologies in architectural design and related fields. In four chapters the author systematically examines the influence of digital culture on architecture but also on the urban landscape.
SUMMARY
Introduction
People, Computers and Architecture: A Historical Overview
Experiments in Form and Performance
From Tectonics to Ornament: Towards a Different Materiality
The City in the Digital Sprawl
Conclusion: Material Continuity and the Design Practice
This article argues for the importance of social imagination in the understanding of urban infras... more This article argues for the importance of social imagination in the understanding of urban infrastructures, especially those designed and built by engineers. It begins by defining social imagination as image-based systems of representation and values that are shared by various collective stakeholders concerned with infrastructure, such as engineers, but also politicians, administrators, operators, maintenance technicians and indeed users, and then introduces a tripartite model of infrastructure. Infrastructure is interpreted as the result of the interactions between a material basis, professional organizations and stabilized socio- technical practices, and social imagination. The notion of network is interpreted from such a perspective. Its dependence on imagination is outlined. Through two case studies, the nineteenth-century networked metropolis, epitomized by Haussmann’s Paris, and the rise of the contemporary smart city perspective, the role of social imagination in the conception of urban infrastructure is analyzed further. What seems at stake in the transition towards the smart city is the increased importance given to occurrences, events and scenarios as the basis for urban infrastructure regulation.
Marie Veltz, Jonathan Rutherford, Antoine Picon, "Smart Urbanism and the Visibility and Reconfigu... more Marie Veltz, Jonathan Rutherford, Antoine Picon, "Smart Urbanism and the Visibility and Reconfiguration of Infrastructure and Public Action in the French Cities of Issy-les-Moulineaux and Nice", in Andrew Karvonen, Federico Cugurullo, Federico Caprotti (eds), Inside Smart Cities: Place, Politics and Urban Innovation, Milton Park, Abingdon, Routledge, 2019, pp. 133-148.
La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que d... more La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.
As cities compete globally, the Smart City has been touted as the important new strategic driver ... more As cities compete globally, the Smart City has been touted as the important new strategic driver for regeneration and growth. Smart Cities are employing information and communication technologies in the quest for sustainable economic development and the fostering of new forms of collective life. This has made the Smart City an essential focus for engineers, architects, urban designers, urban planners, and politicians, as well as businesses such as CISCO, IBM and Siemens. Despite its broad appeal, few comprehensive books have been devoted to the subject so far, and even fewer have tried to relate it to cultural issues and to assume a truly critical stance by trying to decipher its consequences on urban space and experience. This cultural and critical lens is all the more important as the Smart City is as much an ideal permeated by utopian beliefs as a concrete process of urban transformation. This ideal possesses a strong self-fulfilling character: our cities will become Smart because we want them to.
The books opens with an examination of the technological reality on which Smart Cities are built, from the chips and sensors that enable us to monitor what happens within the infrastructure to the smart phones that connect individuals. Through these technologies, the urban space appears as activated, almost sentient. This activation generates two contrasting visions: on the one hand, a neo-cybernetic ambition to steer the city in the most efficient way; and on the other, a more bottom-up, participative approach in which empowered individuals invent new modes of cooperation. A thorough analysis of these two trends reveal them to be complementary. The Smart City of the near future will result from their mutual adjustment. In this process, urban space plays a decisive role. Smart Cities are contemporary with a ‘spatial turn’ of the digital. Based on key technological developments like geo-localisation and augmented reality, the rising importance of space explains the strategic role of mapping in the evolution of the urban experience. Throughout this exploration of some of the key dimensions of the Smart City, the book constantly moves from the technological to the spatial as well as from a critical assessment of existing experiments to speculations on the rise of a new form of collective intelligence. In the future, cities will become smarter in a much more literal way than what is often currently assumed.
La montée en puissance récente de la thématique de la ville intelligente ne doit pas faire oublie... more La montée en puissance récente de la thématique de la ville intelligente ne doit pas faire oublier l’ancienneté des relations entre villes et systèmes d’information. Cet article entreprend du même coup de replacer cette montée en puis- sance dans le cadre d’une histoire plus étendue qui débute à la charnière des XIXe et XXe siècles avec l’avènement de so- ciétés ayant recours à des quantités de plus en plus massives de données pour fonctionner. Il évoque ensuite le moment cybernétique et systémique des décennies 1950-1970 avant d’en venir aux questions soulevées par la thématique de la ville intelligente. À chacune de ces étapes, doctrines et pra- tiques urbaines se modifient en relation directe avec la ques- tion de la ville comme ensemble de systèmes d’informations.
This article shows how the recent rise of the smart city approach is actually rooted in a long history of the relations between cities and information systems. This history begins at the end of the 19th century, with the development of information-based societies. It continues during the period of cybernetics and systems theory which proved to be especially influential from the 1950s to the early 1970s. The issues raised by the smart city approach are discussed in the last part of the article. At each of these stages, doctrines and urban practices evolve in direct relation with the issue of the city as a set of information systems.
Today’s explosive developments in digital technology have affected architecture and the urban lan... more Today’s explosive developments in digital technology have affected architecture and the urban landscape. Computer-aided design and digital simulation have led to new forms as well as to an increasingly strategic approach to architecture and urban development. From the preliminary sketch all the way to the production of building components, digital tools offer new possibilities that were still inconceivable just a few years ago. These new possibilities raise also numerous questions regarding the challenges that await the architectural discipline.
The book provides a profound introduction to the important role of digital technologies in architectural design and related fields. In four chapters the author systematically examines the influence of digital culture on architecture but also on the urban landscape.
SUMMARY
Introduction
People, Computers and Architecture: A Historical Overview
Experiments in Form and Performance
From Tectonics to Ornament: Towards a Different Materiality
The City in the Digital Sprawl
Conclusion: Material Continuity and the Design Practice
A menudo, el desarrollo de los medios digitales en cuanto herramien-tas de diseño es presentado c... more A menudo, el desarrollo de los medios digitales en cuanto herramien-tas de diseño es presentado como amenaza a una de las dimensiones esenciales de la arquitectura: el factor concreto de la construcción y sus técnicas (es decir, su materialización). Un ejemplo es la preocupación manifestada por Kenneth Frampton en sus últimos escritos, comen-zando por Studies in tectonic culture. A pesar de los descargos expuestos por William Mitchell (Beckmann, 1998) y otros autores, se trata de una preocupación perfectamente entendible, dada la naturaleza altamente formalista de la producción de muchos arquitectos digitales. El diseño basado en las herramientas computacionales a menudo parece negar la dimensión material de la arquitectura y su profunda relación con el trío peso-empuje-resistencia. En el monitor de un computador, las formas parecen flotar libremente, sin más restricciones que las que imponen la imaginación del diseñador y las posibilidades del software. Hay algo pro-fundamente inquietante en esa aparente libertad, que parece cuestionar nuestros supuestos más fundamentales respecto a la naturaleza de la disciplina arquitectónica. Sin embargo, ¿debemos suponer que el estado actual del diseño asistido por computador está estableciendo un estándar definitivo? Conside-rando que el diseño digital está aún en su primera infancia, habría que ser precavido en no aventurarse con conclusiones apresuradas basadas en aspectos que aún son pasajeros en él. Frampton y otros de sus detractores tal vez asumen su condición actual como la definitiva, tomando dema-siado en serio aspectos que aún están en evolución y subestimando de paso la verdadera pregunta que emerge en este escenario en formación. La presente tendencia a cierta inmaterialidad, o más bien una actitud a menudo simplista respecto a los materiales, puede por cierto ser pasa-jera. Es más: lejos de ser puesta en peligro por el uso generalizado del computador y el desarrollo de ambientes virtuales, la materialidad pro-bablemente permanecerá como uno de los aspectos fundamentales de la producción arquitectónica. Se podría además especular si realmente el uso del computador, o el de sus extensiones como parte de una web, representan un alejamiento sustancial de los medios tradicionales de la representación arquitectónica; en muchos sentidos, los dibujos bidi-mensionales producidos a mano no son más matéricos que los generados a través de un computador. La abstracción inherente a la representación arquitectónica no necesariamente implica carencias materiales en su posterior realización.
Once condemned by Modernism and compared to a ‘crime’ by Adolf Loos, ornament has made a spectacu... more Once condemned by Modernism and compared to a ‘crime’ by Adolf Loos, ornament has made a spectacular return in contemporary architecture. This is typified by the works of well-known architects such as Herzog & de Meuron, Sauerbruch Hutton, Farshid Moussavi Architecture and OMA. There is no doubt that these new ornamental tendencies are inseparable from innovations in computer technology. The proliferation of developments in design software has enabled architects to experiment afresh with texture, colour, pattern and topology.
Though inextricably linked with digital tools and culture, Antoine Picon argues that some significant traits in ornament persist from earlier Western architectural traditions. These he defines as the ‘subjective’ – the human interaction that ornament requires in both its production and its reception – and the political. Contrary to the message conveyed by the founding fathers of modern architecture, traditional ornament was not meant only for pleasure. It conveyed vital information about the designation of buildings as well as about the rank of their owners. As such, it participated in the expression of social values, hierarchies and order. By bringing previous traditions in ornament under scrutiny, Picon makes us question the political issues at stake in today’s ornamental revival. What does it tell us about present-day culture? Why are we presently so fearful of meaning in architecture? Could it be that by steering so vehemently away from symbolism, contemporary architecture is evading any explicit contribution to collective values?
Publié dans Anne-Laure Carré, Marie-Sophie Corcy, Christiane Demeulenaere-Douyère, Liliane Hilair... more Publié dans Anne-Laure Carré, Marie-Sophie Corcy, Christiane Demeulenaere-Douyère, Liliane Hilaire-Pérez (dir.), Les Expositions universelles en France au XIXe siècle Techniques publics patrimoines, Paris, CNRS Editions, 2012, pp. 37-47.
History and Technology, 2004
Engineering Studies, 2009
History and Technology, 2007
Paedagogica Historica, 1994
Revue D'histoire Des Sciences, 1989
As various architects, theorists, and historians have pointed out, no material has been more clos... more As various architects, theorists, and historians have pointed out, no material has been more closely associated with the origins and development of modern architecture than concrete. This status is partly linked to the fact that concrete seemed to epitomize the relations between modern architecture and technology, relations that were seen as crucial by the founding fathers of the modern movement.
Harvard Design Magazine
A Paradoxical Contrast with Architecture Surprisingly enough, the diffusion of the computer and t... more A Paradoxical Contrast with Architecture Surprisingly enough, the diffusion of the computer and the rise of digital culture seem to have exerted a less dramatic influence on landscape architecture than on architecture. Part of the astonishment comes from the fact that the applications of computing to geography and landscape are as old, if not older, as those concerning architecture. Harvard's SYMAP mapping program, one of the major forerunners of present-day GIS systems, dates back to the 1960s, a time when computer-aided architectural design was still in its infancy.
Antoine Picon, "Can Structural Engineering Still Invent the Future?", 2022
A history of some of the major debates regarding the aesthetics of the city of Paris
The Encyclopédistes' Image of Work. Despite the weaknesses of the technical information collected... more The Encyclopédistes' Image of Work. Despite the weaknesses of the technical information collected by Diderot and his team, the Encyclopédie reveals a complete renewal of the vision of productive work and of the categories for describing and organizing it. The Encyclopedists' rehabilitation of arts and crafts was linked to an implacable criticism of corporations, leading to the possibility of pure work freed from all shackles, which scientists and engineers sought to rationalize. The interest in productive activity is also linked to sensualist philosophy and the analytical method, which enabled them to understand manufacturing processes, to decompose and recompose them in the same way as language and science. Thus we see the triad gesture/operation/process. While the Encyclopédie' s strictly technological contribution was limited, this new architecture was to have a long-lasting influence on reflection concerning manufactures.
... Maya Levy, Osnat Linder-Assouline, Dafna Matok, Dana Mor, Hannah Naveh, Ruth Palmon, Ludmila ... more ... Maya Levy, Osnat Linder-Assouline, Dafna Matok, Dana Mor, Hannah Naveh, Ruth Palmon, Ludmila Petlitski, Neriya Ravid, Ayala Ronel, Slavik Rotenberg ... These factors had been pointed out by Rem Koolhaas in his Delirious New York manifesto.4 Since the publication of the ...
Journal of Architectural Education, 2008
Mohsen Mostafavi (ed.), In the Life of Cities, 2012
La grande ville contemporaine, cette nappe d'infrastructures et d'équipements qui s'étend à perte... more La grande ville contemporaine, cette nappe d'infrastructures et d'équipements qui s'étend à perte de vue, désoriente. On la dit chaotique. Mais elle est en même temps le résultat de logiques socio-économiques et techniques qui ne doivent pas grand chose au hasard. Est-elle aussi désordonnée que cela ? Ne serait-ce pas plutôt qu'elle échappe aux grilles de lecture traditionnelles de l'urbanité ? Un autre point de vue, un nouveau type de regard s'avèrent nécessaires afin de l'apprivoiser. Tout regard présuppose un sujet. La ville idéale de la Renaissance était inséparable de cet homme générique, animal doué de raison, microcosme ordonnateur, dont la perspective cherchait à codifier la vision. Dans cet essai, le cyborg tient un rôle comparable, s'agissant cette fois d'explorer les complexités de la ville territoire d'aujourd'hui. Hybride d'homme et de machine, individu parfait parce que rendu pleinement autonome par la technologie, le cyborg est bien sûr une fiction. Cette fiction n'en permet pas moins d'analyser des essentiels de la grande ville d'aujourd'hui, avant de se pencher sur certains aspects de son architecture. L'essai comprend quatre chapitres. Le premier porte sur les caractéristiques générales de la ville territoire et sur le type de sociabilité qu'elle implique entre les hommes, ces cyborgs en puissance. Un second chapitre traite des liens étroits qui unissent la ville et l'univers de la technologie contemporaine. Ces liens sont à l'origine du choix de la figure du cyborg dans cet essai. Le troisième chapitre est centré sur la transformation progressive de l'univers technologique en un environnement, une sorte de paysage fondamentalement différent de celui auquel nous avait habitué la révolution industrielle. Le quatrième chapitre, de loin le plus important, se recentre sur les question d'aménagement et d'architecture au travers de démarches et d'oeuvres comme celles de Renzo Piano, Rem Koolhaas ou Jean Nouvel.
/ Contemporary cities, these seamless webs of infrastructures, plants and housings, are disconcerting. They are often said to be chaotic. But they are also the result of social, economical and technological processes that are in no way uncertain. Given these premises, one may very well wonder whether they are really disordered and chaotic. The basic assumption of this essay is that they simply cannot be understood in a traditional frame of thought. A new vision is necessary in order to decipher them.
A new vision is generally synonymous with a new type of subject. The ideal Renaissance city was designed for a generic human being, whose way of seeing things was codified by perspective. In this essay, the cyborg is supposed to play the same role in relation to the complexities of contemporary cities, boundless cities that look more and more like urban territories. As an hybrid between man and machine, cyborg is of course fictional. Already used by philosophers and historians such as Donna Haraway or Paul Edwards, this fiction is nevertheless revealing.
The essay is divided in four parts. The first one deals with the general characteristics of contemporary urban territories and the type of sociability they imply. The second one is devoted to the links between cities and contemporary technology, from computers to videogames. Those links explain the choice made of the cyborg as the prototype of a new urban figure. The third part is centered on the gradual transformation of technology into a kind of environment, a landscape very different indeed from the traditional industrial context. The fourth part, by far the most important, deals with some contemporary trends in urban planning and architecture.
L'architecture travaille la matière afin de la rendre expressive. Elle se heurte ce faisant à son... more L'architecture travaille la matière afin de la rendre expressive. Elle se heurte ce faisant à son obstination muette qu'elle tente de dépasser. Partant de ce constat, ce livre se propose de l'interpréter à la lumière de la notion de matérialité envisagée comme le rapport que nous entretenons avec les phénomènes sensibles, les matériaux et les objets. Notre subjectivité d'êtres humains se constitue pour partie au travers de cette rencontre avec toutes ces "choses" qui tombent immédiatement sous le sens. Par leur intermédiaire, l'architecture contribue à la création d'un monde destiné spécifiquement aux hommes. L'interprétation de la matérialité a considérablement évolué de Vitruve à aujourd'hui. Son évolution permet de lire différemment l'histoire de l'architecture et de mieux comprendre certains enjeux actuels, comme ceux qui s'attachent à la révolution numérique.
Paris, Presses de l'Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1997.