ABSTRACT
There was a time when architecture was considered an autonomous phenomenon, meaning that the building art renewed itself, aesthetically and technically primarily in reference to its own traditions. These traditions, which can be called the "culture of building", were accumulated through years of using materials such as wood, brick, stone, concrete, and steel, and using skills of detailing according to the constructive qualities of these materials. Without pursuing the full implications of materiality for architecture, Mario Carpo presents the algorithms of digitally reproduced architecture as the third stage in the Humanist history of design, preceded by artisanal authorship and intellectual, or notational, authorship. In an interview, Kenneth Frampton relates the eclipse of a genuine left and critical position in architecture to the victory of fascism in the Spanish Civil War. The anthropomorphic analogy between body and column goes back to Vitruvius, and is recoded in Alberti's architectural theory.
