ABSTRACT
This chapter defines the term New Virtualism and sees in it an opportunity to foreground Chinese philosophical lines for theory. It begins by identifying four desires the powers of the computer arouse in us vis-à-vis architecture: material fluidity, organic generation, distributed ontology and multiplexity. Some years ago the author defined the New Virtualism in this way: The driving force behind the design of objects of all scales that essentially derives from how cyber technology is redefining the human relationship to nature. To recount, historically, Chinese cultural environments were calligraphized worlds in which the qi of all things found fluid expression through the calligrapher by way of writing that festooned entryways, gardens, interior spaces, posters, and so on. Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man and Le Corbusier's Le Modular both place the human being at the center of theoretical contemplation, even though the latter construct links the human form with a mechanical utopianism.
